The movement I'm talking about is the anti-tax coalition of conservatives who are sponsoring 'Tea Parties' across the nation. These conservatives rail against rising taxation and out-of-control federal spending, and are hoping these 'parties' show just how many of their fellow Americans agree with them.
Their biggest problem is that the true constituents of their beliefs, the ones most likely to agree, aren't the partying type - at least not in public and not with tea. They are mostly at home on tax day, online with their accountants or organizing their next trip to the Cayman Islands.
No, those coming out to 'party' are not Americans in the financial major leagues likely to be hit with higher taxes, but middle class and under, who are probably going to get tax breaks. But they've been sold the story that higher taxes will hurt them, if only because their richer employers won't have enough cash to give them jobs.
In reality, though, the 'tax hikes' by the federal government, even for the very rich, don't amount to much - really just a repeal of the Bush tax cuts. And we all know just how well those tax cuts worked out, don't we?
No, the tax hit feared by the pushers of this doctrine won't be coming from the federal government, it's state and local policy-makers that really should concern them. Take my state, California. Our Republican governor recently signed into law state income and sales tax increases, along with increases in state government fees for services, like automobile registration. And those taxes do hit everybody.
But let's face it, taxes are a necessary evil. What else do the Tea Party folks think pays for building and maintaining roads? Collecting the trash? Protecting the country? Elves? Philanthropic religious groups?
Oh, and as for Tea, make mine Earl Grey - hot.
2 comments:
Amen!
An army of rabble, nourished on a drip of anti-intellectualism from an IV bag a generation wide and deep. People who are constantly sold a bill of goods that cuts their economic throats so the top 10% (and I just make it in) can have a big tax break. Reptile-brain thought from cotton-candy minds.
We have the choice to severely cut taxes, government and services now, and bring on new and greater waves of lay-offs and depression, or save the fractionalized banking system and try to create a floor for the economy to find its feet.
Obama has the choice of being the new Hoover or the new Roosevelt. And I'll take Rooseveltian socailized, tamed capitalism any day as that is what provided the stable environment that raised me.
A wise old guy I once knew snapped me around with the phrase "taxes are the price of civilization."
I'll take civilization. And give me a good tea, a real tea, too.
Nicely put, oldiron. The 'new Hoover or the new Roosevelt' and 'taxes are the price of civilization'. Those phrases paint the picture perfectly...
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