The Billionaires For Bush celebrate tax day with a pimp, April 2005.
First of all, Happy Tax Day everyone. However, if you're one of our more conservative readers, you're probably mighty whipped up about it, thanks to Fox News and their endless attempts to convince you the government doesn't need your money and it would be better to run up incredible deficits so Glenn Beck can stay wealthy.
Then you heard about these right-wing tea parties, which have nothing to do with the Founding Fathers and their fiestas in Boston and everything to do with total idiocy...
This morning, we spoke with Chuck Collins, the famed lefty activist and senior scholar at the Institute For Policy Studies, about these confusing protests. Here is an explanation:
What do you think of the tea party protests?
Protests are healthy in a democracy, but these Tea Parties are a phony
grassroots “Astroturf” campaign, orchestrated by anti-tax,
anti-government groups.
They are trying to channel the public’s anger toward Wall Street greed toward taxes and the Obama economic plan.
The problem is the Big Disconnect. Most Americans are getting a tax cut this April 15th. People aren’t complaining about their taxes –they are fearful for the economy. They are rooting for President Obama to fix the economy –and dig us out of the horrific mess that he inherited.
Who is behind this?
It's a stunt organized by Freedom Works, a right-wing organization funded
by the Koch family, an oil billionaire business. Their agenda is to
shrink government, and cut taxes. They are not AGAINST Wall Street greed – they ARE Wall Street Greed. They are pretending to be patriots on tax day –but they are doing the King’s bidding and Wall Street’s program.
Without the Koch millions –and Fox News infomercials, these demonstrations would not gain much ground.
Is there a cause to protest?
Something to protest is the fact that we have two tax codes in this
country –one for the wealthy and another for the rest of us. The
effective tax rate on the richest 1 percent has declined by 50 percent
since 1955. The “great tax shift” has reduced taxes on the wealthy.
For more, see “Reversing the Great Tax Shift: Seven Steps to Finance Recovery Fairly” at IPS.
Media Matters for America President Eric Burns also weighs in on Fox News’ tea party hysteria:
“It
is absurd that a news network that claims to be ‘fair and balanced’ is
actively encouraging its viewers to engage in anti-Obama political
activism. However, this is par for the course for Fox News. The network
has been seized by the culture of conservative paranoia that has run
rampant since President Obama’s inauguration, with its hosts accusing
the president of every ‘-ism’ in the book and making increasingly dire and irresponsible predictions about the consequences that Obama’s policies will have for the country.”
Check out a rundown of background information on Fox News' promotion of these suspicious "tea parties."
This site is also chockful of stories about how right-wing fronts are practically bribing people to show up and keep the manufactured momentum going.
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