The Tea Party knows that continuing to delay charting a course to spending reform hurts everybody.

Chicago is known for good steaks, expensive stores and beautiful architecture. Unfortunately, the Windy City also enjoys a reputation for corrupt politics, violent crime, and some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere in the country.

I sense that conservatives have largely already tuned out to the coming elections, after six years of burgeoning federal spending and inaction on key issues, such as immigration. The Republican Party has become the party of the government status quo, and conservatives see no reason to reward it with their votes.

The seemingly omnipresent storm clouds hanging over the Constitution often make it hard to find a silver lining. Every day, the front page of The Drudge Report is littered with stories of government assaults on our civil liberties - from local government officials all the way up to the Oval Office.

In a single generation, the Internet has given to virtually every person on the face of the earth the ability to communicate with fellow human beings on virtually any topic, at any time, and in every nook and cranny on the globe. This magnificent invention has done this without succumbing to government control.

It's not a gun control problem; it's a cultural control problem.

It is high time for some congressional oversight backbone.