It's the Circle of Life

I turn on the news to find one of the more interesting headlines I have seen in years.

"Protesters Teabagging White House."

.......ok, I guess that's one way of showing your displeasure.

All joking aside it is interesting to see the other side protesting now. The most amazing thing to me is how similar it seems. We saw a lot of protests during President Bush as Anti-War etc, and now we have the other side in an Anti-Tax protest. Other than the themes the protests are strikingly similar. It almost makes me wonder if all the protests are done by the same group. The most important thing I guess is that they feel that their opinions are heard. I have a few concerns about the current protests.

1. If you make less than a six figure income your taxes will go down. I can't imagine that the upper class are outside in the rain with signs. Don't they hire people to do that for them? The only explanation is A they make more than 250,000 a year, B they are delusional enough to think they will make that soon, or C they don't understand what they are protesting.

2. Wasn't this the same group of people that said if you don't support the President you can leave the country? If you are going to disagree with the Government that's fine. You have every right to do so. You cannot, however, dismiss another group's arguments as "unpatriotic" simply because they disagree with the current administration, and then disagree yourself a few months later.

3. Isn't the right the party of fiscal responsibility? Isn't the right the party of smaller government? I used to think so. After presiding of amazing deficits and expansions of powers, I think its safe to assume that the small financially responsible government the right invokes is a dream at best and an outright lie at worst. When your expenditures exceed your income you can do one of two things:
A Increase income.
B Decrease expenditures.

That's it. Those are the only options, EVER. Unfortunately, there are few major ways to reduce spending. The largest possible cuts are into Military, Health care, and Education. It is political suicide to touch any of the three. It is misleading and destructive to think that a lot of money is wasted on "pork". A planetarium could be considered "pork" by one group and "downtown revitalization" by the other. The problem is that because "pork spending" is harped on so much even though it is a small percentage. This encourages people's mistrust and dislike of all things related to government. One of the best ways to cut waste would be to switch to a flat tax system, but that probably won't happen. (I am not advocating flat tax, but its potential to reduce waste and simplify taxes is staggering).

So its difficult to cut spending. One of the solutions the current administration is implementing is to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Increasing the top bracket from 36% to 39%. This was the tax level during the Clinton administration. You can dislike it. You can argue with it. You can protest it. You can even "Teabag" the White house. You can do all of these things because of the wonderful and free country you live in.

(although you are protesting wasteful spending by wasting tea????? really??)