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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
As thousands take part in "tea party" rallies across the country, newspaper and blog commentators are already sounding off -- and the reviews are mixed. The purpose of the parties -- organized via the Internet by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, among other groups and individuals -- is to protest against what organizers perceive as high taxes and excessive federal spending.
The effort's online hub -- Tax Day Tea Party -- has video of the ongoing parties. Left-leaning Think Progress, a wing of the Center For American Progress Political Action Fund, has a list of GOP lawmakers who have signed on to speak at the "radical anti-Obama" events.
So is there a surge in voter anger over taxes? Gallup recently published a poll showing that 61 percent of Americans think they will be paying their "fair" share in taxes this year, according to the progressive group Citizens for Tax Justice. But 39 percent of those who make less than $30,000 think their federal income taxes are "too high," though many of them don't actually pay federal taxes, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. See report here.
After the jump, also see a sampling of what the pundits and bloggers are saying.
-- Amy Harder
• "The tea partiers' stance on the issues is a little mysterious," scoffs Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal. "But outrage is outrage, the party organizers probably figure; who will know the difference?"
• Marc Cooper of USC also expresses bewilderment and derision in the Los Angeles Times: "The Tea Party movement, more than anything else, is a rather garish display of a Republican right that seems to have lost not only the national elections but also any semblance of political bearings."
• The Atlantic's Chris Good points out that House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and NRCC chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, have already issued statements applauding the protests. "Perhaps [the lawmakers are] seeking to ride the wave of media attention and purported grassroots conservative economic populism."
• In another Journal op-ed, author Glenn Harlan Reynolds (who's covering the protests for the organizers) speculates that "the tea-party movement will have an impact on the 2010 and 2012 elections, and perhaps beyond" -- possibly even resulting in "a new third party that may replace the GOP."
• Rick Moran, a blogger at Right Wing Nuthouse, is concerned that "the rhetoric about what the tea parties will accomplish will not match the reality of what actually occurs."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey picks apart a new poll that suggests Americans are actually more satisfied today than in the past about taxes.
• The American Spectator's Andrew Cline opines that "of all the outrages that led to Americans organizing 'tea parties' today," the greatest is "Washington's gradual convincing of the American people that giving so much of their income to the government is just and fair."
• The NextRight's Patrick Ruffini applauds the online organization showcased by these events: "The messier, more unpredictable, and more freewheeling examples of online activism -- from the Ron Paul campaign to tea parties -- have been on the right. The right's is a different model. One that the left -- and many of our friends [on] the right -- do not completely understand yet."