Founded in 1991, the Republican Liberty Caucus works to advance the principles of limited government, free markets and individual liberty within the Republican Party.

Phil Orenstein, a Republican from Queens, has written about the recent Tea Parties on the Democracy Project blog.  The Tea Parties offer an important opportunity to the RLC.  If the RLC can integrate the Tea Party movement  into its organization, it could become the dominant force within the GOP.  RLC members need to think about how to get the word out at Tea Party meetings.

The Republican Party is in disarray.  Arlen Specter’s decision to become a Democrat and Al Franken’s conversion of the Minnesota Senate seat give the Democrats a 60-40 majority in the Senate. In the House, Republicans have a sorry 41% of the seats.

In an April 27 article, pollster Scott Rasmussen suggests that the Beltway Republicans are becoming irrelevant because they have broken their link to rank-and-file Republicans, who are close to the RLC’s positions. There is a risk that the Republicans will become a minor party, or at least spend the next twenty years in the wilderness, as they did from 1932 to 1952.  George W. Bush leaped to associate his administration with the massive bailout last fall. Whether his idol is Herbert Hoover I don’t know.  But the Republicans have breached the trust of economic conservatives, and without economic conservatives the Republicans will become a minor party.

There are significant threats to the economy, arising from the bailout and Federal Reserve Bank policy that no major media outlet, including talk radio, and neither of the parties are handling.  The Tea Parties have arisen to protest the absence of meaningful discussion in American politics.  The RLC can fill the gap.

One model that the RLC might consider is the Bourbon Democrats of the post Civil War period. The Bourbons were pro-gold, conservative or classical liberal businessmen who, after twenty years saw their candidate, Grover Cleveland, elected in 1884 with the support of elite “Mugwump” Republicans.  Might the RLC meet with similar success? Perhaps tea is as good as Bourbon.

The Republicans’ failure can be seen not only in monetary policy but also in fiscal policy.  In 1980 federal outlays were $591 billion. Prices from 1980 to 2009 increased by 158%. The federal budget increased by 391% during the same period. Much of that increase occurred during Republican administrations and Congresses. Certainly there were no cuts during those years. The absurd bailouts and stimulus bills that have been passed under George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama were as much a Republican as a Democratic response.

Cultural conservatives will continue to occupy a dominant role in the Republican Party because economic conservatives cannot win without them.  As much as 36% of the electorate reflects cultural conservative values.  But the Republicans cannot win without economic liberals, and the recent decades of indifference to the interests of economic liberals are the reason for the Republicans’ steep decline.

The RLC needs to play a leadership role in integrating the tea party revolutionaries back into the Republican fold. The alternatives are bleak.

Mitchell Langbert can be visited at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com.