WASHINGTON — There is Representative Joe Walsh , a freshman from Illinois, deriding his colleagues once again for their poor stewardship of the economy. During the debt ceiling debate, Mr. Walsh took to the airwaves to call President Obama a liar for suggesting that the nation might default. Just the other day, Mr. Walsh held court at a Tea Party rally, complaining that Republican leaders in Congress had “been there too long” to understand how best to deal with the nation’s daunting fiscal issues. 
 
 Among the 87 Republican House freshmen, Mr. Walsh is perhaps the most visible when it comes to televised economic exposition, refracted through the lens of the Tea Party that helped him eke out a win last year in a suburban Chicago district. Although his district is among the least conservative of any won by a Republican, Mr. Walsh has among the most conservative voting records; he was one of 22 Republicans to vote against the debt-ceiling agreement last summer and among the 24 Republicans to reject a short-term spending agreement passed in September, arguing that its cuts were not deep enough. 
 
 But Mr. Walsh’s own finances are not quite in step with the tight-ship budgeting he calls for in Washington. According to a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, he owes more than $100,000 in child support, an accusation he denies. 
 
 There have been other financial setbacks. Mr. Walsh lost a condominium to foreclosure before he ran for office. He has had a run-in with the Internal Revenue Service. He has no savings accounts, no investment accounts and has $3,000 in his only I.R.A., according to court documents filed by his lawyer last week. 
 
 He missed a filing deadline for his personal financial disclosures and his campaign was sent a cautionary letter by the Federal Election Commission for failing to include some campaign debts in its quarterly reports, later amended. His driver’s license has been suspended twice, in 2008 for failing to show up for a court appearance, and this year, when he did not pay his auto insurance premium on time. 
 
 Mr. Walsh’s decision to repeatedly bang the drum of strict fiscal responsibility appears to reflect his belief that the Tea Party support that swept him into office by roughly 300 votes will keep him there despite his own financial problems. “What we need to do is elect fighters in every single level of government,” he said in his Capitol Hill office, where, with no apartment in Washington, he sleeps on an air mattress when Congress is in session. “When it comes to the issues that this Congress has been immersed in the past nine months, I have taken the leading role.” 
 
 But the history of unlikely wave candidates suggests that this theory could work against him. “When the wave is large enough in elections, weaker candidates can get elected,” said Nathan L. Gonzales, an editor at The Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter. “Part of the struggle for these freshmen is what lesson did they learn from their initial election. Do they think voters voted for them or against their opponent? They can struggle if they don’t understand the initial dynamics of their win.” 
 
 Of the 73 Republican freshmen who came into office in the Republican sweep of 1994 — the last one before 2010 — 12 were swept out in the next election, including Representative Jim Bunn of Oregon, who divorced his wife while in office and married his chief of staff, which did not help his re-election effort. 
 
 A wave put many unlikely Democrats into House seats in 2008, and a whopping 23 of them were voted out in 2010, including Representative Alan Grayson of Florida, Mr. Walsh’s corollary on the left chatterwise. 
 
 Mr. Walsh, a self-employed consultant whose income fluctuated in the years leading up to his election, shrugs off his financial history, calling it part of why voters related to him during last year’s campaign. “I talked openly about every aspect of my life,” he said. “The fact that I lost a home a few years ago, the fact that I struggled financially. I told people, ‘If you want a building full of millionaires who all have perfect credit scores, then Joe Walsh is not your guy.’ ” 
 
 Nor, he contends, do his financial troubles matter much to the job he was sent to do. “I didn’t go to Washington to manage anybody’s money,” he said. “What I want to do is limit what they take from you, so you can manage your money.” 
 
 But Mr. Walsh’s outspokenness — especially when he criticizes other Republicans — combined with his troubles — have annoyed House Republican leaders, who use “toxic” and other unflattering terms to refer to him, as they try to maintain Republican seats in hard-fought districts. 
 
 His most high-profile issue is the one he discusses least. His former wife, Laura Walsh, is seeking what she says is more than $100,000 in unpaid support for their three children as well as his half their medical expenses and extracurricular activities, according to court documents and her lawyer, Jack Coladarci. 
 
