Tea Party protest draws angry taxpayers

This is an awesome idea, and of course is spawned by our early founders who, in 1773, protested a harsh tax on tea by dumping tea into the Boston Haber. In very much the same way, throughout the nation on April 15, many angry taxpayers will be conducting another "tea party" of their own. The following story is just one example of this.

East Bay conservatives say they are TEA'd off — taxed enough already.
The sentiment is expected to spur hundreds of local residents to join the nationwide "Tea Party" movement at a Pleasanton protest April 15, which is not coincidentally that most beloved American deadline to file tax returns.

Organizer Bridget Melson, a psychologist and owner of a Pleasanton psychiatric practice, says as many as 1,000 people have signed up to attend the Pleasanton Tea Party at Amador Valley Community Park.

Angry taxpayers will protest, listen to speakers, sign petitions and send faux tea bags to their elected representatives. Targets of the East Bay taxpayers' ire include the Tri-Valley's congressional representative, Jerry McNerney, of Pleasanton, along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

People are fed up with taxpayer-funded bailouts of banks and car companies, rising sales taxes, talk of new parcel taxes for ailing schools and the $787 billion economic stimulus package, Melson said.

"People are hurting right now," Melson said.
The tea party movement got its start in February when CNBC commentator Rick Santelli railed from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange floor about what he called federal mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.

"We're thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July," he said.

The original tea party, of course, was in 1773 when American settlers, angered over a new British tax on tea, boarded ships anchored in the Boston harbor and dumped the tea cargo into the water.

Over time, the tea party has come to symbolize unhappiness with taxes and the way the government spends them.

Sandi Tierney of Danville says she and colleagues at the Blackhawk Republican Women Federated have held a half-dozen tea party protests in the past few months alongside several of the area's major traffic intersections.

"We have signs and flags and we've even had people stop, talk to us and then go home and come back with their spouse and join the protest," Tierney said.
The Tea Party protest may get a lot more popular come Tax Day.

As of late Monday, TeaPartyDay.com reported that Tax Day events were scheduled in 1,817 cities, including Pleasanton and the Capitol in Sacramento.

In another measure of the tea party's populist appeal, a Web site that aggregates conservative blogs, NetRightNation.com, contained dozens of entries about the movement.

There is a great film dealing with this issue of Income tax called From Freedom to Fascism. Click on this link and watch it!