Tea Party Summary

Our neighbors to the north at East Central Florida Gazette have a good account of yesterday's Tea Party events. Not strictly a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings, but instead a balanced description of the meaning and purpose behind the events - which have been largely distorted (not surprisingly) by the MSM.

If you visit any of the echoing chattering nodes of the Left, you will be greeted by a circular shouting match that goes something like this: "Rightwingers, Rethugs, Repiggies, etc...are crazy, delusional and in denial about taxes, Obama and the War on Islamic Terrorism." The common Dailykos/HuffPo/DemocratUnderground assessment of these rallies is either A) These Americans are crazy or B) If they are not crazy, then they are stupid and/or greedy because taxes are low already.

The giant flaw in this scintillating logic is that the protests were primarily about spending and the role of government in each American's life. The Left is correct in that taxes are historically low, as a percentage of GDP. They are dishonest in describing what the scope of government intrusion into each American's life will be under the proposals offered by the Obama White House and the Pelosi/Reid Congress. They are also disconnected from a more serious problem than income inequality, and that is tax burden inequality. The bottom 40% of Americans effectively pay no income taxes at all, while the top 20% shoulder 75% of the total tax burden. We have become a society where many have no interest in taxes as they do not pay them, or at least enough to be concerned. These non-burdened Americans will always be predisposed to ask for higher taxes and more government, while an ever dwindling share of the populace foots the bill for the whole country. Aside from the economic deficiencies that attend a narrow tax base, there are moral ones as well. No country in history has ever survived where the majority of its people did not contribute to the maintneance of their country.