by John Durant

Created on: April 25, 2009

What is the significance of the April 15 mock Tea Parties? The mock Tea Parties were a public protest against high taxes and the recent spending bills designed to jump start the US economy. Most of the participants were conservative partisans who joined the protest in support of a grassroots movement to revive the desperate and rapidly crumbling Republican party.

Republicans have always fought to decrease taxes and government spending, but in recent years they've increased spending without raising enough tax revenue to cover the larger so-called "conservative" budgets. Partly because of the tax revenue shortfalls caused by the Bush tax cuts, the Bush Administration and their supporters created the largest budget deficits in our nation's history. Now the current administration is forced to pass large spending bills to reverse the economic disaster left by these "financial conservatives".

Most respected economists agree that the large current government spending bills are a necessary evil at this point to reverse our nation's economic free-fall, but these Tea Party participants believe that even though they supported the administration that brought us to the brink of ruin, they should bear no financial responsibility for the pain and economic destruction they've brought upon the US and the global economy. Where's their sense of financial responsibility now? If you spend a lot you'll have to pay more taxes; that's just part of life, isn't it?

Do you sit down at your favoriterestaurant, order the most expensive entrees on the menu along with a hundred dollars worth of drinks and then walk out without paying? That's what these folks would like to do. These Tea Party folks supported every big government spending bill during the Bush administration, and now they'd like to just wash their hands of the whole thing and move on as if nothing happened. They blindly supported an administration that squandered an inherited treasury surplus, and who looked the other way while thieves pillaged Wall Street. Ironically, it's these same Bush supporters who staged a mock Tea Party to protest the necessary spending needed to pull our nation out of this current financial crisis.

I often wonder what makes these folks think that they're sacrificing too much by paying taxes, especially when our soldiers are sacrificing their lives for these selfish greedy self-proclaimed patriots! As a veteran, I'm sickened by those who complain about paying taxes every time I see another flag-draped coffin

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