I think the Founding Fathers might take some pride in knowing anti-tax protesters throughout the United States recently attended "tea parties" to vent frustration and anger over government spending and taxes.
In Louisville, Ky., after getting ground rules and gaining approval from state environmental regulators, protesters tossed real tea into the Ohio River — in very small amounts, I hope.
The protests re-establish a connection with our historical roots and the boilerplate classroom lesson about the famous Boston Tea Party. But I wonder what really lies behind the modern equivalent to the episode that took place on Dec. 16, 1773.
A story I read this weekend by Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post started me thinking. You can read the full story in the “Resources” section at the end of this post. But here are some highlights:
- New data shows that the federal income tax burden now sits near its lowest level in three decades for all but the wealthiest Americans.
- The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the average family paid 9 percent of its earnings to the IRS in 2006, the most recent year for which information is available.
- Middle-class families — the middle fifth of taxpayers, who earned an average of $60,700 per household in 2006 — paid just 3 percent in federal income tax that year, down from a high of 8.3 percent in 1981.
- A Gallup poll shows that the majority of respondents said the amount of federal income taxes they pay is either "too low" or "about right," compared with 46 percent who said their tax bills are "too high" — one of the most positive assessments of the federal tax burden since Gallup began asking the question in 1956.
This Post story lends some credence to observers of the “tea party,” trend who say it’s nothing more than a political ploy backed by Republicans. The party wants to spend every day remaining in President Barack Obama’s term pounding on what it sees as a tax-and-spend mentality and ruinous levels of debt.
However, regardless of the impetus, I take satisfaction in knowing that Americans show a willingness to take to the streets and protest something. And if those protesters want to grab a piece of history involving a bunch of angry Bostonian fed up with colonial rule, that’s all the better.
We need a more active citizenry during these troubled times. Wouldn’t you agree?
Resources:
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15...
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/17...
- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/...
- http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/04/20/...
- http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/teaparty/...
- http://www.usnews.com/blogs/mary-kate-cary/2009/4/15/...
I want to begin by saying I am a life long Democrat. That said, I am VERY upset with the way President Obama has, frivolously, squandered American's money. The fact that he and his tax dodging head of the IRS and Federal Reserve knew about the huge bonuses and allowed them to be paid is a travesty!!! Now, I think it is CitiBank, I am not sure, but one of the banks that got TARP money, is asking to be allowed to pay bonuses to their execs who drive them into financial ruin!! Where is OUR bonus!!! I am on social security and we were supposed to get a, I think, $400 bonus in our checks. I haven't seen it yet, have any of you other SS recipients? It wasn't $400,000, it was $400 and it got passed over for more lucrative causes like skateboard parks and stupid studies.
It is time we told this bozo that 143 days in Congress does NOT a president make. He had no real job before he was elected to office and hasn't a clue how to run a business, much less a country.
If we don't wake up and march in the streets more, vote out the idiots in the House and Senate who continue to support Obama's out of control spending and left wing agenda, America, as we know it, will disappear and we will have a dicatorship. Is that what you want? That is what we will have. Forget Socialism, it will be a full blown dictatorship. It has begun with the nationalization of the banks, the sword Obama weilded over Chrysler creditors forcing them to capitulate to his demands, not allowing the banks to pay back the "borrowed" funds, all for CONTROL. Next is national health care. With the Clinton/Obama plan, the seriously ill and elderly will be allowed to die because the cost to help them will not be justified. This has already happened in England and France.
America, the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Green Party, and whever else, need to band together to get rid of Pelosi, Ried, Biden and Obama before it is too late.
I think that everything is sadly, fueled by politics.
I am not a Republican or a Democrat and I STRONGLY believe that there should be taxation without representation and there should also be fiscal responsibility.
Looking at what Bush has done by putting us in debt and listening to Obama promise that he wants to get us out of this debt, I did not have a problem with. Obama throwing out money left and right to the auto industry and other places, I have a problem with. It just doesn't make sense.
