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Eye On Boise

Labrador: ‘Tea Party is a good movement’

Raul Labrador (Betsy Russell)
Raul Labrador (Betsy Russell)

"I believe the Tea Party is a good movement,” Congressman Raul Labrador told the City Club in response to a question. “Because people are being vilified so much by the media, they're not calling themselves 'tea party' any more, they're saying 'conservative Republicans.' … The message of the Tea Party is a message that I've always advocated.” He added, “I don't consider myself a 'Tea Party freshman,'” even though that's how the national media always refers to him. “I consider myself a conservative Republican representative from the state of Idaho. … If you don't think that borrowing 40 cents of every dollar … is too much, you are in the minority and not in the majority.”

Labrador said of the tea party movement, “The movement believes in conservative fiscal discipline. … I was a fiscal conservative before the movement started.”



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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