What is the "Tea Party" in USA politics?

Its a group of conservatives, they aren't a 'real' party, they are a subset of the Republican party (though the members of the Tea Party don't seem to like that).

The first 'Tea Parties' were started for Libertarians like Ron Paul, who want to abolish income taxes and greatly reduce the Federal governments power. After Obama was elected, they were sort of taken over by Glenn Beck and promoted as something a bit different.

The basic ideologies of the Tea Party is - less taxes/simplified tax code. They want a flat tax. They want to ban gay marriage. They want to promote Christianity in the US. They want to ban abortion. They are generally against comprehensive sex education and want to focus on abstinence only education. They promote gun ownership. As a general theme, they really hate "progressives" and most of their speeches revolve around how Obama is a socialist, communist, marxist, maoist, progressive, baby murdering Kenyan Muslim.

The Tea Party is not a political party. It's a group fed up with big gov't, gov't spending, deficits and taxes.

It's a recent phenomenon, becoming popular only in the last couple of years.

Mostly it draws Republicans to it, because those goals are traditional to Republicans. It's just that Republican politicians have kind of lost their way over the last 20 years, and become big government, big spending types themselves.

The Tea Party is not an official party.

It is just a bunch of people who are tired of their government not responding to their wishes.

It seems there are a lot more dissatisfied Americans than anyone thought.

It is a conservative movement that spontaneously arose among citizens, to counter the Obama administration and their wacky,socialist ideas.

TEA stands for taxed enough already. Crowds have been assembling and rallying to get the word to government that we do not want more government and higher taxes. While these groups are forming all over the country, there is no one central control.

The Tea Party is a conservative grassroots movement opposed to big goverment and deficit spending.

It is a grassroots movement of loosely organized local groups of concerned citizens who want reduced federal spending. They have been flexing their muscles lately, which vexes the h___ out of the established political parties.

It's an uber-conservative group of nationalists and xenophobes who claim to be different than the other parties [yeah, right] Their demographic is pretty much homogeneous and I'm about to join you in Britain, after that woman got elected to Delaware.

Someone has taken the Libertarian ideal, f*cked it up with Conservativism and lies, and packaged it really nicely so that you'd buy it.

Don't. Don't buy it.

My 6 year old sister and her friends have NOTHING to do with politics. Why are so many people listening to what my 6 year old sister and her friends think about politics?!

It is a group of people, here in the U.S that is opposing high and frivolous spending. They are a good group of people and they have my support. there are liberals, conservatives, republicans and democrats who support it. YES! GO TEA PARTY!

That really depends on who you ask.

IMHO. Its a bunch of really scared people who don't have the heart to face the changes America needs to survive.