The Tea Party remains divided on one of its founding issues - school choice legislation. The bill provides vouchers to poor families who want better schools for their children. On one hand, many Tea Party groups oppose the bill because it does not grant universal school choice. They believe it offers an easy out for schools failing to educate children properly. The opposers also believe that the supporters of the bill, who are backed by a powerful Washington group that contributed greatly to the Tea Party's beginnings, are selling out to the politics-as-usual approach that the group formed to oppose. The supporters retaliated that those who oppose the bill do not understand that politics involve compromising (Zernike). .
The bill grants vouchers to students in failing schools who already qualify for the federal free lunch program. The amount would depend on how much money the state contributes to each district. Plans to expand the number of additional students in the program exist in the second and third years. The program is estimated to cost $50 million in the first year, $100 million in the second year, and $1 billion in the third year (Zernike). .
Since its beginning, the Tea Party has been unable to replicate the original fire that ignited the group to take a stand as a whole. In turn, they are unable to duplicate the conformity it showed during the midterm elections during legislative battles and the 2012 presidential campaign (Zernike). .
The fractious and undefined trend has taken over the Tea Party in more areas also, forcing the group to become even more divided over every issue. In Tennessee, the indecisive group forced legislators to scale back antiterrorism legislation that increased state penalties for people who support terrorist groups. Social conservatives from the Tea Party supported the bill, but others on the more liberal end argued that the bill, originally intended to target Islamic groups, was a government intrusion on personal liberties.
Over time, these discussions have taken on the character of nationalist historiographies. ... Both were not interested in full colonisation, but merely ruled over the Jaffna Kingdom. ... For the first time the island was unified by a common administration, presided over by provincial government agents. ...
