by Paul Smith
On April 15, “tax day,” I drove by University Mall in Pensacola where I saw a handful of people holding protest signs. I steered closer to get a better view only to realize what looked like a handful was actually throngs of hundreds of people carrying signs, some of which read “Obama is not the Messiah!” and “The Democrats are Thieves!”
Oh, man… Let the unwarranted hysteria begin.
What I witnessed was the local version of the national protest events referred to as “tea parties.” Apparently “tea” is an acronym which stands for “taxed enough already.”
The movement started among conservative circles that originally encouraged people to send teabags to Washington as a form of protest, and then staged “teabagging” demonstrations across the country.
While it is difficult to find a consistent message among the teabaggers, one thing is very clear: none of it makes any sense.
The protests are largely aimed at the Obama administration’s fiscal policies.
And they have utilized the symbolism of the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to illustrate their dissatisfaction over the federal stimulus package, higher taxes, and “taxation without representation” (as many of the signs read in Pensacola).
However, there are several problems with all of these dissatisfactions.
First of all, while the “taxation without representation” bit was certainly part of the Boston Tea Party, I imagine most involved with these recent tea party protests are unaware that what sparked the furor in 1773 was the lowering, not raising, of taxes on tea. The history is complicated, but basically the American colonists feared that if England lowered the tax on tea, it would undercut the competition and lead to a British tea monopoly. This upset the local merchant class who made a great deal of money selling smuggled tea bought from other countries. So, the colonists were actually upset with lower taxes on tea, not higher.
And I hate to break it to the teabaggers, but there is no taxation without representation in modern America.
Every single person attending these protests has democratically elected representatives in Congress and the White House. They may not be who the protestors voted for, but they are who the majority voted for.
The next problem comes with the idea of higher taxes.
On April 15, the tax policy in effect was really that of George W. Bush’s administration. So, at the time of the teabagging events, everyone was essentially protesting the Bush tax policy, not the Obama tax policy.
But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant Obama’s tax policy when it goes into effect in 2011. What is it exactly about this policy that disturbs them?
Do they realize that Obama’s tax policy only raises taxes on the top 5 percent, those earning more than $250,000 a year?
And the tax rates for the richest Americans will go from 35 percent to 39 percent, a whopping 4 percentage points. The remaining 95 percent of Americans will actually see a tax decrease.
So, unless the vast majority of teabaggers are among the top five percent of the richest Americans, they are in reality protesting a tax decrease.
Also, 39 percent on the rich is still one of the lowest tax rates in last hundred years. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower had a tax rate of 91 percent for the richest Americans; Republican President Richard Nixon had a top tax rate of 70 percent.
And comparatively speaking, the United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations when looking at tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product.
As for the federal stimulus bill, while there are plenty of debates to be had, I hope everyone would acknowledge that something has to be done to try to stabilize the economy.
The idea behind the stimulus package is that since people and businesses are spending less money, the government should spend heaps of money to get the economy growing again. Whether or not this plan will work is yet to be seen.
All in all, regardless of the mainstream media coverage, the tea party protests fizzled across the country, garnering only moderate crowds in most states.
It is not clear what they hoped to accomplish, but I can wager they will have little to no effect on government policy.
I think the most fitting illustration of the pointlessness, failure, and factual inaccuracies of these ridiculous tea parties was the event held at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas which was headlined by the insufferable Glenn Beck of Fox News.
Apparently they thought the Alamo was a great place for starting a revolution. Someone really should have told them that the Alamo is one of the most famous symbols of failed revolution in history. It is the site of the famous battle where the Texian settlers lost to Mexican troops in 1836.
Remember the Alamo? These people obviously did not. I would imagine the next major teabagging demonstration will be held in Waterloo, Iowa.