In praise of tax day (0.00 / 0)

Found this entertaining and cogent love letter to tax day from a writer who transformed from a (clicheed) financially disorganized mess who dreaded tax day to a proud, anti-teaparty taxpayer.

Five Reasons I Totally Love Tax Day (and Why You Should Too):

1. Tax Day Forced Me to Get My Fiscal Shit Together

2. Children, It Turns Out, Are Extremely Fragile

3. George W. Bush Is No Longer President

4. Anything the Tea Partiers Are Against, I'm For

5. I Believe in Playground Justice

Expounding on point #4, Almond writes:

It's become mainstream media practice to refer to the Tea Party as a "movement." I would characterize it in slightly less heroic terms: as a series of highly publicized tantrums.

Of course, people have every right to drive (on public roads, paid for by taxes) to a meeting place (usually a public space, paid for by taxes) and to congregate to express their hatred for taxes, along with reproductive rights and gun control and anything else Barack Hussein Obama might favor. But to call these gatherings a coherent or rational response to the current administration is laughable. Obama has, after all, lowered taxes for most Americans, just not the rich ones.

The Tea Partiers represent the aggrandizement of paranoia, rage and self-pity into a political agenda. It is a "movement," created by for-profit demagogues whose sole mission is to build audience share at the expense of honest debate about our common crises of state. Its mindless and violent hatred for Tax Day stands as one of the best reasons to love Tax Day.

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that."
-Lawrence Summers

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by: kbuck @ Thu Apr 15, 2010 at 15:44:57 PM UTC

chart 1 (0.00 / 0)

Here are federal income taxes as a share of total taxes for the median family of four over the past few decades:

Shouldn't that be income?  That's how I read the link and what would make sense to me to present in a chart like this.

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by: dr anonymous @ Thu Apr 15, 2010 at 15:58:04 PM UTC

Whether cause or effect.... (0.00 / 0)

Only 12% think that they got a tax cut, despite 98% getting one...  Democratic message fail + Tea Party message win + general ignorance of the American public and, well, there you go.

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by: leshrac55 @ Thu Apr 15, 2010 at 17:02:36 PM UTC

liberal media.....my ass (0.00 / 0)

Another example of our failed media in the U.S. Near total domination of the airways and print by big money is designed to misinform the public and effectively make informed democracy impossible.

It's the only way rape-public-cans (lying party of the rich) can be competitive.

Government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob..... FDR

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by: reggiewhitefish @ Fri Apr 16, 2010 at 15:07:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Until we can offer a different narrative (0.00 / 0)

about taxes and government, pushing back on the facts won't get us very far.  

This opposition to taxes is about where the money goes (or, more accurately, where it is perceived to be going.) Same for talk of the deficit, which seems to only be an issue when a Democrat is in the White House.  

The counter-narrative has to address the belief that certain (undeserving non-wealthy) people are getting fat off government that is paid by other certain people.

Politics is the art of the possible, but that means you have to think about changing what is possible, not that you have to accept it in perpetuity.

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by: David Kaib @ Fri Apr 16, 2010 at 00:01:36 AM UTC