Wildfire Girl

Anti-tax 'tea parties' vent anger across U.S. - Life- msnbc.com


Thought the story was mildly interesting, in that I was STUCK in traffic due to a rally in downtown Fort Smith on the way home from work today.

wanderer78

Granted history was my worst subject, but the Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation. Not about the actual taxes. So I'm not quite understanding this. I understand the frustration about the economy and taxes, but...whatever.

ceilirose

Amid protests, Obama defends tax record - Washington Times

Ok..this woman depends on the federal government for her job. Taxes pay her salary. The Government can stop sub contracting "map-making projects" and this woman can lose her job. Is that what she wants?

The whole thing was silly and Gov. Perry from Texas hinting that Texas should secede from the Union was entertaining in a very weird way.

Where was all this hand-wringing when Bush was growing the size of government?

Callace

this was amusing, in a scary sort of way.

Saving money in depression times is a very bad idea, history shows that rather clearly. It was how the 1930's depression kept getting worse. These people couldnt be wanting that strategy to be tried again??

And yeah, ) totally agree that that woman was rather short sighted. It is government activity that pays for her job. Would she like to lose it??

I also think complaining about taxes is very selfish. DO people only wish the reap the benefits of being part of a society, without contributing to it??

vc318

There's always a question about how our taxes are being spent but doing away with taxes really isn't an option unless we're prepared to go on with damaged infrastructures and such, which are money goes to.

Cristofle

Yeah, I'm really not understanding the correlation between now and the Boston Tea Party, lol. Just because their guy lost the election doesn't mean their suffering taxation without representation.

I also laugh every time they say they're teabagging. Because I'm twelve.

mh67511

No, but people are tired of contributing and being asked to contribute more, while over 40% of people who file returns pay no income taxes whatsoever. On top of that, many people actually have a negative income tax rate because they get a refund. It really shouldn't be called a refund, since a refund means you are receiving a portion of what you initially paid in, but I digress.

And on top of this we have a government who keeps increasing its spending. They need to stop! Our national debt keeps getting bigger and bigger meanwhile the big elephant in the room (the multi-trillion dollar unfunded liability of Medicare) is ignored. Too much focus on the short-term and a lack of focus on the long-term is exactly what I think got us into this economic mess.

Back to the tea party, I missed the one in our town. I really wanted to go, but I'm sure it was good.

ceilirose

Me too!

We had a budget surplus when Clinton left office. Millions were given back to the wealthy in this country and sorry but they did not turn around and create all those wonderful new jobs for the rest of the middle class. Actual money was sent over to Iraq and distributed to God knows who and now we have to worry about budget deficits?

I don't know about everyone else but I'm paying less taxes. I wish it were more but I'll take it. I'd rather have my money being used for rebuilding the infrastructure in this country then seeing it blown away like the last 8 years.

sunnykerr

I don't know, maybe I'm being way Canadian here, but I think taxes are the non-fun part of a very good system. A necessary annoyance, if you will. Not an evil, by any means.

And I understand that a lot of people are scared because they're already feeling the hardships of these hard economic times. Economically speaking, I am pretty much with these people. I share that worry. But I also know that no democratic government is that tyrannical. More to the point, the taxation system is never so simple that the same rule applies to all.

Either way, the thing of it is that the previous administration gave so many tax cuts that the country owes more money than can be counted. So I'm not surprised that a lot of the opposition to any hike in taxes come from supporters of the former administration. But, seriously, it wasn't reasonable to expect the appalling fiscal policies of the Bush administration to continue under a reasonable leader.

wanderer78

I don't love paying taxes or anything, but I consider them necessary.

sunnykerr

On a semi-serious note, though, how straight does one have to be to actually pick that name? I mean, in what world does an entire organization produce zero people who understand what that'll sound like to the rest of the world?

I understand that not everyone is familiar with the expression. That's fine. We're all learning all the time.

But a whole group???

mh67511

The "teabaggiing" term hardly came up until the trashy cable news channels thought it would be "cute" to pretend to be Comedy Central for the day. MSNBC and CNN no longer attempt to even hide their bias. Instead of actually listening to what people at the rallies were saying, they would rather mock it all and have their lovely anchors make teabagging jokes. They've lost all credibility with me. Rachel Maddow made me want to vomit and Anderson Cooper, well it's funny he was making all the teabagging jokes considering he doesn't have the "balls" to come out!

ceilirose

But I didn't need to hear media anchors make jokes to know what the term meant. *Shrug*

Someone that's high up in the food chain in this movement should have thought it through a little bit better.

Sure Rachel Maddow is biased but so is everyone else on Fox News. What's the big deal? No one really believes that Fox is "fair and balanced."

wanderer78

Fox was more more or less sponsoring the events anyways.

Bella Grint

I have to agree with the news channels. Jon Stewart was mocking all the news channels, saying how their world order has changed (Fox and CNN switched basically) because Fox suppored it and CNN was against and MSNBC was just the one making dirty jokes which is true in a way Had this been some liberal based event against the Republican government, I know Fox News would've done the same thing that CNN did here. You can't condemn one without sounding bias yourself, they are all bias and if you choose one solely you are choosing a side yourself. I saw CNN reporters getting in protestors faces and I think that was bad but if Fox has been reporting this I could see them doing the same if they didn't agree with the protestors

I mean, wasn't Fox News always against gatherings like this that went against the government? I don't know how much the left had protested in Bush's term or what was related to taxes like this was but that would be seen as unpatriotic, something like anarchy going in the streets. When Bush was in office I remembered that mentality that if you protested against his government you were against the entire United States as a whole and it was looked at as a dirty thing. However, in this case, I don't see that at all coming from that same side that supported that mentality. That is mainly because they have their own movement with something they find wrong in the government. I support people wanting to take a stand against their government, I guess it's just patriotic and suddenly considered okay if you are from one political party. Fox is only fair and balanced to those who are in their favor, and it is the same with the other channels. I would say Fox showed their bias that day just as much as the others, some of us might just disagree on that because of where we stand on these issues politically.