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UPDATED: Are they dumping tea or drinking Kool-aid?

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320 comments

UPDATED: Are they dumping tea or drinking Kool-aid?

POSTED: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 8:54 AM

On Dec. 16, 1773, Americans in Boston held a "tea party" to protest a distant government that imposed taxes on them with no representation.

On April 15, 2009, thousands of Americans ginned-up by a ratings-crazed cable TV network will hold not-so-spontaneous "tea parties" to protest a government seeking to reduce taxes for 95 percent of them -- less than six months after a record number of citizens voted to elect new representatives.

How much caffeine is in that tea these days?

Seriously, what exactly are people protesting? If they're protesting government bailouts and soaring deficits, where were they during the George W. Bush presidency? And if they're protesting higher taxes, then they would have to be making more than $250,000 a year. And most people making more than $250,000 a year don't attend protests -- they have "people" for that.

This is not a rhetorical question. What are people protesting today? Please be articulate.

UPDATE: Attytood reader DR weighs in via email:

The real Boston Tea Party; was it really about "taxation without representation"(as we are taught in school), or was it about a transnational corporation receiving permission to transport tea free of duty from Great Britain to America, allowing it to wipe out New England–based tea wholesalers and mom-and-pop stores and take over the tea business in all of America?

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?

I say make the rich pay their fair share of the taxes!

I am truly amazed & confounded that the common folk actually identify with the elite (as if they are really one of them)

Anyone care to weigh in on this?

Will Bunch @ 8:54 AM Permalink | 320 comments

320 comments

Comments (320)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:03 AM, 04/15/2009

"can anyone show me an example of borrowing your way out of debt?" Yes, when FDR ended the Great Depression. Now stop repeating ridiculous lies, OK?

— JMPEsq

Comment removed.

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:05 AM, 04/15/2009

---}}} Get off your knees lefties...this country was formed to escape large, intrusive government and you fools want to recreate it with a big smile on your face. {{{--- This is really what I love. 2010 is going to be an absolute blast as long as lunatic "conservatives" insist on ruining the Republican Party by claiming that our democratically elected government is no longer a manifestation of the Constitution.

— Talking point sleuth

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:08 AM, 04/15/2009

Posted by Bob87 09:56 AM, 04/15/2009... "[C]an anyone show me an example of borrowing your way out of debt?" Umm... how about refinancing your mortgage and paying off high-interest credit cards? Yes, spending must also decrease, but refinancing mortgages is a commonly accepted practice to borrow one's way out of debt.

— Phrossty

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:09 AM, 04/15/2009

LJL, if your going to quote history, read all of it, not just what fits your point. Revenues increase when taxes are lowered, every time it's tried, Reagan, Kennedy, tax free day in NYC, etc. The trick is to control spending, that's the hard part, and what usually fails.

— Bob87

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:10 AM, 04/15/2009

it does not matter that Obama is tossing pennies to 95% of the voters. 40% of them don't even pay taxes. No the thing that matters is Obama has guarrenteed our children and grand children will pay massive taxes. If the left was honest, they would offer up the tax rates that are required to pay for it. They do not want people to know what they are really spending becuase somebody some day is going to ask what all the money bought. The answer to that is good feelings, destruction of socialinstitutions, and the loss of personnal liberty. And mr. bunch, the CONSERVATIVES DID OBJECT during the bush years while the moderate Republicans and liberal democrats spent like what we thought was crazy. Tom Delay and crew have to a large extent been tossed out (by republicans)and faced real jail. In the mean time, Democrat congressmen are filling their freezers with cash and getting re-elected. Now we have Queen Nancy of Pelosi jetting across the country in a private jumbo jet at tax payer expense (THE FIRST SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE TO DO SO)to the tune of $5,000,000 or more a month.

