This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 15th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Tea Party Movement has struck several victories rocking the GOP establishment,

but is the movement so closely tied to economic performance that it will wither away when conditions improve?

Matt Kibby is president and CEO of Freedom Works.

He is bullish on the Tea Party movement and wants to see its energy for smaller government sustained.

Kibby is co-author of the new book, Give Us Liberty, a Tea Party Manifesto.

The Tea Party Movement is really motivated by the idea that the government shouldn't spend money

it doesn't have and that it should limit itself.

It shouldn't get involved in things like owning car companies or sitting on bank boards or taking over our health care system.

There's a respect for the Constitution that really sort of represents a rediscovery of founding principles.

You talk about the contract from America, you mentioned that at the forum today.

At least five of the items listed there deal specifically with federal spending and federal debt and attempts to restrain those things.

It's really about the size of government. I mean, people think that the government's gotten too big.

And, you know, the other half of that, of course,

is a deep respect for individual liberty.

They want government off their backs,

and they just don't, not only don't they think

government works that well when it gets too big

but they don't think that that's appropriate in the Constitution limited government for a reason.

Debt and spending at the federal level, there seems to be only a dim awareness by the public generally about the size of the problem.

Yeah, and that's a place where I think Tea Partiers are more focused on some pretty scary prospects for the American economy because I understand that if you spend money you don't have, there's only three ways to do it. You can

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