The stimulus package may work wonders, if the states and counties would ever decide what to do with it. Putting a trolley in downtown Frankfort with the package is that really going to work and who is paying for it? This is the most ridiculous thing I have heard of.
Our children are going to have to pay for our mistakes down the road. Governments should stay out of businesses and we should know where our money is going. I understand paying taxes, it is what I have grown up doing but I would like to know that I am helping to pay for someone to stay in the home they cannot afford or paying for a new car that I cannot drive or even helping to pay for a major auto company to buy a plane that I will never ride in.
Call me selfish if you want but I too would like a house, I too would like a new car and I have never been on a plane. Is this where you want your money to go?
I think you understand that the agenda drives the message, but as I said, even if — as one poster writes — the tea parties are politically motivated — so what? However, I think looking at all sides of the issue remains critical for the citizenry to be informed and not hoodwinked. I have written in the past about the penchant for people to seek opinions from only those that they agree with, and this is not getting informed. It's getting satisfied. Thanks for taking the time to post.
Mac McKerral
The level of generational theft that has been foisted on Americans is without compare. Those who wish to express their concern and disagreement with the President and Congess about the level of spending taking place for pork and other nonessential matters are criticized and impuned by those who are partisan in support of same.
David Axelrod-CBS "Face The Nation" April 19, 2009 - "anytime you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that's unhealthy".
So....
LaRaza organizing protests to support illegal immigrants = good for the country.
ACORN staging protests and subverting the voter registration process = good for the country.
Various liberal groups protesting any military action in the once referred to war on terror = good for the country.
Code Pink disrupting Congress and vandalizing Marine Corps recruiting stations = good for the country.
People taking to the streets to defend the Constitution and protest against government taxation and spending = unhealthy!
Amazing, truly amazing.
The tea party protesters are right to be concerned about the amount of federal spending. And wonders of wonders, they are not just looking at the next 24 months, the way members of congress do, instead they are looking at the total debt, we are currently leaving for the next two generations to pay. Citizens not yet born will be taxed to pay for our short term problems. Talk about taxation without representation. Maybe, just maybe there are still citizens in this country still concerned about the morality of government power. And they are probably not Republicans or Democrats. The 2 party adherents constantly blame each other in a corrupt shell game that will leave us all broke for generations to come if we don't demand real change!
I'd like to believe that the majority of the Tea Party crowd is non-partisan, but I think that would be a leap of faith off a tall building. Nevertheless, I agree with your comments about the shortsighted view taken when talking about the national debt. I will be writing about that in the weeks ahead. Keep reading. Mac McKerral
These teabaggers have very little in common with the Tea Party heroes of yore. Back then, those guys tossed over 10,000 pounds sterling worth of tea into Boston Harbor rather than pay taxes on it which they had not agreed to pay. They knew exactly what they were doing and why.
The teabaggers, by contrast, don't even realize what low taxes they are paying, yet they protest against high taxes anyway. If they were truly protesting the bailouts that would be one thing, but the overriding message is one of pure partisanship. Most teabaggers are there to cast misguided epithets at Barack Obama because of poorly understood notions of fascism or socialism or whatever the Republican propaganda machine tells them.
What they really should be protesting are their oligarchical masters, the ones who burned their money and then asked for more. Those people were wealthy before and they're wealthier now, having stolen trillions of dollars from the global economy, and then turned around and extorted US taxpayers with threats of total economic collapse.
I believe they are right to be afraid, right to be angry, right to protest, but I just wish they knew what was going on and what they are protesting.
Thanks for the post. But I disagree with your opening remark. I think today's wave of tea party participants have learned some lessons from their predecessors — first and foremost, getting attention. As for the partisan nature of the tea parties, the three posts to this blog make it clear that you cannot escape the political signature of these wing-dings! Mac McKerral
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