Speaking at an event marking the five-year anniversary of the Tea Party movement in Washington, D.C. that helped elect him, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) said it was time to retire House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) excuses.
“Isn’t it high time we retire John Boehner’s biggest excuse we control one-half of one-third government?” Huelskamp said to a rousing and prolonged ovation of the GOP leadership’s main excuse to not fight for conservative policies. He said Republicans control the preeminent center of power in the preeminent branch of the U.S. Congress.
Huelskamp, who got elected in the historic Tea Party wave in 2010 that put the Republican leadership back in power, said fighting for conservative principles was a “laborious” task in D.C.
He said that conservatives are not only “fighting against Obama and his progressive allies but the Republican elites and their consultants who have never wanted the Tea Party in the first place and have lost two straight elections.”
He said the GOP leadership’s message to the majority-maker class of 2010 was: “back of the bus.”
“Washington is threatened by what they cannot control and they cannot control freedom-loving Americans whether they call themselves Tea Party members or not,” Huelskamp declared. “They are afraid of you.”
Huelskamp, who was one of four conservatives that the House GOP leadership removed from fiscally-oriented House committees for fighting for conservative policies and principles, said that the movement will keep getting stronger.
“We are not for sale,” Huelskamp said. “And we are not going away.”