This is an update and probably the last one. Those of you who are interested in extending the analysis (there are undoubtedly many events missing, although most of the major ones should now be covered) are encouraged to do so at Wikipedia or elsewhere.
But, based on news accounts of 306 "Tea Party" protests in different cities across the country yesterday, I get a cumulative attendance of 262,025, with a fair number of (probably mostly smaller) events still unaccounted for.
These figures, wherever possible, are drawn from objective attempts to estimate crowd sizes, such as police accounts or estimates made by reporters. Organizers of these events have strong incentives to exaggerate crowd sizes. Participants in them may have some of the same incentives, and it is notoriously difficult for people to accurately estimate crowd sizes once attendance has reached more than a few dozen individuals.
Atlanta, GA - 7,000 (per archived article; since changed to "thousands")
Denver, CO - 5,000
Phoenix, AZ - 5,000
Madison, WI - 5,000
Bossier City, LA - 5,000
San Antonio, TX - 4,500
Olympia, WA - 4,500 (average of two estimates)
Lansing, MI - 4,500 (average of two estimates)
Jacksonville, FL - 4,500
Oklahoma City, OK - 4,500 (average of two estimates)
Dallas, TX - 4,000
Fort Myers, FL - 4,000
Fort Worth, TX - 3,750 (average of two estimates)
Indianapolis, IN - 3,625 (average of two estimates)
Vero Beach, FL - 3,500
Sacramento, CA - 3,500 (average of two estimates)
Tulsa, OK - 3,200
Hartford, CT - 3,000
Sioux Falls, SD - 3,000
Cincinnati, OH - 3,000 (average of two estimates)
Naples, FL - 3,000 (two events)
Nashville, TN - 2,900
Annapolis, MD - 2,750 (average of two estimates)
Bakersfield, CA - 2,650 (two events)
Columbia, SC - 2,650 (average of two estimates)
Jackson, MS - 2,500
Boise, ID - 2,500
Charleston, SC - 2,500
Spokane, WA - 2,300
Havasu, AZ - 2,250
Chattanooga, TN - 2,000
Stuart, FL - 2,000
Grand Junction, CO - 2,000
Colorado Springs, CO - 2,000
Pleasanton, CA - 2,000
Wheeling, WV - 2,000
Columbus, IN - 2,000
St. Paul, MN - 2,000
New York, NY - 2,000
Houston, TX - 2,000
Huntsville, AL - 2,000
Des Monies, IA - 2,000 (average of two estimates)
Troy, MI - 2,000
Prescott, AZ - 2,000
Providence, RI - 2,000
Belton, TX - 2,000
Chicago, IL - 2,000
Carson City, NV - 2,000
Fort Lauderdale, FL - 1,750
Tucson, AZ - 1,750 (average of two estimates)
Augusta, GA - 1,700
Knoxville, TN - 1,700
Anchorage, AK - 1,500
Tyler, TX - 1,500
Bellingham, WA - 1,500
Deland, FL - 1,500
Salt Lake City, UT - 1,500 (average of two estimates)
Salem, OR - 1,500 (average of two estimates)
Austin, TX - 1,250 (average of two estimates)
New Bern, NC - 1,200
Raleigh, NC - 1,200
Lynchburg, VA - 1,200
Seattle, WA - 1,100
Waco, TX - 1,100
Washington, DC - 1,000
Temecula, CA - 1,000
Palm Springs, CA - 1,000
Hudsonville, MI - 1,000
Fort Collins, CO - 1,000
Kansas City, MO - 1,000
Marble Falls, TX - 1,000
Manchester, NH - 1,000
Baxter, AR - 1,000
Yuma, AZ - 1,000
Lisle, IL - 1,000
Plymouth, MI - 1,000
Des Moines, IA - 1,000
Mobile, AL - 1,000
Seal Beach, CA - 1,000
Oceanside, CA - 1,000
Ocala, FL - 1,000
Cullman, AL - 1,000
Memphis, TN - 1,000
Greensboro, NC 1,000
Albuquerque, NM - 1,000
New Haven, CT - 1,000
Montgomery, AL - 1,000
Natrona, WY - 1,000
Albany, NY - 1,000
Rapid City, SD - 1,000
Loveland, CO - 1,000
Ventura, CA - 1,000
Wichita, KS - 1,000
Portland, OR - 1,000
Gainesville, FL - 1,000
San Jose, CA - 1,000
Gilbert, AZ - 1,000
Louisville, KY - 1,000
Fresno, CA - 1,000
Joplin, MO - 1,000
Santa Ana, CA - 1,000
Baton Rouge, LA - 1,000
Denton, TX - 950
Winston-Salem, NC - 900
Wasilla, AK - 850
Astacadero, CA - 850
Abilene, TX - 800
Doral, FL - 800
Wichita Falls, TX - 800
Rochester, NY - 750