 Papers filed last December by Ms. Walsh’s legal team assert that Mr. Walsh paid only half of the $2,134 per month he owed her after their divorce in 2004 and only during 2005, 2006 and 2007. She says the congressman stopped paying entirely in March 2008. 
 
 “It is an issue I am going to fight quietly and legally and clear my name,” Mr. Walsh said in the interview. ||||| Rep. Joe Walsh: I had ‘verbal’ deal not to pay child support By Abdon M. Pallasch Political Reporter apallasch@suntimes.com 
 
 Mundelein Sunday 9/11/11 Congressman Joe Walsh during the Mundelein Fire department dedication and remembrance ceremony. | Jerry Daliege~for Sun-Times Media 
 
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 Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) says he hasn’t paid his court-ordered child support because he and his ex-wife reached a “verbal agreement” three years ago that he could stop paying her child support. 
 
 Laura Walsh says her ex-husband, elected to Congress last year as a leading voice of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, owed her $117,000 in child support and interest. 
 
 Using the kind of strong language he has become known for as a congressman, Walsh lashed out at his ex-wife Wednesday, accusing her and her attorney of breaking state law by “blatantly and knowingly submitting false information in her pleading.” 
 
 The thick nine-year-old divorce file in Cook County Circuit Court chronicles how every few years Laura Walsh has gone to court saying her ex-husband is not paying and asking a judge to order him to pay, sometimes garnishing his wages. 
 
 In her pleading three weeks after Walsh was elected to Congress, Laura Walsh said that from November 2005 to March, 2008, Walsh made only half-payments, failing to make required “second or third monthly $500 payments” on top of the $1,135 being deducted from his check. 
 
 Then he stopped making payments altogether in March of 2008, telling her he “had no income.” 
 
 Walsh admitted the second part of that Wednesday, but said it was by mutual agreement because he was making very little money, she was making good money, and the kids were spending as much time with him as with her: “Joe admits that as of April 1, 2008, he did not pay Laura direct child support. However, he asserts that he should have been relieved of this obligation,” according to his filing. 
 
 But Joe Walsh said he was making the $500 payments. As evidence he attached photocopies of canceled checks bearing the signature of a “Laura Walsh” dated from the middle and often the end of the month from November 2005 through late 2006/early 2007, when they begin to taper off. 
 
 Joe Walsh also attached checks sent to his children’s Catholic high school and notes, “He has made arrangements to pay off his past-due balance to Loyola Academy.” 
 
 Walsh argues that because his income dipped as low as $11,733 for all of 2008 while his ex-wife earned $139,796, he could have gone to court to ask a judge to lower his obligations or have her pay child support to him, but he chose not to. 
 
 “Joe and his former wife were both tired of court appearances and the resulting emotional and financial impact on the family. Neither party had the financial or emotional wherewithal to continue the battle,” Walsh’s attorney wrote. 
 
 “During this time, Laura appeared to be acting as a mature, non-litigious adult, interested in working out the parenting and financial issues with Joe without the need of judicial intercession,” the pleading continued.“He reasonably relied on Laura’s representations and conduct, to his detriment.” 
 
 After a judge ruled against Walsh in his absence last month, Laura Walsh was asked outside the courtroom how she and her children had gotten by with over the past several years with little or no financial aid from her ex-husband. “It’s been extremely difficult,” she told a reporter. “We get through one day at a time.” 
 
 Joe Walsh angrily responded to that quote in his pleading Wednesday, saying, “The truth is the children have experienced an unabated life of private instruction, private schools, dance classes, private sports instruction, and European trips and she has enjoyed a six-figure income.” 
 
 In a media release Wednesday, Walsh said, “I don’t know why my ex-wife filed this complaint last December, three weeks after I was elected a U.S. congressman.” 
 
 Laura Walsh’s attorney, Jack Coladarci, said his client stands behind everything she said in her December pleading, which they began working on back when Joe Walsh was largely unknown, after Laura Walsh saw that the then-candidate had lent his campaign $35,000. 
 
