Yesterday was April 15 and the well-funded, well-orchestrated anti-tax people were out in force across the country, indulging in some 750 tea parties that harked backed to the days of the original Boston Tea Party.
Many of these folks were in Revolutionary War-era costumes, an attention to detail that obviously improves the verisimilitude of such events.
Unlike the original event in Boston, however, teabags abounded this year, since loose tea can be so inconvenient and messy. I’m happy for these teabag-wearers’ sake that in most places (Philadelphia was an exception) rain held off. There are, after all, few more uncomfortable things than having cold, wet teabags mar one’s period dress and stain the skin.
From one perspective you could view this as just one more special-interest group that needs to grow up.
But then, America is not so much a melting pot of special interests as much as it is an uncomfortable stew of them.
In any case, with assiduous coverage from Fox News (who else?) and anti-tax exhortations from right-wing cable TV and radio personalities, this is a movement that hopes to catch fire, abetted by the usual but increasingly hysterical anti-government, anti-tax vitriol.
What, exactly, is it about taxes that has these people so frothed? What programs, I’d like to ask them, would you be willing to give up that are funded by hated taxes?
Do you really want to go back to the days when there was no Social Security? Or back to pre-Medicare days when a huge swath of the senior population lived in-or just above-poverty?
Are you really so upset about the defense budget? If so, why don’t we hear many peeps from you about the habitual cost overruns in any number of weapons programs? All of which waste your precious tax dollars.
Are you really so outraged by the interstate highway system? The Children’s Health Insurance Program? Head Start? Pell Grants? The FDA, OSHA and the EPA?
You get the picture.
I’ve had it with the selfishness of this crew and their lack of caring and understanding about the interdependence of living creatures. It’s what we call society, folks. I’ve had it with the hypocrisy that rears its head when one of the tax breaks that they feed upon is targeted and they themselves go on the attack.
So here’s my suggestion for what you can do with those costumes which presumably you have put away until next year. Take them out on October 31, that’s Halloween, and have a grand old party time scaring the living Darjeeling out of all the pre-teens you meet, kids who at least act their age.
Tags: politics, taxes
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I couldn’t agree more with your column. Whenver my friends contend that we should cut taxes, I always ask “What specific programs would you cut?” For some reason I never receive an adequate answer.
Defense? NEVER. Just because we spend more each year on defense that Russia, China, Germany, England, France, India, Pakistan, and the next 20 countries COMBINED is no reason to cut defense spending.
Social Security? That’s a non-starter.
It’s just more of that “starve the beast” and “deregulate” mentality.
The “increasingly hysterical” right-wing support of the Tea Parties is not to protest government or taxes at all. They are in support of both – just not EXCESSIVELY so.
This is about Congress and the POTUS bulling their way through a fiscal premise that is without mathematical support, and with extreme disregard for what their constituencies think. They have put in play debts that will never be paid, and are rife with opportunity for abuse and (continued) corruption WITHOUT adequate (if any) oversight.
Somebody needs to watch the watchers. There is a very valid reason big government moves slowly: once done it almost never, ever gets UNdone.
Well said, Steve! I’ve enjoyed your column for a long time. Keep it up!
We need these taxes to keep the tax-favored treatment of our industry’s products meaningful. So not only are taxes the price we pay for a civilized society, they’re also the price we pay for a robust insurance industry!
I particularly loved the article out there about how some poor, forlorn small businessman who reports $500,000 per year of business income will see income taxes rise $23,000 per year. Wah wah. If $500,000 of income doesn’t make you feel (a) wealthy, and (b) grateful for the protection of a civilized society, you are hopelessly out-of-touch.
Steve, Great comments. The tax party on what should be given up, well, how about applying the same rules to congress as they are to TARP- disclosure on who wants the money, how the money is spent and firing if you mess up. No do overs. Congress is removing CEO’s and the ones who wrote the laws are still there making the rules.
I think you’re all missing the point here. I’m no Tea-Party-goer and I have not witnessed what has taken place at these events, but there are obviously many good case-points for cutting taxes.
It’s not so much about, “Well… what programs would you eliminate?”, but more about the obvious need for our government to step back and take a look at how they’re spending, collecting, and justifying these taxes.
I think earmark reform would be highly more effective at reducing government waste than cutting useful programs. It’s hard to keep track of all the articles I’ve read about our tax dollars going to useless studies and projects, such as the research and tracking of gay sex practices at Argentinean Bars. Really?!?!
And that’s only one aspect of what needs to be reformed.
Our tax system is archaic, inefficient, and a huge burden. We spend billions annually on services just to comply with the over 60,000 pages of tax law currently on the books.
It’s ridiculous.