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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This is a big JOKE, most people got some more money in their pay check last payday, if so your taxes was reduces by President Obama plan, Gop used this day to get in to your pocket or raise money for them it not helping you. Now if you made over $250,000last year you mite be mad. Congress or the President Obama didn't get a tax break. Some of the people in the picture got a tax break more money in their pay check. Waste of money and tea
This silly little display by the Fox comedy channel and their GOP lackies is further proof that the GOP has nothing positive to offer the country.What has happened to ther Grand Old Party? Thankfully, we elected an intelligent and energetic President to lead us out of the crisis created by 8 years of Republican mistakes.
Government needs an overhaul. If they cannot curtail their stupied spending then they need to be replaced!! Anyone with even at least an IQ of 10 knows you cannot spend and borrow your way out of debt! Thus the tea parties! Neither one of our current parties demmies or republicans know anything at all about managing money! The worst of the lot is the timmie tax cheat! The group in congress(both parties) including the president have no clue how to manage money or create jobs. They are just destroying jobs – less tax dollars – so they spend more and borrow more from china. Thus the TEA PARTIES! AMERICAN TAX PAYERS ARE SICK AND TIRED OF BEING RIPPED OFF BY THE PEOPLE WE ELECT AND PAY THEIR SALARIES. 90% TAX TO ALL FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.
In September when the first Great Bailout was being voted on I along with Millions of others became vary alarmed and for the first time felt the need to call, write, e-mail Congress to say vote "NO"!
We where ignored.....then even more alarming spending was up for a vote, again we send a clear message of “NO"!
We the People have an American Spirit which is alive and well and ready to Kick Butt!
We are awake and ready to show the government that they work for us and when we say NO! We mean NO!
Today is just the start.........
We completely support the President's plans while also supporting those who oppose him and the administration to exercise their right to protest:) We would encourage all those who make comments on these websites to please check all the facts from non-partisan sources.
Wow, I guess according to the DHS, those are "Right-Winged Extremists."
Wait...I love my country, my family, and my freedom. Oh my goodness, I'M a Right-Winged Extremist.
I've only been to two protests:
1) 2000 Recount – To ask that all the votes in Florida be counted
2) Iraq War – To ask that we not engage in an unprovoked attack
What is it that these protesters are asking for? What options do they offer (practical ones, not just the usual "cut taxes, reduce government spending" maxim that has lost all meaning by now) to counter the governments actions?
Look at th epics, how many of these "protesters" are making 250K? So then they are celebrating Obama lowering their taxes? If not, what again are they protesting? They wouldn't be racist would they?
Why arent they at work?
I thought that Tea Parties were to protest "taxation without representation." These rich phonies had representation for eight years, made a mint of money while middle America bled, and now they're whining because their corrupt Republican party LOST. Boo Hoo. But it's just another day of lies and tinfoil hats for the conservatives.... pathetic.
Nobody told me it was Halloween already
It is not going to work! To make the claim that the United States is going through the very same things that the colonies went through before the Revolutionary War is NUTS! Then, we had no representation but NOW we have had a drunken Republican president who spent far,far more than a Democrat could ever spend to get us to where we are currently. The idiocy which the Republicans stoop is beyond reason. First, they get us into trouble and then blame everyone else for getting us into trouble. The Iraq war is off-of-the-books accounting, all three trillion dollars of it which must be paid for! Big Oil was allowed to get hundreds of billions of dollars which should have been intended for the auto industry. Kind of like the Buggy Whip industry getting saved though the Buggy industry sinks, this is madness! And all due to Republicans who set this economy upside-down! Can't call Democrats greedy because this was entirely due to Republicans!
Americans need to go back to their history books, the Boston Tea Party was not about high taxes, it was about taxation being enacted without colonial representation in the British Parliment!
From Wikipedia:
"The protest movement that culminated with the Boston Tea Party was not a dispute about high taxes. The price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act of 1773. Protestors were instead concerned with a variety of other issues. The familiar "no taxation without representation" argument, along with the question of the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies, remained prominent. Some regarded the purpose of the tax program—to make leading officials independent of colonial influence—as a dangerous infringement of colonial rights. This was especially true in Massachusetts, the only colony where the Townshend program had been fully implemented."
sources:
Thomas, Peter D. G. The Townshend Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-19-822967-4.
Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. Originally published 1964. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-930350-05-7.
What exactly are they protesting? Haven't they been paying their taxes all these years? What gives?
