Tea Anyone?

As most informed citizens are I'm sure already aware, today April 15th there were over 700 tea protests being held around the country including some here in New Hampshire.

I'm making a couple predictions in advance of the stories we will see in the April 16th news papers.

1) The Boston Globe will have a negative spin in their coverage.

2) Most of the national news sources covering the protests will focus on any fringe or extremists that attend and you'll see pictures of these individuals and not of the crowds.

3) Politicians are going to down play the whole event.

The 3rd isn't really a prediction since it's already happening.  Several Democrats have already attempted to dismiss the events claiming they are right wing extremists.  However that isn't the case.  Yesterday prove it for me.

As pointed out in Steve MacDonald's article about Merrimack's election, my wife was running for school board so she and I were standing out at two of the three poling locations in Merrimack holding signs.  This year's election was very civil and everyone regardless of political spectrum all got along.  As I was standing with my wife's sign one of those holding a sign for one of the two running for town clerk asked if I was attending any of the tea protests.  I unfortunately can't make any of them so I said so but the person on the other side of me holding the sign for the other town clerk candidate said they too were going and asked which one they were attending.  Quickly the conversation grew and come to find out every single person with the exception of my self who was holding signs planned on attending.  Every side of the political spectrum was covered and they were all together on protesting against government spending.

Now the question I have is what will come of this.  If we allow politicians to brush it off as they've already begun doing then why bother protesting?  How do we make sure this isn't ignored and forgotten like the penny toll protests we saw in Merrimack?  How do we guilt politicians into feeling them must listen to the majority of us who want less government and lower taxes?

Part of it is consistency and repetition.  Republicans have been too hypocritical and not complained when their own were in control (such as Bush) and deficit spending took place, granted it was no where near the level we are seeing now.  And Democrats too are just as hypocritical as we have heard them for years now complaining about Bush and Reagan and point to Clinton as the role model since he (and the republican house and senate) were able to balance the budget and at the very least slow down the national debt but yet now those same Democrats are silent.  Some in fact are even taking the opposite stance claiming we need to rebuild "infrastructure" and attempting now to justify the unbelievable level of spending which dwarf's even the highest deficit levels of Bush or Reagan.

So I hope this is the dawning of a new age.  An age when we begin to push for smaller government and an age when we begin to hold politicians from all sides of the political spectrum accountable for their actions.

Comments

[Michael Marsh]

Richard:

Two or three hundred thousand people attended rallies across the country. What do you think should happen? The results of the election in November should be overturned? It seems to me we have an election process every 2 years, and that's where we decide who will represent us.

IAs far as deficit spending, my sense is the current massive deficits are in response to a very specific set of events, and are based on pretty mainstream economic theory. When private demand collapses, as it has, there are 2 choices: sit back and watch the economy crash, or replace private demand with public demand. This is the course that Obama chose.

[Rick Barnes]

Yes a couple hundred thousand people did take time away from work and their families and spoke out against the government. And I'm willing to bet that for every single person that went there were a couple more like myself who were for different reasons unable to attend.

The government works for us, we don't work for them so when people speak out in loud volumes as we saw this week I expect the government to listen.

I also disagree with you that there were only two choices. Most working Americans see 30 to 50 percent of their paycheck each and every week taken from them in taxes. If tomorrow government spending was cut back drastically to the point we paid only 20% in taxes what do you think would happen to the economy? If every working American suddenly saw a 10 to 30 percent increase in their take home pay don't you think that would give the economy a boost? I personally have several projects I would hire out for around my house which currently I can't afford. Each one of them would create a job for another American. Isn't that the idea here? To help create jobs so we have less reliance on government? But since I pay so much I can't afford to hire someone and I end up doing the work myself to save money. That person I would have other wised hired now needs government assistance and the cycle feeds itself.