TEA PARTY BELLYACHING

Here are pieces of a local article from the Salt Lake Tribune complete with my comments.

2,000 protest taxes, spending in Salt Lake City
Rally » Speakers say government spending threatens freedom.

Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12149069
electronic scrapbook entry for Updated: 15 April 2009
By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune

ARTICLE An estimated 2,000 people weathered a cold, wet snow Wednesday in downtown Salt Lake City in a vocal protest of wasteful government spending and taxes, joining a handful of similar rallies around the state and dozens of others across the country.

Protesters perched on planters or huddled under umbrellas as speakers decried federal bailouts of failing banks and companies, mounting federal debt and elected officials who are out of touch, chanting over and over, "Send them home."

Utah Democrats said that the tax protests were orchestrated by right-wing radio but ignore that the Bush administration added trillions to the national debt.

The crowd repeatedly booed Utah's senators, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, for being part of the problem.

MY COMMENT Senator Hatch should have retired three terms ago back in 1994. Senator Bennett should retire this year. Three terms of him is quite enough to last us a lifetime, especially in a state like Utah with so much political talent ready to serve.


ARTICLE . . . . and chastised Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for not sending back $1.6 billion of stimulus money the state is expected to receive.

MY COMMENT ANY POLITICIAN WHO SENDS MONEY BACK IN TIMES OF CRISIS IS QUITE OUT O F HIS SKULL.


ARTICLE Hatch said in a statement that he shares the protesters' outrage.

MY RESPONSE: Where would the Senator be without funds raised by taxation?


ARTICLE Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who is considering challenging Bennett for his Senate seat, said Utahns don't need government "wiping our noses and putting Band-Aids on our boo-boos."

"The time for talk is over. Now is the time for action," said Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "Don't give us your entitlement. Don't take care of us. Get out of our lives and let us take care of ourselves."

MY RESPONSE Another example of the myth of self reliance. How do we do national defense ourselves. How do we do health care ourselves without Medicaid and Medicare? How do we sustain ourselves when corruption in private enterprise wiped out our retirements and Social Security does not exist.


ARTICLE The federal budget deficit is projected to reach $1.75 trillion this year, driven to record levels by repeated stimulus and bailouts.

"I've got to tell you, I'm fired up. No more bailouts, no more stimulus!" said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. "We cannot be all things to all people in this country. We can't keep running this country on a credit card."

MY RESPONSE: The Republicans have no credibility on this subject at all. They supported Ronald Reagan who cut taxes and then increased various types of spending including wasteful military spending and who thus increased the national debt and deficit spending. They supported George Bush who cut taxes and the Bill of Rights and increased wasteful military spending and then bailed out various Wall Street companies in crisis at the end of his term.


ARTICLE Author Candace Salima warned that what she sees as a trend toward socialism would destroy the country.

"Have we had enough of high taxes? Have we had enough of big government? Have we had enough of socialism?" she called to the crowd, answered each time with cheers and shouts. "We do not apologize for being Americans. We are done having Europe telling us what to do."

MY RESPONSE: Just who in the private sector has any credibility to help out in this crisis? Just who in the private sector is in fact doing anything to stimulate the economy?


ARTICLE Utah Democrats say state residents' share of the tax cut is about $500 million.

A report issued Monday by the liberal-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said that the median tax burden for a family of four in 2006 -- the most recent data available -- had crept up slightly since 2003, when it was at the lowest level since 1955.

A Gallup poll released this week found that 48 percent of respondents thought their tax burden was about right; 46 percent said it was too high. It was the highest favorable rating since Gallup began conducting the poll in 1956.

More than half of those making less than $75,000 a year thought their burden was about right. Sixty-one percent said the tax system is fair.

But those people were not in attendance Wednesday.

"I'm just fed up with paying more taxes than I need to," said Stacey Guerra, of Salt Lake City, who attended the event with her husband and daughter.

MY RESPONSE: We all hear this sort of middle class bellyache all the time from our friends and relatives and coworkers. I find it hard to take any of this green-eyed hypocrisy seriously. Everyone has at least three favorite government programs that everyone believes must be funded to the max, except that people do not want to pay taxes themselves. So as a result, people gripe about bureaucracy – other people’s bureaucracies.

Those who preach self reliance should realize that self reliance is a myth. We cannot do national defense by ourselves. Our poor and aged cannot do health care without Medicare and Medicaid. Where would our seniors be without social security? The wicked of the financial private sector pillaged the various retirement accounts. The financial private sector certainly failed us in stock markets and retirement accounts.

Everyone has two or three pet federal programs that they insist be funded to the maximum. In practice, this means that means that government will always grow bigger.