There's something about burning tea-bags seems pitiful. Dumping large containers of tea in to the water was a grandiose gesture meant to imply non-reliance on Britain for a staple of everday life, a sort of, "you want to raise super high taxes on everything without including us on the decision? Well take you tea and shove-it" mentality.
Thing is, these protesters have congression representatives, and while I appreciate citizenry collecting in mass powers of people o allert their elected representatives to real concerns, I think these tea-bagging gatherins have struck out on the imagery department. It's just too easy to contrast any activity today with the Boston Tea Party.
Obama and his cohorts don't know what they are doing – however they do have an Agenda; and that Agenda is not in the interests of Americans folks.
Obama appointed a Los Angeles Times reporter as counsel to the Defense Dept (we are still laughing)....and reading her articles makes one sick to their stomach – if she's not a traitor then I"m a monkey's aunt. So many of Obama's friends\associates are not good honest Americans.
Joan B
Mn
First of all, the taxes people are "protesting" are BUSH administration taxes – LAST YEAR'S taxes. President Obama has nothing to do with those, since he didn't take office until JANUARY 2009.
Second – this is a corporate-organized "protest", not a grass-roots movement.
Third – 95 percent of Americans are already starting to receive TAX CUTS from the Obama plan – that's LOWER TAXES FOR 95 PERCENT OF US. So why protest LOWER TAXES?
I feel sorry for the people who are "protesting" today – they are doing nothing so much as demonstrating their ignorance, selfishness, susceptibility to manipulation, and stupidity.
And the double entendre...that's priceless :)!
With my teabag I am going to steam a bath, light up a candle and steep my tea for a good jolt of caffeine. In the meantime, I am going to work hard for the country instead of wasting my time at these sophmoric parties.... just bitter people with bitter tea.
Obama has the DHS going after all Americans who do not vote lib while turning a blind eye to every Islamic sucide bomber and other real terrorists who actually want to kill Americans all over the globe.
According to Obama and the DHS, our brave men and women returing home after fighting for our freedom are to be labelled terrorists but those who actually want to kill Americans in the name of some god are to never be refered to as that.
Keep in mind that almost every dem in America agreees with this.
CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO
I am watching and trying to figure out what these protestors are protesting...seems more about losing the election and sour grapes, increasing Fox News' ratings and trying to fill the Republican coffers.
It was a populist movement...now it is now full of rhetoric, half truths and outright lies that Doug likes to promote.
I see Michael Steele was able to deevie up about 20 in that picture for the tea party!! The conservatives are a joke!! Can't get mad at them because they are too funny!! They should have been having this same tea party for Bush out if control spending, lies and corruptions!!
Have a cup a tea on that one conservatives!! LOL.
I am all for people's right to protest things they don't like, so no problem with them doing so. In my opinion, though, the "tea parties" are really stupid and many people attending are hypocritical. Supposedly it is not a GOP movement, but conservatives are the ones that have really been promoting it. How hypocritical they are. Worried about our debt NOW? Worried about tax burdens NOW? Why not six years ago, five years ago, four years ago??????? It looks EXTREMELY partisan to me. Complaining about money we NEED to spend in order to save our economy thanks to many years of trickle down policies that don't work and lack of regulation. The sorriest part is duping lower and middle income people to protest a small tax increase on the wealthy that STILL doesn't bring the wealthy's tax rate back to where it was in the 90s (and gee that tax rate didn't harm growth then did it?). It really is pathetic.
These are nothing but Klan rallies in disguise. President Obama has lowered taxes on 95% of Americans. I highly doubt any of those losers with the signs make more than $250,000 a year. If they did, they'd be at work instead of making asses of themselves. I realize this might be too "racy" to post, but I hope someone reads it.
It would be one thing if massive amounts of people were revolting, but these "parties" are being sponsored and funded by Right Wing special interest groups. Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and the like are amplifying coverage because of their own conservative special interest backing ($$$)... Unfortunately in this day and age, other news agencies follow suit and report what is elsewhere being reported, regardless of merit.
Politics is disturbing.
Where were these people last year? And the year before that?
On a side note, I'm getting very, very tired of people attaching "Socialism" to Obama's name. He's NOT a Socialist. McCain admitted it, Romney admitted it, everyone who knows what Socialism is, says Obama is not a Socialist. He's a Capitalist, the same as Bush. You remember Bush, right? The one who STARTED all this Bailout crud?
"Socialist" is the new N word among Limbots, and they don't even know what it means. It is to laugh.