déjà vu [all over again]

Posted on Thursday 15 April 2010

Back in 2002, around the first anniversary of 9/11, out of the blue, the President and most of his cabinet started ranting about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. It made absolutely no sense [it still doesn’t]. I had no idea what they were talking about. Next thing we all knew, Powell was shaming himself at the U.N., then we were off to war. I never believed anything about what they said then [and still don’t]. I have that same feeling about this whole Tea Party movement. It feels "made up."
Poll: Most Find Their Income Tax Fair
New York Times

By DALIA SUSSMAN
April 14, 2010

Just ahead of Tax Day, a new New York Times/CBS News poll finds that most Americans regard the income taxes that they will have to pay this year as fair, regardless of political partisanship, ideology or income level. Sixty-two percent of all respondents in the poll said the income tax they have to pay is fair, while 30 percent called it unfair. That includes 6 in 10 Republicans and independents, and just over two-thirds of Democrats – a display of cross-party agreement rarely seen on any topic. It also includes most liberals, moderates and conservatives.

Majorities across all income groups, moreover, called their income tax fair. Sixty-two percent of Americans in households earning $50,000 or less said so, as did the same percentage of people in households earning more. Perhaps even more surprising, though, is that even among the 18 percent of Americans who say they support the Tea Party movement, more than half call their own income tax fair. Sentiment turns more sour, however, among the smaller group of Tea Party supporters who are active in the movement. Most of them, 55 percent, regard the income tax they have to pay as unfair. Thousands of Tea Party supporters gathered in Boston today for a rally near the original site of the Boston Tea Party.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted April 5-12 with 1,580 adults. For the purposes of analysis, Tea Party supporters were oversampled, for a total of 881, and then weighted back to their proper proportion in the poll. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for both all adults and Tea Party supporters. Complete poll results and article will be available this evening at www.nytimes.com…
First of all, we’re not over-taxed. In fact, we’re under-taxed by any criteria I can see. We’ve got an escalating National Debt. We’re fighting two largely un-necessary wars. We have a Financial Crisis requiring government bail-out. And, as the world goes, our taxes are way on the low side:

TAX REVENUE [AS % GDP]


Denmark 48.9     Netherlands 38.0     Ireland 32.2
Sweden 48.2     Spain 37.2     Greece 31.3
Belgium 44.4     Luxembourg 36.9     Australia 30.6
France 43.6     Portugal 36.6     Slovakia 29.8
Norway 43.4     United Kingdom 36.6     Switzerland 29.7
Italy 43.3     Czech Republic 36.4     Korea, South 28.7
Finland 43.0     Germany 36.2     United States 28.3
Austria 41.9     New Zealand 36.0     Japan 27.9
Iceland 41.4     Poland 33.5     Turkey 23.7
Hungary 39.3     Canada 33.3     Mexico 20.5

A while back, I looked into all the Republican Tax-Cuts, which were radical. It seemed like the tax-cuts were for two reasons: pander to the rich, get people to vote for them. What they didn’t do was cut spending to match so the National Debt [right] soared.
People voted for them and the rich got a lot richer [click on the graph for full view].

So, when the Tea Party Movement wound up, I had that same feeling I had back when Bush started beating the drum for going to war in Iraq. Huh? As far as I’m concerned, this whole Tea Party nonsense is a made up thing that is designed to create an issue that might get them votes and maybe let the rich get even richer. It has nothing to do with the good of the country. It’s not even good for the people advocating it. It’s a way to blame Obama for the financial irresponsibility of Reagan and the Bushes, plain and simple. In other words, it’s just another stupid Talking Point. And from this recent poll, it seems like people know it for what it is.

Our taxes are too low. End of story…

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