Tea Party protesters fill the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol and the National Mall on September 12, 2009.

The Tea Party is an American populist political movement. Most people say it is conservative and libertarian.

The Tea Party:

• has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009,
• wants less government spending,
• is against taxation in varying degrees,
• wants to reduce the national debt and the federal budget deficit,
• wants a strict interpretation of the United States Constitution, not changing its meaning to fit modern ideas and advances.

The name "Tea Party" comes from the Boston Tea Party, a protest by colonists who objected to a British tax on tea in 1773. They demonstrated by dumping British tea taken from docked ships into the harbor. Some say that the Tea in "Tea Party" also stands for "Taxed Enough Already".