Tee'd Off at the Tea Baggers

Darn if I can figure out the anti-tax protesters out demonstrating on the Y last week. Claiming that they are taxed enough already, they are also worried about the direction that the country is going.

But their protests don't quite jibe with reality.

I'm sure that most of you have come across the recent Tax Policy Center's factoid that 47% of American households didn't pay a dime in income taxes.  If you were married and had two kids and your adjusted income was under $50K, your income tax was $0.

Although it wasn't much, for the rest of us who made less than $200K, we were the recipients of Obama's tax cuts.  Yes, tax cuts.  For me I made 25% more in 2009 than in 2008, yet I paid $300 less in taxes.  Thanks, Mr Obama.

According to a Gallup Poll survey, 45% of people claiming to be teabaggers made less than $50K - so likely they paid little to no federal income tax.  I would bet that the number that make less than $200K pushes close to 90-95% of the protesters, so the rest received tax cuts under Obama.

Shouldn't they have been out there THANKING the President?

And the many seniors that were out there receive a $300K property tax exemption from the Kenai Borough.  Since there are no state taxes and we all get a PFD check, it is likely that quite a few of the demonstrators are in a tax-gain situation.

So, they are protesting the taxes they don't pay.

And that is not even counting those folks at the Y who are on medicare/medicaid or receive SSI benefits, or have a city/state/school district/borough/veteran/federal pensions, which, of course, are taxpayer supported and a form of the very socialism that they are complaining about.

Not one of them offers a realistic solution of course - well aside from cut spending and taxes.  But don't cut those programs that benefit them.  And not a mention of the nearly trillion dollars spent on the Iraqi War (I didn't see ANY of this crowd protesting at the Y when we were invading Iraq).  How about the billion dollars spent for the fence along the Mexican border that is nowhere near completed nor is it at all effective.  How about the 'star wars' missile defense program that has sucked billions and billions, but doesn't work? Just how much have we spent over the years on the war on drugs, yet there has been no prolonged reduction of drug use? 

If anyone is really fed-up with the feds, please walk the talk.  Give up all of your government benefits and start paying for your share of the federal money that comes to Alaska and subsidizes your lifestyle. Stop using parks, highways, airports, ambulances, fire and police departments and all of the government run and subsidized programs.

Does the US have a spending problem? Undoubtedly yes.  But I've yet to hear some serious, non-politicized discussion about what to do about the deficit. I do see the easily hoodwinked being lead around by the Limbaughs and Becks of the airwaves.

If you repeat lies, it doesn't make them true.