|
|
| Capital Gains Tax |
Consumption Tax |
Corporation Tax |
Business Taxes |
| Environment Affecting Taxes |
Excise Tax |
Income Tax |
Inheritance Tax |
| Poll Tax |
Property Taxes |
Retirement Tax |
Sales Tax |
| Tariffs |
Transfer Tax |
Gasoline Taxes |
Value Added Tax |
Search for more information about taxes.
Tax Day becomes Tax Protest Day April 15, 2009
By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS
Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states
will hold rallies -- dubbed "tea parties" -- to protest higher taxes and
out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind
these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group
like MoveOn.org.
Reuters
A rally and march in protest of higher taxes in Santa Barbara, Calif.,
April 4.
.So who's behind the Tax Day tea parties? Ordinary folks who are using
the power of the Internet to organize. For a number of years, techno-geeks
have been organizing "flash crowds" -- groups of people, coordinated by
text or cellphone, who converge on a particular location and then do something
silly, like the pillow fights that popped up in 50 cities earlier this
month. This is part of a general phenomenon dubbed "Smart Mobs" by Howard
Rheingold, author of a book by the same title, in which modern communications
and social-networking technologies allow quick coordination among large
numbers of people who don't know each other.
In the old days, organizing large groups of people required, well, an
organization: a political party, a labor union, a church or some other
sort of structure. Now people can coordinate themselves.
We saw a bit of this in the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, with
things like Howard Dean's use of Meetup, and Barack Obama's use of Facebook.
But this was still social-networking in support of an existing organization
or campaign. The tea-party protest movement is organizing itself, on its
own behalf. Some existing organizations, like Newt Gingrich's American
Solutions and FreedomWorks, have gotten involved. But they're involved
as followers and facilitators, not leaders. The leaders are appearing on
their own, and reaching out to others through blogs, Facebook, chat boards
and alternative media.
The protests began with bloggers in Seattle, Wash., who organized a
demonstration on Feb. 16. As word of this spread, rallies in Denver and
Mesa, Ariz., were quickly organized for the next day. Then came CNBC talker
Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 "rant heard round the world" in which he called
for a "Chicago tea party" on July Fourth. The tea-party moniker stuck,
but angry taxpayers weren't willing to wait until July. Soon, tea-party
protests were appearing in one city after another, drawing at first hundreds,
and then thousands, to marches in cities from Orlando to Kansas City to
Cincinnati.
As word spread, people got interested in picking a common date for nationwide
protests, and decided on today, Tax Day, as the date. As I write this,
various Web sites tracking tea parties are predicting anywhere between
300 and 500 protests at cities around the world. A Google Map tracking
planned events, maintained at the FreedomWorks.org Web site, shows the
United States covered by red circles, with new events being added every
day.
The movement grew so fast that some bloggers at the Playboy Web site
-- apparently unaware that we've entered the 21st century -- suggested
that some secret organization must be behind all of this. But, in fact,
today's technology means you don't need an organization, secret or otherwise,
to get organized. After considerable ridicule, the claim was withdrawn,
but that hasn't stopped other media outlets from echoing it.
There's good news and bad news in this phenomenon for establishment
politicians. The good news for Republicans is that, while the Republican
Party flounders in its response to the Obama presidency and its programs,
millions of Americans are getting organized on their own. The bad news
is that those Americans, despite their opposition to President Obama's
policies, aren't especially friendly to the GOP. When Republican National
Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago tea party,
his request was politely refused by the organizers: "With regards to stage
time, we respectfully must inform Chairman Steele that RNC officials are
welcome to participate in the rally itself, but we prefer to limit stage
time to those who are not elected officials, both in Government as well
as political parties. This is an opportunity for Americans to speak, and
elected officials to listen, not the other way around."
Likewise, I spoke to an organizer for the Knoxville tea party who said
that no "professional politicians" were going to be allowed to speak, and
he made a big point of saying that the protest wasn't an anti-Obama protest,
it was an anti-establishment protest. I've heard similar things from tea-party
organizers in other cities, too. Though critics will probably try to write
the tea parties off as partisan publicity stunts, they're really a post-partisan
expression of outrage.
Of course, it won't be the same everywhere. There are no national rules,
and organizers of each protest are doing things the way they want. And
that's the good news and the bad news for Democrats. It's not a big Republican
effort. It's a big popular effort. But a mass movement of ordinary people
who don't feel that their voices are being heard doesn't bode well for
the party that positioned itself as the organ of hope and change.
Will these flash crowds be a flash in the pan? It's possible that people
who demonstrate today will find that experience cathartic enough -- or
exhausting enough -- that that will be it. But it's more likely that the
tea-party movement will have an impact on the 2010 and 2012 elections,
and perhaps beyond.
What's most striking about the tea-party movement is that most of the
organizers haven't ever organized, or even participated, in a protest rally
before. General disgust has drawn a lot of people off the sidelines and
into the political arena, and they are already planning for political action
after today.
Cincinnati organizer Mike Wilson, a novice organizer who drew 5,000
people to a rally on March 15, is now planning to create a political action
committee and a permanent political organization to press for lower taxes
and reduced spending. Tucson tea party organizer Robert Mayer told me that
his organization will focus on city council elections in the fall as its
next priority. And there's lots of Internet chatter about ways of taking
things further after today's protests.
This influx of new energy and new talent is likely to inject new life
into small-government politics around the nation. The mainstream Republican
Party still seems limp and disorganized. This grassroots effort may revitalize
it. Or the tea-party movement may lead to a new third party that may replace
the GOP, just as the GOP replaced the fractured and hapless Whigs.
Mr. Reynolds is the author of "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology
Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths"
(Thomas Nelson, 2006). He will be covering the tea party protests today
at PJTV.com. |