Published: April 14, 2009 09:44 am      

On the Right Side: Let's act against tax burden

Well, according to the Tax Foundation of Washington, D.C., Monday was tax freedom day.

This is the date that, on average, we have paid off all levels of government for the year and can start keeping what we work hard for.

Basically, we work 103 days for the government and allow it to keep wasting our money; and Obama, not even three months into his reign, is setting records as to the amount he wants to waste. To put it another way, we pay more in taxes than we spend on housing, food and clothing combined.

We New Yorkers even have it worse. We are ranked third-highest of all 50 states. That means all levels of government keep sucking the money out of our wallets until April 25. Only New Jersey and Connecticut are worse than we are (barely).

Great job, Governor Paterson. The sooner you're out of office, the better off we all are (I hope). Alaskans had their governments paid the soonest. They're done by March 23, more than a month sooner than we are.

Hmmm, now who runs Alaska? Congratulations, Governor Palin. Tennessee, my eventual home state, has a freedom day of April 5.

That makes Wednesday more important than ever. This is the day that more than 3,000 towns and cities across the country will be holding their TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties.

Haven't heard about it? Of course you haven't. Most, if not all, of the mainstream media have chosen not to report about this event. Too bad our future budding journalists aren't taught to just report the news, no matter what it is, even when you don't agree with it.

A class in Ethics 101 would probably help also.

Fortunately, the conventional media are becoming less and less relevant. Won't it be great when these biased, liberal bastions are out of business? It will be a great day for everyone when the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post and others like them have to close their doors for the final time.

Back to Wednesday's TEA parties. The number of parties is growing every minute, even at this late date. You can go to taxdayteaparty.com for the complete list. There are 30 pages of cities and towns! New York state alone has more than 85 sites.

Those closest to us include Albany, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Binghamton, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., and, most recently, Norwich, 9 a.m. to noon. Many of these 3,000-plus sites are expecting numbers in the thousands.

Remember the Million Man March in 1995? The media swooned and salivated over this event, giving Louis Farrakhan all the publicity he wanted, months in advance. Even though Louie predicted attendance of 3 million to 5 million, he had to settle for numbers in the range of 400,000 to 800,000. Let's see how Wednesday's numbers compare.

Go to teapartyday.com to see the issues, in addition to repressive taxes, that will be addressed. Most common-sense Americans will agree with most, if not all, of them.

To list a few, the site asks, "Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who vote for a $500 billion tax bill without even reading it, are spending trillions of dollars, leaving a debt our great-grandchildren will be paying, and want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?"

The same fed-up question is also applied to social issues. Do you want a Congress and president who "force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will, want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections, want to appoint a defender of child pornography to the No. 2 position in the Justice Department, want to punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?"

Go to the site to see the other important issues. Let's go and show Barack we aren't going to stand for his version of "ethics" much longer.

So, let's see how big a success tomorrow's parties will be. Better yet, let's see if the mainstream media report on the event, either before or after they take place.

Will they be professional and unbiased and report the facts or even the events, or will they continue to be the increasingly irrelevant supermarket rags they are becoming?

Tomorrow might answer that question.

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Tom Sears is a professor of accounting at Hartwick College in Oneonta. He can be reached at SearsT@hartwick.edu. His column appears every other week.