Tea Party’s refusal to compromise may come back to haunt it

TEA PARTY conservatives scored their biggest political triumph with a debt-ceiling deal that cuts federal spending, but their tactics could risk a voter backlash in the 2012 elections.

The Tea Party members, who swept into Congress in last year’s elections by vowing to slash spending, have transformed the Republican Party and raised deficit reduction to the top of Washington’s political agenda.

But by pushing the US to the brink of a debt default and scuttling a more ambitious deal with bigger spending cuts because it included tax increases, they threatened to alienate some of the more moderate voters that Republicans will need to hold power in Congress and recapture the White House in 2012.