The Privilege to Pay Taxes


Most of us pay our taxes. We may think they are too high. We may think that government fails to do what our families have to do – live within our means. We may still agree that living in our country is a blessing  . . . but it is unlikely that we believe only the "privileged" should have to pay taxes to the Federal government. But that is just what columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. of the Washington Post implies in his column on April 19, 2010. In an article titled “The Tea Party: Populism for the Privileged” he predicts the failure of the Tea Party movement because it is not a true “populist” movement.  He describes the Tea party as a political exercise for the "privileged." This term privileged is used because a recent survey indicated (as reported in a New York Times article) that supporters of the Tea Party movement are wealthier than the average American. If your income is 1% above the national mean, then you are a member of the privileged class. It is interesting that another recent survey found that 47% of Americans pay no income tax.  One interpretation of these surveys could be that only 4% of Americans pay income tax and are not considered part of the privileged class.  According to the Washington Post, those of us who are privileged have no right to claim the term “populist.” And, according to Mr. Dionne, if a movement in America is not populist, it is destined to fail.  I’m not looking for a fight over the term populist but I do think the Tea Party is a reasonable and democratic reaction against the policies of the Obama administration and the Democratic controlled congress.  It is a ground swell of the people – people who see their liberty being compromised by progressive fascists. The Tea Party movement may not be the definitive answer but it certainly could be the town crier calling us out to man the barricades – and that sounds populist to me.