We asked Tea Party candidates from around the country for specific policy ideas to boost our economy.

Whether you love it or hate it, it's impossible to deny that the Tea Party is on the verge of becoming a major political force in the U.S.

This year, candidates backed by the Tea Party have beaten more mainstream politicians in primaries all across the country. In Alaska's Senate primary last month, Tea Party favorite

Joe Miller

defeated Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent, for the Republican nomination. In Delaware, Tea Party-backed candidate

Christine O'Donnell

surprised many by winning the Republican nomination to fill the Senate seat previously held by Joe Biden. And earlier this year,

Rand Paul

defeated Republican establishment candidate Trey Grayson in Kentucky's Senate primary, declaring his victory as a "tremendous mandate for the Tea Party."

Now, with midterm elections only days away, the question is whether Tea Party candidates will have the support to win congressional seats. An analysis from the

New York Times

shows that of the 138 Tea Party candidates running for office, 33 have a decent chance at winning seats in the House of Representatives and eight have a good shot at winning Senate seats.

Still, part of the struggle these candidates face is to better define what they stand for and identify specific policies.

Shortly after the

Tea Party movement

began in February 2009, one

Fox News poll

found that 80% of Americans believed the Tea Party's ideas were a "fruitless mix of racism

and conspiracy theories." Opinions have become more favorable, but a

USA Today

poll from the summer found that many of those who identify with the movement don't know exactly what it stands for. And last month,

one poll

from

The New York Times

and CBS found that nearly half of all voters are undecided on the Tea Party movement or feel they don't know enough about it to make a judgment.

Members of the Tea Party explain this in part by noting that it's a movement and not an official political party, with a long list of party policies.

"The Tea Party is a state of mind," says Michael Patrick Leahy, co-founder of the National Tea Party Coalition and an influential voice in the movement. As a result, people who subscribe to the movement and candidates who are backed by it may have some varying beliefs, but according to Leahy, it all boils down to three major tenets. "We are committed to three core values: a constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets."

Of course, those values are quite broadly defined, so it shouldn't be too surprising voters around the country would want to learn more about the actual policies behind them before casting their ballots.

We spoke with several Tea Party candidates running in Senate and House races, as well as other influential voices within the Tea Party to get a sense of what policies they have for creating jobs, helping small businesses and consumers, and strengthening the economy after the Great Recession. We also touched on some of the policies they disagreed with from the current administration, including the stimulus, bailouts and health care reform, and what they would do instead.

On taxes

Legislators have debated whether to extend the

Bush-era tax cuts

for wealthy Americans. All of those we spoke with associated with the Tea Party favor extending tax cuts for the rich, but some want to go much, much further.

"I'd abolish the estate tax tomorrow, cut corporate taxes in half and phase out capital gains taxes, and then have a beer," says Joe Walsh, the Republican nominee for Illinois' 8th Congressional District. "I'm one of those knuckleheads who believes that every time we cut taxes, we increase government revenues."

According to Walsh, if consumers and businesses are taxed less, they are more likely to spend more freely and pump money into the economy.

Other candidates have taken this idea to the next level and would like to restructure the entire income tax system.

"We prefer a 10% flat tax, obviously with an exclusion for the first portion of your income until the federal poverty level," says John Ellinwood, director of communications for Jesse Kelly, a Republican running for Arizona's 8th Congressional District. In this way, Kelly hopes to simplify the tax code and create a more favorable environment for the wealthy to spend and invest.

"Wealthy people are not stupid, they resent paying 40% of their income to the government," Ellinwood said. "But they don't resent paying 10%, so they'll actually engage in more productive activities."

On Government Spending and the Deficit

Our

national debt

stands at more than $13 trillion and the

national deficit

is expected to top

$1 trillion

this year for the second year in a row. While the Obama administration has proposed a

spending freeze

to help bring this number back down, some Tea Party candidates have other ideas in mind.

"I would be in favor of a hiring freeze for the federal government in nondefense areas, and freezing salaries of people in government," says Dan Benishek, the Republican nominee for Michigan's 1st Congressional District.

Benishek is also in favor of being more vigilant in "auditing" public agencies to see if they are wasting money.

In fact, of the candidates we spoke with, several advocated the idea of eliminating two agencies in particular.

"Something like the Department of Education, I don't see the need for it. It hasn't done anything to improve the public school system in this country," says Walsh, the Illinois Congressional nominee."And I would certainly have a discussion about the Department of Energy."

On helping small businesses

Congress struggled for months to pass a

small-business bill

to help boost lending, but even now, small businesses

lack confidence

in the future.

Scott Ashjian, who is running as a Tea Party candidate in the Nevada Senate race, has a few ideas beyond the recently passed measure to help small businesses.

"First, the banks are not lending. So force the bailed-out banks to lend to older small business," he says. "You then have the government back the loans to proven businesses. All you need to do is look at their past tax records to see who was successful and who was not."

According to Ashjian, we should allow businesses to apply for loans based on the credit scores they had in 2006, before the recession, rather than what their credit scores are now after having been battered by the tough economy.

"It makes more sense to give money to proven business than to a new business based on a credit score. Most new businesses fail in the first year," Ashjian says.

On health care reform

Each of the candidates and Tea Party members we spoke with emphasized the need to repeal the new health care legislation, referring to it as an unnecessary overreach for government.

"We need to repeal health care and then address individual issues like the affordability of insurance," says Sal Russo, a chief strategist for the Tea Party who is often referred to as the movement's Karl Rove. "Some say health care is vital, but hey, food is vital. Does anybody think we should go nationalize grocery stores? Of course not. It's a free market that drives it, that's why. And food is certainly more important than health care."

While the candidates disagree with the size and scope of the policy, some do admit that changes were needed for our health care system.

Benishek, the Michigan Congressional nominee, notes that he could get behind providing "some sort of government support" for those without insurance with what the industry calls "pre-existing conditions," but did not elaborate on what such a system might look like, adding, "taking over the entire health care system doesn't seem to me to be the most logical way to do that."

On Social Security

"Is it fair for the younger generation to keep paying more and more into Social Security when anybody with an ounce of common sense knows that the system can't sustain paying back to them what is currently promised?" asks Leahy, co-founder of the National Tea Party coalition. The answer, he says, is obviously that it's not.

Instead, Leahy advocates moving toward more "free-market principles," though he was vague on what this means.

One candidate, though, has come up with a slightly more specific plan. Ken Buck, a Republican candidate for the Senate in Colorado, would like to introduce something called Social Security Plus, which he has described as a tax-free account young people can invest in as much as they like to save for retirement without having to rely on

Social Security

. It's not clear how this is different from existing retirement savings plans such as IRAs and 401(k)s.

On bailouts

The bailouts of the auto and financial industries were controversial in the U.S., so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to hear Tea Party candidates are also against the government's intervention in struggling businesses.

"I don't think if the government had let the car companies go bankrupt, it would have stopped production. They would have reorganized in a more efficient manner," says Benishek, the Michigan nominee, whose state was particularly affected by the auto bailouts. "But I don't really know the numbers on that. It just doesn't seem right to spend all that money on bailouts when there are all these small businesses suffering all the time."

However, when pressed, some candidates admitted there may be a time and reason for the government to bail out a troubled sector of the economy.

"In general, I would have opposed the bailouts because it interferes with the market and sends the wrong signal to players who take risks," says Walsh, the Republican running in Illinois. "I acknowledge that there is a point when government needs to intervene. And who knows, when it happens again, there may be bailouts."

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