Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
SHUSTER: For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day. But in our fourth story tonight: It‘s going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they‘re going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals.
They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending — spending they did not oppose when they were under presidents Bush and Reagan. They oppose Mr. Obama‘s tax rates — which will be lower for most of them — and they oppose the tax increases Mr. Obama is imposing on the rich, whose taxes will skyrocket to a rate about 10 percent less than it was under Reagan. That‘s teabagging in a nut shell.
Taking its inspiration from the Boston Tea Party when colonists tossed British tea into the sea because the tax in it had not been voted on by their own duly-elected representatives — that‘s exactly the opposite, of course, of today‘s taxes, known in some quarters as taxation with representation.
But as “New York Times” columnist, Paul Krugman, points out today, this time, the tea bagging is not a spontaneous uprising. The people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, both of whom have firm support from right-wing financiers and lobbyists.
O'DONNELL: [N]ow, the problem is — on this April 15th, the taxation rates that they will all be protesting are the George W. Bush Republican Congress taxation rates. That‘s how we got these tax rates.
Sean Hannity, in the approach of this April 15th protest, has talked about the skyrocketing tax rates. The tax rates have not increased in this country in 16 years, and they did under Bill Clinton in 1993. He increased one tax rate, the top tax rate, and President Bush then immediately cut it as his first order of business.
So, all of the protests of the federal tax rates on April 15th, all of it, will be targeted at George W. Bush. I‘m not sure the protesters understand that.
Read the full transcript 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Monday, April 13