Have you heard about the upcoming Tea Party demonstration in Madison? Apparently, people are so fed up with paying taxes in Wisconsin that they've decided to hold a demonstration bearing the name of the protest our Founding Fathers performed years before we declared our independence.
Of course, the Founding Fathers were protesting taxation without representation while the current-day demonstrators will be protesting big government and tax increases on the rich (because we all know how great the alternative worked out for us).
Are taxes high in Wisconsin? We are within the top 10 of the most taxed states in the country on a yearly basis. But we also provide generous programs to the poor, to those who can't afford health care coverage, to those who have become unemployed (little known fact: unemployment benefits actually began in Wisconsin during the Great Depression), and so forth. Taxes also help us to sustain important services, like fire departments, schools, police, roads, etc., that private enterprise cannot provide us with.
Those who are supporting this rally are forgetful of the many benefits of living in the state of Wisconsin. Those benefits didn't happen by accident; many of them are funded through taxpayer dollars.
Before you blindly support a message of "NO MORE TAXES!" try to remember who is affected the most by a Reagonomics style of taxation -- the poor and lower middle-class workers who can't survive without a little bit of help.
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