Tea Party Enraged At Scott Brown

Politico reports:

Sen. Scott Brown has thrown his tea party supporters “under the bus” with his recent critiques of some Republican budget cut proposals, a movement leader said Friday.

Brown, a Massachusetts Republican, on Thursday denounced GOP suggestions to cut social and cultural programs as “irresponsible,” and Judson Phillips, a leader of Tea Party Nation, is steamed.

“Brown is a politician, and that is meant in the worst sense of the word politician,” Phillips wrote on his blog. “Scott Brown used the Tea Party to get elected. Now he no longer needs this movement and we are tossed under the bus.”

In a Thursday floor speech and in a letter to Senate leaders, Brown said that while cuts “reducing and eliminating needless spending and programs are appropriate … a wholesale reduction in spending, without considering economic, cultural, and social impacts is simply irresponsible.”

Republican proposals, he said, “establish the wrong priorities that would disproportionately affect low-income families and seniors.”

Brown has downplayed his connection to the movement, saying in February that he is “a Republican, period” and that while he respects the tea party, he isn’t part of it.

There are vows from Massachusetts tea party members to launch a primary challenge against Brown next year.

Click here to read more.