Tea Party: Will you be drinking or dunking?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/04/15/art.teaparty1.gi.jpg caption="Activists nationwide are holding gatherings on Tax Day, April 15."]WASHINGTON (CNN) – Finger sandwiches won't be served, but there will be a lot of frustration brewing about the current tax system at "Tea Parties" being held Wednesday across the nation.
Activists are holding these events on tax day to voice their opposition to the current tax system and the federal government's spending decisions, such as bailing out the banks and the auto industry.
So, what do you think? Have President Obama and Congress taken the right steps to help the ailing economy? Have Republicans been smart to oppose his fiscal policies? Does the tax code need an overhaul?
Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.
Here are some CNN stories about the nationwide "Tax Day Tea Party":
Activists gear up for national 'Tax Day Tea Party'
GOP uses tax day to raise money
GOP encourages supporters to send virtual tea bags to top Dems
Listen: CNN Radio analyzes the politics of Tax Day
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you idiot liberal democrats dont know which way is up.you want the goverment to take care of you so you dont have to think.
Bunch of idiots with no ideas, the party of no. You had your chance and bankrupt the entire globe, kill innocent Americans and civilians in Iraq and a big mess in the financial system global. Please take your stand and let the smart president fix all these problems.
For those of you who want to drink tea today out of protest against taxes I would suggest you read your high school history book first! The whole point of the 1773 tea parties was to NOT drink tea, and therefore not buy any and hence not pay taxes on it.
Yay for historically illiterate people.
Jay April 15th, 2009 1:55 pm ET
When 20 percent of the population pay most (soon all) of the taxes and 50 percent do not pay anything, that's called socialism. It's simply a reditribution of wealth. This country is going own a dangerous road toward disaster. I fear 5 years from now we will not recognize it. We need to act now to preserve this great nation!!!!
20% already pays the most. They're call the middle class.
Meanwhile, 50% of all incoming wealth is NOT taxed because it because it belongs to 1-2% of this country who have spent their lives coming up with loopholes to avoid taxation.
But instead of educating yourself, you respond the EASY way – with irrational fear.
TeaBaggers in San Antonio...........
The Battle of the Alamo was against Mexico............
Public school + talk radio + Glenn Beck = TeaBagger.
Run! Run! Don't look behind you! Grab your guns! We are going to be Socialists! Oh no! A Black guy is President! Our country is done!!!
That's what it sounds like to me.
You righties are only fueling fear amongst yourselves. My only fear is that one of you will decide to take my house because you have guns and have decided I'm 'too liberal' in my views.
Everything you folks are doing is a knee-jerk reaction to information that isn't correct. You believe it because you want to believe you are correct in your fears.
The biggest threat to America today is Right-Wing Extremism.
Oh, yeah, watch out for the big secret, super secret conspiracy the Left has to take all your stuff including your guns and give it to a poor welfare mother. THAT IS WHAT YOU ALL SOUND LIKE! STUPID, isn't it?
Republicans are so out of touch with what is happening today. They are a party ran by a talk show host. They have no legitimate leaders. They have no ideas. They want to live in the past. They have become a party of small minds and small ideas
I think the tea parties are stupid and demean the meaning of the real Boston Tea Party. That demonstration was because we had a sovereignty from across the ocean taxing us to pay for their country. Like so many other things lately this is the Republicans twisting the truth, this time about taxes. The original Boston Tea Party was to demonstrate how unfair taxes are when they are done without representation. I believe all responsible adults voted on election day. I believe this means we had representation. I am willing pay my taxes as a patriotic American. We are paying less taxes than with their almighty Reagan. Freedom and prosperity are not free. I am tired of the Republicans acting like petulant little children who did not get their way. They need to suck it up like I did for the last 8 years while I watched my beloved country being put in the dumpster for greed and power.
Just saw your coverage of a Tea Party. In the name of accurate journalism you shouldn't send obviously biased reporters to cover such importent stories. Your video showed a man with a child being bumped by another man while being inter viewed. Why didn't your reporter comfront the violent man as to why he was trying to antoganize a father with a child in his arms. The antagonist was obviously a plant of some kind. Was he one of yours or from the real radical group acorn. He was obviously not part of the peacefull demonstration going on arround him. I believe you have the tea parties all wrong. They are not sponsered by radical groups of people but by the silent majority. It' no wonder your rattings are tanking. Your leftist agenda is quite obvious. Try honest and accurate for a change.
P.S. telling everyone I know about this horrible display of journalism.
I'd like to know where these protestors were when Bush, first not only depleted the surplus, then went on to spend trillions of his own? How come these people werent protesting their own party to pull back on spending when they had a chance. Instead they stood by, did nothing, said nothing. Where was your "tea party" during the Bush years? You could have 8 of them by now!
by the way we are in a recession, businesses are hemmoraging jobs, banks arent lending money, homes are being forclosed, and investors arent investing in the stock market like before-pre bubble. I want you to tell me right wingers -what are we supposed to do to slow all these negative trends and reverse the downward slide the we are in. Tell me , I'm waiting for a response? Hmmmmm????? Oh wait you have a suggestion–lets give tax cuts to the wealthiest of us (who btw: outsource jobs to foreign countries, hoard all their cash in foreign bank accts, and dont create jobs here in the U.S.) maybe thats a good idea but weve tried that for the past 20 yrs and it seems like the super wealthy didnt get the memo about... that whole trickling down of the money thing. I am still waiting for a viable alternative to fixing our broken system that will halt the negative slide and set us up for real growth after we emerge from this recession. I dont like future debt any more than the next man but given the circumstances we must do what is best in the face of a multifaceted problem. Let me know, republicans, when you guys come up with a reasonable response.
