{"id":532602,"date":"2010-04-16T17:41:09","date_gmt":"2010-04-16T21:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2011627528_teapartytalkstaxes.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-04-16T17:41:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-16T21:41:09","slug":"tea-party-talks-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/532602","title":{"rendered":"Tea party talks taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government sipping away at my hard-earned Social Security, Medicare<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

The Seattle Times April 15 story \u201cPoll tells us who tea-party backers really are\u201d [page one] concluded with a rather snide comment. Members of the tea-party movement wanted to see less spending on social programs, but were reluctant to forego their Social Security benefits, \u201c … could not explain the contradiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

What contradiction is there in wanting less government spending and not wanting to lose retirement benefits that one has bought and paid for?<\/p>\n

I remind your readers that contributing to Social Security is not an option. Those who were forced to contribute over the course of their working careers had to forgo making other retirement investments.<\/p>\n

To suggest that someone should now be willing to give up what might be the sole source of retirement income as the only means available to control government spending is ludicrous. This is nothing more than a gratuitous attempt to ridicule tea-party members who are simply asking for a little fiscal responsibility from our government.<\/p>\n

If the government gives me back all the money contributed to my Social Security and Medicare accounts over the years, plus the interest I would have earned had I simply put the money in the bank, I will be happy to give up my monthly benefits.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Joe Stella, Friday Harbor<\/em><\/p>\n

Dish out the facts, tea-party members<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tea-party protests bring us an interesting look at the sentiments running through the country.<\/p>\n

Most of us have some commonalities with the protesters, including the desire to keep government limited, eliminate waste and keep our liberties. However, there are contradictions in their statements that show how much misinformation and lack of education pervades our society.<\/p>\n

The original Boston Tea Party was a protest against a tax cut for the East India Company. The cut allowed the company to undersell American entrepreneurs, who still paid taxes, but had no representation in the British Parliament. Tea-party protesters complain about high taxes, but also complain that not enough Americans pay income taxes \u2014 though they pay payroll taxes.<\/p>\n

Protesters complain about government spending. Where were their voices when former President George W. Bush ran the deficit up from $5 to $12 billion? The spending now is moderate, reasonable and necessary to keep us out of a depression. Health-care problems are destroying Americans\u2019 freedom, yet people complain that the passage of reform that uses mostly Republican principles is a \u201cCommunist\u201d takeover.<\/p>\n

If we are going to debate these issues, we must debate them on facts and not on misconceptions perpetuated in our corporate-controlled media.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Roger Burton, Bothell<\/em><\/p>\n

Why no steam for Bush administration?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My hat goes off to the tea-party members for using their First Amendment rights and engaging in our democracy.<\/p>\n

Fiscal conservatism is a very legitimate point of view. But here is my question: Where were these folks when the Bush administration accounted for our endeavors in Iraq outside of the normal budget process in order to make the deficit appear smaller? Why were they not up in arms over no-bid contracts in Iraq, which wasted hundreds of millions of tax dollars?<\/p>\n

Where were they when Congress added new, unfunded entitlements via the Prescription Drug Act? Why were these same folks not screaming about \u201cgangster government\u201d and \u201ctyranny\u201d when Tom DeLay held a 15-minute vote open for four hours in order to strong-arm votes for this bill over the objections of fiscally minded legislators \u2014Democrat and Republican alike?<\/p>\n

Finally, just what exactly do these people suggest should have been done when the financial system was careening for the cliff and threatening to take down the global economy with it?<\/p>\n

I can relate to many tea-party concerns over the federal deficit. What I cannot relate to is its willful ignorance to how we got here.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Tara Van Niman, Redmond<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government sipping away at my hard-earned Social Security, Medicare Editor, The Times: The Seattle Times April 15 story \u201cPoll tells us who tea-party backers really are\u201d [page one] concluded with a rather snide comment. Members of the tea-party movement wanted to see less spending on social programs, but were reluctant to forego their Social Security […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}