One year after the Tea Party rocked politics, we find ourselves asking if it really made any difference. While we demanded steep cuts, Congress barely slowed the rate of growth and is borrowing more than ever. Is there anywhere that Tea Party Principles are actually becoming law?

Click here to listen 12-29-11 UTLT

I’m David Madeira and I’ll see you in a minute… Under the Liberty Tree.

Ad Astra per Aspera is the motto of the State of Kansas. It’s latin for “To the Stars with Difficulty” and was coined by statesman, lawyer, orator, and scholar John James Ingalls.   A Massachusetts native who moved to Kansas in response to an advertisement in 1859, Ingalls wrote that “the aspiration of Kansas is to reach the unattainable; its dream is the realization of the impossible.”

How fitting that Kansas is leading the way when it comes to enacting the Tea Party’s supposedly impossible agenda. Newly-elected Governor Sam Brownback abolished three state agencies this year, eliminating over 2,000 bureaucrats. The Washington Post whines that “Funding for schools, social services and the arts have been slashed…” and Kansas turned down a $31.5 million federal grant to implement ObamaCare.

But Brownback’s just getting started. He actually created an “Office of the Repealer” to find laws and regulations to be put on the chopping block.

The Governor says “The states are to be the laboratory for democracy. Why not here and why not us and why not now?”

Why not indeed!

I’m David Madeira, and I’ll see you online, at UnderTheLibertyTree.com