The Boston Tea Party

From Wikipedia:

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and has often been referenced in other political protests.

The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their constitutional right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protestors had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.

The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, closed Boston's commerce until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists in turn responded to the Coercive Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.

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While the Boston Tea party was primarily about the colonists belief that they shouldn't be taxed by anyone but their own elected representives, today the "tea baggers" are protesting, not just taxes, but the wild and out-of-control spending in Washington. You cannot spend your way out of debt. It just can't happen.

I can't speak for everyone, but I believe that we wage earners are being taxed out of our paychecks today, and future generations are, in effect, being told to not bother to dream of high paying jobs or being the next Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Donald Trump. Oh, they can make the money, but the taxes will make the effort pointless.

The current "fixes" may make a difference. I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know for sure what this "economic stimulus" will do. I do know that taxing is only going to create a society of people who do just what they have to do to get by. There will be fewer and fewer people who have the gumption to do more, to find out what's behind that next curve, that next door.

Don't tell me that President Obama is cutting taxes for 95% of Americans. The $15 a month in tax cuts most of us will get won't make a bit of difference. Oh, sure, we'll be able to buy a pizza once a month, but it's not going anywhere near to what the Administration wants us to buy: big ticket items like cars, house, big screen tv's and so on.

Moving from an income based tax system to a consumer based system will do just that. No money withheld from paychecks, everybody (including illegal aliens and the criminal element) becomes a tax payer instead of just a portion of us, no more filing tax returns, and so much more!

Liberals just don't understand that this isn't just about taxes, it's just not the only part. They can't see that we, the American people, are tired of seeing our money going to bail out companies that should be allowed to fail. No business is so big it can't fail. There may be businesses that are so big their failure will have a huge impact on the economy, but we've survived world wars, depresssions, and terrorist attacks. I'm sure the failure of big Wall Street companies will have an effect, but life does go on.

Yes, taxes are a part of the protest. I have no objection to paying taxes to pay for governmental infrastructure that the states are not responsible for. I understand that national defense must be paid for. I understand that Social Security is a Federal responsibility. I've paid into SS for over 40 years now. I want what I've paid into, what I've earned, what I was promised and what I'm entitled to.

Many of us are in favor of instituting a consumption tax instead of an income tax. Liberals don't want to go this way. They can't see beyond the fact that the "evil rich" won't be paying an income tax anymore to think about this: the average wage earner will get more in each and every paycheck. No withholding, no FICA, no Federal taxes at all. That money goes back to the people who earned it. That's you and me. Believe it or not, it will make more of a difference to you and me than it will to Donald Trump or Bill Gates.

The wealthy will be taxed when they build their mansions, buy their Jag's and Gulfstreams, and 75 foot yachts. Continuing on this way will only narrow the gulf between the rich and the poor wider, and the "middle class" will be only a very narrow margin.

Look, there will always be the rich and the poor. I will probably never be among the "rich", but I would like to keep what I've earned and spend it as I see fit, not as how the government thinks is best. I think the economy can be stimulated with the FairTax and that growth will occur like we haven't seen since the end of WWII. The rich will always be here as will the poor. I'd like to see the band between the two widen, so that there are fewer rich, few poor and many more in the middle. From what I have read, the only way this can happen is to institute the Fair Tax.

Please, go to the official site, Fair Tax.org, and see for yourself.