This is a protest against a BLACK president; nothing else, but they have a long wait to go (8 more years).
These are all little babies following the Right Wing Machine of destruction forgettting the fact that these are all GOP taxes they are protesting!!!
I say we let the banking and insurance industry fail. That will show them why they have been bailed out. How can it be shown that these bailouts are not meant to "turn things around?" They are simply being put in place in order to save this sinking ship and stabilize an economy that is in retirement. You must have a banking and insurance industry to continue cash flow in order that we remain capitalist. The auto industry is a different story, there is absolutely no need to bail them out. The government should simply buy the auto companies out at their current price of pennies on the dollar. After this transition is complete they should easily be sold to foreign investors and let them do whatever they want with that industry. It would take the industry off our hands which we have no need for anyway. Their products don't trade globally so they do not fit in the world economy and therefore have no use to us. Protest that if anything. But arguing that not bailing out the banking industry is like asking for you money to just be taken out from under you in a much more drastic for than our current tax rate, which is virtually nothing compared to other countries.
How much better our country would be if FOX NEWS were truly,FAIR & Balanced. By the way, does Fox News go out over the public airwaves?
The first AIG bailouts were passed in 2005 by a republican House AND a republican Senate AND a republican president. Where was the outrage then? This is nothing but partisan hypocrisy!
Fair is Fair April 15th, 2009 2:04 pm ET
Know what I wish?
Just for 1 item on this ticker… JUST 1… the only people who were allowed to post actually paid income taxes – even a dime.
Granted, that would go against free speech rules, but I would bet the farm that the number of anti-Bush, anti-Business, and for that matter, anti-American posts would be near zero.
Or it would just prove that you labor under serious delusions about the people you disagree with.
Nice addition of 'anti-American' there, brown shirt. Bravo.
CLASSLESS ACT – what about the 23 billion in foreign financing the United States Government gives? I'm waiting for outrage! Check the government website and go back and do the Bush years too.
AMAZING
Disgruntled Republicans who yearn for huge tax breaks from the Bush Administration.
Ah yes...the national right-wing, post-election temper tantrum.
Listen closely and see if you can tell what this is really all about. It's ostensbily about taxes, until they are confronted by the fact that their taxes have recently gone down, then they meander off onto a whole list of other "issues."
I saw an interview with one fellow at one of these things who was saying "We are tired of our voices not being heard." Now...this person was white, male, middle class, presumably strait and Christian. He is a part of the majority voice ACROSS THE BOARD! Additionally, it Also, occured to me that we just had an election recently. How is it that voices aren't being heard?
To all those spouting off bs about the trillion dollar budget and dividing it by the number of people in the country: Guess what? Corporations will bear a large amount of that burden. This probably comes as a big surprise since your party enjoys corporate tax breaks so much.
And libs aren't angry about any of the events today – we're greatly amused. Gives me something to take my mind off things at work (yes, I said work. I actually make a living for myself & pay my taxes happily.)
This is just another Republican gimmick posing as a legitimate idea or alternative. Of the last 7 presidential terms over the past 28 years (two Reagan terms, one Bush Sr. term, 2 Clinton terms, and two Bush Jr. terms), the deficit skyrocketed under each Republican president, and the only president to post a balanced budget and/or surplus was the Democrat Clinton! So let's talk about who's fiscally responsible here!
It was 20 years of "trickle-down" and "supply-side" voodoo economics that got us into this mess, and it's going to take some time to get us out of it. Obama is doing what is necessary to turn things around, which incidentally includes a tax cut for 95% of all Americans. So Republicans, stop your whining!!
Incidentally, for Chuck Norris, Todd Palin, and all the other right-wing extremists who are waving the Declaration of Independence, resurrecting the image of the Boston Tea Party, and talking about seceding from the US of A, I think that the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, settled that question rather effectively!!
Hmm, it is pretty sad because most of the tea party goers are not educated enough to get the big picture. Luckily there were enough of us last November to put the correct leaders in charge. You guys can have your tea bagging parties, I guess it's up for the rest of us to work to resolve the hard issues at hand.
I am telling all my friends to pay their taxes with plastic, then default and file for bankruptcy, let the banks bail them out now.
Funny how this report comes out today and Obama says yesterday that things are improving and on schedule, but wait for it sheep, WITH NO ACTUAL PROOF OF WHAT HE IS SAYING and this "report" has NO ACTUAL PROOF EITHER.
This is timed to offset a large group of ALL people that are not happy with what Bush did and are FOUR TIMES AS TICKED WITH WHAT OBAMA is doing and ALL of these people are mad as hell and not extremists, but REGULAR folks.
The majority of you paid Liberal bloggers and others USED to be on the side of less taxes and less fraud and less waste while sitting at your tables or at the local barbershop, BUT now that this waste, taxes and fraud is packaged under the myth of "Hope and change" all is OK and the world is great and we are loved again and I love dogs and...
And as a Veteran, the association that somehow Veterans are bad as well, goes beyong the pale in my eyes, as this NEVER served a day or wore a uniform "Commander in thief" has shown his true beliefs to many of us.
One and done Barry, the REVOLUTION started today.