Hey Teabaggers, Thanks for the Hospitality
Your pals at One Wisconsin Now decided to attend Wednesday’s Fox News Teabag Party in Madison ‘ and thanks to all of the screamers, yammerers and name-callers who reinforced our faith in humanity and democracy.
Our mission: make sure a ‘thank you’ was offered by wealthiest one percent, whose potential increase in taxes sparked this corporate-financed event. We also wanted to speak for those impoverished corporations which would have off-shore tax havens closed by the President’s budget.
Armed with signs reading ‘Save the Rich,’ ‘My CEO Needs Another Tax Break,’ ‘Don’t Tax My Boss’s Yacht’ and ‘I’m a Soldier in the Dick Armey,’ we and strode to the State Capitol and took our place behind the main riser.
We were quickly surrounded by a welcome wagon of frothing attendees. They tried to make us feel at home at their protest, offering us tender pet names like ‘whores’ and ‘faggots.’
Some threw peanuts.
One guy demanded to know who we voted for in the November 2008 election. We declined his invitation, but he offered that he voted for ‘Bush.’ I let him know that in 2008, I had not voted for “Bush.”
Was nice to see one of the federal architects of the current economic collapse, Young Gun Paul Ryan, given such a prominent role.
(Don’t worry, Young Gun, no one was going to remind you that you voted for eight straight federal budgets that increased federal spending from $1.7 to $2.8 trillion dollars.)
And even though no one asked, we wanted to offer just a couple points about the alleged tax hikes that were the subject of today’s corporate cacophony:
The wealthiest one percent of income earners receive 53 percent of the Bush tax cuts in 2010
The top one percent benefits from $715 billion over the 10 years of the Bush tax cuts
The top one percent receives 70 percent of the Bush tax cuts for capital gains and dividends
Closing Wisconsin’s ‘Las Vegas Loophole’ will save Wisconsin taxpayers $80 million a year from companies that dodge paying their taxes by opening a shadow post office box in another country
The new ultra-rich tax bracket created in Wisconsin will save taxpayers $300 million in the biennium from the highest income earners
President Obama’s would simply let the Bush tax cuts expire on the wealthiest 2.5 percent of taxpayers after 2010
95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut under the Obama plan.
While it’s too bad people can be duped into arguing against their own self-interest if Hannity and Glenn Beck and that radio host McKenna shriek loud enough, it made for an interesting morning for your we at One Wisconsin Now.
Keep tuned in for video footage of our hosts.