— dutchman

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:10 AM, 04/15/2009

Oh god, we've got people supporting the unfair tax. A consumption tax is extremely unfair and regressive, because the poor and middle class spend most of their income, while the rich do not. The tax system is unfair, because the rich do not actually have to pay their fair share - because most of their money does not come from income. If you really want to make the tax system fair, dump the special rules for the capital gains taxes and tax capital gains just like regular income. The same should go for inheritance taxes. The Paris Hiltons of the world don't need special tax breaks. And yeah, someone making $250,000 a year is rich. Not super-rich, maybe, but that is over EIGHT TIMES the income of the average person. That is rich.

— JMPEsq

Comment removed.

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:12 AM, 04/15/2009

Really, we are back to Dec 16, 1773. (1) Political Packs and lobbyist run our politicians on one front. (2)On a second front, our taxes have been increasing steadily as our debt increases new ways of taxing has. School taxes have outstripped inflation and real wages by nearly 50% per year for the last two decades. An increase in the federal deficit by nearly 40% this year along is enough to protest as well. Politics is easy, vote for me, since I will give you a dollar ten for every dollar you pay in taxes. However, we have borrowing that ten cents for 80 years. It amounts to 10 trillion in federal dollars and after a 3.6 trillion more this year. (3)If we had no deficit, our taxes would be a lot less, and we would all be a freer nation.

— Fisher

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:12 AM, 04/15/2009

Talking point sleuth this is not a republican or democrat thing. Just because daily kos makes fun of the tea party doesn't mean it's a republican thing. Why do you want higher taxes? I will never understand.

— jwad56

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:15 AM, 04/15/2009

"...Yes, spending must also decrease...", finally, someone gets it, now I can go back to work.

— Bob87

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:16 AM, 04/15/2009

RG -- you didn't respond to the point -- what other country protests the way they protect themselves? Were Soviet Union citizens protesting the invasion of Afghanistan? Were the Brits protesting the war against Argentina? Is anyone in North Korea protesting the firing of a nuclear capable rocket? How about Germany -- did anyone protest the invasions of Poland and France? And LJL -- that's because Reagan CUT those taxes, as did the Republican congress. In 1961, those rates were 91% (unbelievably insane). Reagan cut them to 50% during most of his tenure, then 28% by the last year. They popped back up to 39% under Clinton, and 43 cut them down to 35% (according to truthandpolitics.org, verified on taxfoundation.org).

— IggleFan68

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:17 AM, 04/15/2009

"Revenues increase when taxes are lowered, every time it's tried" No they don't - that's completely not true. That's supply-side economics, which has been tried and doesn't work. Not that history actually stops wignuts from bringing it back again. And what's that you say? "Reagan" - hahahhaha. Revenues went way, way down under that horrible president - don't you remember the crushing deficit that Clinton had to fight to get rid of? And of, he did it by - raising taxes! Please do offer more examples that prove the opposite of what you assert.

— JMPEsq

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:19 AM, 04/15/2009

The real Boston Tea Party; was it really about "taxation without representation", or was it about a transnational corporation receiving permission to transport tea free of duty from Great Britain to America, allowing it to wipe out New England–based tea wholesalers and mom-and-pop stores and take over the tea business in all of America. http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=555

— DR

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:19 AM, 04/15/2009

Talking Point Sleuth - I cannot believe how incredibly dumb you are. You try to argue that you are not giving the "because Bush did it too" argument, then you go ahead, and provide the exact same argument. Its like you don't understand logic reason, or the english language. You just cannot understand what people are saying here. I'll try to explain it as simply as I possibly can, but I am not hopeful that you will get it. Regardless of who voted for Bush, he overspent, and it was wrong. You are essentially arguing that it is OK that Obama does it because Bush did it too is not a real argument, it is a deflection. The point is (regardless of who voted for him) Bush was wrong to spend too much money, and Obama is as well. They are both wrong...get it? Some people can actually admit that they were wrong, just not liberals. And nobody insinuated that the democratically elected govt is no longer a manifestation of the constitution. The point was that the democratically elected federal government is overreaching on the limited powers that were intended for them by Madison and the other founders when they wrote the constitution. Stop trying to sound smart, and just accept the fact that you are a dope.

— pete317

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