Rand Paul declares Tea Party dead, and he’s absolutely right

In 2011, I had the honor of helping Sen. Rand Paul write The Tea Party Goes to Washington, a blueprint for the burgeoning fiscally conservative grassroots movement that had began to define the right.
On Wednesday, Paul declared that movement dead.
“Can you hear it? Can you hear the somber notes, the feet shuffling, the solemn tones ... It’s a dirge, a funeral march; it’s the death of a movement,” Paul said, blasting Republicans for supporting yet another big spending budget.
“A once-proud movement with hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall, it’s the death, it’s the last gasp of a movement in America that was concerned with our national debt,” Paul added.
“Today’s vote will be the last nail in the coffin; the Tea Party is no more,” he declared.
He’s not wrong.
At the height of the Tea Party’s influence, the movement was able to force a sequester that made Congress cut spending automatically if they couldn’t do it manually (which, of course, they didn’t and probably never will). Most Republicans at the time at least thought it necessary to give lip service to fiscal responsibility, and more than a few of them were actually serious about it.
Today, only a small handful of Republicans seem to care about runaway spending and debt. Whereas some Republicans were once willing to shutdown the government over bloated spending and programs, now there is little hesitation in passing budgets with deficits that are double that of Barack Obama’s.
This is a serious problem. Remember when Adm. Mike Mullen said almost a decade ago the greatest threat to our national security was the national debt? It wasn’t just rhetoric.
That debt was $14 trillion then. Today, it is $22 trillion.
With Republicans now abandoning fiscal responsibility completely, who is going to address this looming problem? It won’t be Democrats.
Paul said Wednesday, “Both parties have deserted — have absolutely and utterly deserted — America and show no care and no understanding and no sympathy for the burden of debt they are leaving the taxpayers, the young, the next generation, and the future of our country.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2016 that each American child born that year would owe $42,000 and that their individual debt responsibility would more than double by the time they reached 34.
This is not only unsustainable; it’s something most Republicans used to agree was a problem. “The very underpinnings of our country are being eroded and threatened by this debt,” Paul reminded his party on the senate floor Wednesday.
Once upon a time, President Trump promised to erase the national debt in eight years — an impossible task, but at least he had the right attitude. Right now, our Republican president is doing the exact opposite as most in the GOP simply go along for the ride.
Off a cliff.
Some think former Republican Rep. Mark Sanford’s potential presidential run solely for the purpose of raising spending as an issue again within the GOP would be foolish, but the only thing more foolish would be for Republicans to completely abandon even the pretense of being the party of fiscal responsibility.
On Wednesday, Republicans did just that, and Rand Paul put a stake through fiscal conservatism within the Republican Party.
If its spirit can’t be resuscitated, we’re doomed.