SV: you need to remember the start of the TEA Party (caps important here) was about “Taxed Enough Already” (TEA) and the term has now been conflated with “conservative” in an attempt to be all-encompassing enough to create a bloc that leads to getting/staying elected. What you are decrying is simple politics played with another wrinkle in the rules, sometimes applied as a local ground rule for a given demographic. Expecting the return of Reagan with the advent of every fresh face on the conservative political horizon is not a realistic approach, IMO.
I’m not suggesting what was done to retirees or disabled vets was right in any moral sense. Unfortunately, the political calculus says it has the smallest downside for those wearing fiscal hawk glasses.
I dunno. How many people would be upset about cutting bennies to illegal aliens? Or cutting Congressional pensions?
They could have done better.
In the end, the ‘Pubbies gave up a lot, and got nothing. The Democrats will be back next session for whatever they didn’t get this time.