 “Last year, when she came to us, nobody thought he was going to win that race,” Coladarci said. “This wasn’t going after a congressman — it was about a guy who had enough money to fund a campaign.” ||||| Walsh: GOP leadership too afraid to fight in Washington 
 
 “John Boehner is a great guy. (House Majority Leader) Eric Cantor’s a great guy. They’re good folk who have the best for this country. The problem is, they’ve been there too long and they’re afraid to fight for this country,” Walsh told more than 600 people attending TeaCon 2011 in Schaumburg. 
 
 Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh used a convention of tea party activists Saturday to assail GOP leadership, contending House Speaker John Boehner is trying to quell dissent because of a mistaken fear that Americans believe Washington is dysfunctional. 
 
 Walsh said Boehner“pats us on our heads, (and says), ‘Republicans, don’t make trouble. Don’t make waves. Let’s just be quiet, shhh, and we’ll get President Obama out of office in a year.’” 
 
 “No, I don’t think the American people are upset because Washington’s dysfunctional. I don’t buy that Washington’s dysfunctional,” the congressman from McHenry said. “But when Washington’s dysfunctional, that means they’re not able to do as much. I think that’s a good thing.” 
 
 Walsh said he alone among 87 freshman GOP members of Congress did not get Republican general election support. Walsh, who plans to challenge freshman Republican Rep. Randy Hultgren of Winfield under a Democratic-drawn redistricting map, said he “could give an absolute darn damn about my next election.” 
 
 He also alluded to controversial revelations about his personal life, including allegations from his former wife that he owes thousands of dollars in child support. A Cook County judge has ordered Walsh to prove he paid, and the congressman has said he will make his position clear in court. A hearing is upcoming. 
 
 “When you run for office, when you serve in office, you walk around naked and I have had to open up my personal life for all the world to see. It’s not easy,” he said, likening himself to a farmer who was asked to join the Revolutionary War effort. 
 
 Pledging to seek at most three terms, Walsh's remarks were tailored for an audience of right-leaning voters who overwhelmingly back Republicans but view themselves as political independents. 
 
 Tea party supporters from around the Midwest were invited to the gathering at a convention center in the northwest Chicago suburb, paying to attend workshops on leadership and advocacy skills and to listen to speeches from conservative broadcasters as well as GOP presidential contenders Herman Cain in person and Michelle Bachmann by video. 
 
 The main sponsor was Champion News, an online radio program owned by longtime wealthy conservative activist Jack Roeser that is also carried on WIND-AM, a convention co-sponsor. Roeser has spent decades and thousands of dollars working to oppose the state’s moderate Republican leadership and candidates, largely unsuccessfully. He is backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination and hosting a Perry fundraiser next week. 
 
 Roeser said the event was designed not only to allow tea party organizers to network, but also “to work on electing people” like Walsh, who defeated Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean in last year's mid-term elections. 
 
 “The model for all of this is Joe Walsh. Hardly anybody has the speaking abilities of Walsh,” Roeser said. “He’s very unique. He got by with practically no money. Nobody knew him before hand.”
– Rep. Joe Walsh is known for a few things: Being a Tea Partier, calling President Obama an "idiot," and talking—a lot—about how badly Democrats and Republicans are handling the economy (earlier this month he claimed GOP leaders are "afraid to fight for this country"). In fact, the New York Times calls him "perhaps the most visible when it comes to televised economic exposition" of all the freshmen in the House. But the Times found that Walsh may not practice the fiscal restraint he preaches. First, there's the much-ballyhooed battle over the $117,000 his ex-wife says he owes in child support. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Walsh told a judge last week that the couple verbally agreed three years ago that he could stop payments. The Times reviewed documents filed as part of the case and found the following: He has $3,000 in his single IRA, has no savings or investment accounts, had his condo foreclosed on, had his license suspended after he failed to pay his auto insurance on time, and has tussled with the IRS. Still, Walsh doesn't seem concerned. "I told people, 'If you want a building full of millionaires who all have perfect credit scores, then Joe Walsh is not your guy.'" Plus, "I didn’t go to Washington to manage anybody’s money. What I want to do is limit what they take from you, so you can manage your money."