There will have to be a political realignment

Perhaps you can see that in the concessions Paul Ryan made.  The other concessions are probably coming.  There is a danger that it can become a rout.

The Tea Party is going to have to act quickly, or they will be overwhelmed.

One thing that they can do is to support national defense and nuclear power.  Nuclear power might get some greenies on board.  Do we want those?  Their baggage may not be the kind we should want.  However, I think that impression should require a second look.  I look at Joe Sestak as a possibility.  He favors LFTR technology.  He seems to favor a strong defense.  It may be a start.

Look, the idea amongst those accommodationalists like Ryan is to help the Democrats grow the government.  There needs to be an alternative to the runaway-big-government-debt-paradigm that we are on now.

Hate to say it, but the Reagan idea of free trade combined with the increasing reliance upon paper money debt is now working against small government conservatism.  Small government conservatives may have to back away from Reagan worship.  Reagan looks more like a big government conservative these days.  We are on the wrong track with our trade policies, and a gold plated defense establishment.

Reagan strongly supported Milton Friedman's trade ideas.  It may have been a good fit for the times.  But times have changed.  However, I have always had a problem with what Friedman said in his book "Free To Choose", which Reagan lauded.  Friedman said that we shouldn't worry about trade deficits.  He even went to an extreme to prove his point, which was a dubious one in my opinion.  He said that even if all our industry left, and all we had was paper money to pay our debts, that this would be "wonderful for us".  He said that we can produce the paper in great quantity and at low cost.  Yes, of course.  But our backside is left exposed.

Thus, it is fatally flawed for it fails to consider final outcomes.  So, what happens at the end of the day when the rest of the world stops taking our worthless currency?  That appears to be the track we are on after 30 years of hollowing-out our industrial base.  We need to find another way.  Reaganomics is out of date.  We need to move on.  When Dick Cheney said that the eighties proved that deficits didn't matter, everybody should have seen the big red light on the dashboard.  A lot did, and that is how we ended up with an Obama.  Obama intends to grow the government without bounds.  Is that what we signed up for?

The runaway growth in military spending also helped the runaway growth in domestic spending.  There needs to be a way to fund the military without breaking the piggy bank.

The Tea Party looks like a reaction to big government debt paradigm.  But it is too easily marginalized as racist.  The Tea Party had better broaden its base, or the marginalization will be fatal.

I'm not suggesting so-called immigration reform.  I am suggesting smaller government and a growth policy that relies upon getting a competitive advantage in international trade.  Not all in the "minority" community favors immigration reform, you know.  In fact, the majority does not.  We could have an alternative for them with a policy like this which can provide more job opportunities here at home.  Most of these people come here to work, not to collect a government check.  Something like this could appeal to those kind of people that we should want here.  Not the kind that Obama is trying to attract with all their free stuff.  What Obama offers cannot last if our system collapses, and it will if it cannot produce and compete on the world markets.