Fayetteville, AR - 700 (average of two estimates)
Virginia Beach, VA - 650
Pocatello, ID - 650 (average of two estimates)
Longview, TX - 650
Farmington, NM - 600
Morristown, NJ - 600 (average of three estimates)
Duluth, MN - 600 (average of two estimates)
Yakima, WA - 600
Tuscaloosa, AL - 600
Concord, NH - 600
Monterey, CA - 600
Ashland, OH - 600
Matamoras, PA - 600
West Palm Beach, FL - 600
Charleston, WV - 550 (average of two estimates)
Billings, MT - 500
Peoria, IL - 500
Piscataway, NJ - 500
Port St. Lucie, FL - 500
Boston, MA - 500
Pensacola, FL - 500
San Diego, CA - 500
Redlands, CA - 500
Corpus Christi, TX - 500
Las Vegas, NV - 500
Santa Rosa, CA - 500
St. Simons Island, FL - 500
Chico, CA - 500
Burleson, TX - 500
Lisbon, OH - 500
Naperville, IL - 500
Tampa, FL - 500
Southlake, TX - 500
San Francisco, CA - 500
Little Rock, AR - 500
Montpelier, VT - 500
Missoula, MT - 500
Fishersville, VA - 500
Myrtle Beach, SC - 500
Fort Smith, AR - 500
Marietta, WV - 500
Pearland, TX - 450
St. Cloud, MN - 450
Jackson, MI - 450
Hollidaysburg, PA - 450
Springfield, IL - 400
Livonia, MI - 400
Champaign, IL - 400
Elba, AL - 400
Valdosta, GA - 400
Trenton, NJ - 400
Syracuse, NY - 400
Abingdon, VA - 400
Lancaster, PA - 400
Modesto, CA - 400
Chillicothe, OH - 400
Edenton, NC - 400
Gardiner, NY - 400
Florence, AL - 350
Thousand Oaks, CA - 338 (average of two estimates)
Sandusky, OH - 300
Friendswood, TX - 300
Fayetteville, NC - 300 (two events)
Camdenton, MO - 300
Bangor, ME - 300
Cheyenne, WY - 300
Muskegon, MI - 300
Joliet, IL - 300
Rutland, VT - 300
Massapequa, NY - 300
Lakewood Ranch, FL - 300
Harrisburg, IL - 300
Fon du Lac, WI - 300
Minden, LA - 300
York, SC - 300
New Braunfels, TX - 300
Parkersburg, WV - 300
Goldsboro, NC - 300
Martinsburg, WV - 300
Borger, TX - 275
Elizabethtown, KY - 275
Glendale, CA - 275 (average of two estimates)
Bethlehem, PA - 275 (average of two estimates)
Ashtabula, OH - 275
Chelsea, MI - 250
Newport News, VA - 250
San Mateo, CA - 250
Cody, WY - 250 (average of two estimates)
Frankfort, KY - 250
Miami, OK - 250
Gilmer, TX - 250
Norwalk, OH - 250
Craig, CO - 221
Hannibal, MO - 200
Ann Arbor, MI - 200
Seguin, TX - 200
Neunan, GA - 200
Merced, CA - 200
Pismo Beach, CA - 200
Coldwater, MI - 200
Dickinson, ND - 200
Fort Scott, KS - 200
Reno, NV - 200
Rockford, IL - 200
Flemington, NJ - 200
Bellevue, WA - 200
Palmer Township, PA - 200
Youngstown, OH - 200
Helena, MT - 200
Fayetteville, GA - 200
Crystal Lake, IL - 200
Bartow, FL - 200
Scranton, PA - 200
Rowlett, TX - 200
Dekalb, AL - 200
Portsmouth, NH - 200
Rochester, NH - 200
Mankato, MN - 200
Greenville, NC - 200
Ada, OK - 200
Superior, WI - 200
Bloomington, IN - 200
Oswego, IL - 200
Philadelphia, PA - 200
Yucaipa, CA - 200
Stockton, CA - 200
Reading, PA - 150
Buffalo, NY - 150
Watkinsville, GA - 150
Pullman, WA - 150
South Kitsap, WA - 150
Baltimore, MD - 150
Currituck, NC - 150
Elizabeth City, NC - 150
Simi Valley, CA - 150
Kalispell, MT - 150
Omaha, NE - 150
Council Bluffs, IA - 150
Evansville, IN - 150 (average of two estimates)
Albany, OR - 140
Dover, NH - 125
Boiling Springs, SC - 120
San Bernardino, CA - 100
Kingston, NY - 100
Camden, NY - 100
Moscow, ID - 100
Anderson, IN - 100
Bremerton, WA - 100
Chico, WA - 100
Oak Harbor, WA - 100
Meridian, MS - 100
Staunton, VA - 100
Cedar Rapids, IA - 100
Gastonia, NC - 100
Bristol, TN - 100
Greenville, TN - 100
Shelton, CT - 100
Glenwood Springs, CO - 100
Marion, IL - 100
Plattsburgh, NY - 100
Crown Point, IN- 100
Pittsfield, NY - 100
Vineland, NJ - 100
San Marcos, TX - 90
Milwaukee, WI - 80
Fort Mill, SC - 80
Cotulla, TX - 80
Chester, NY - 80
Bradenton, FL - 75
Natchez, MS - 75
Corona, CA - 65 (two events)
Herrin, IL - 65
West Covina, CA - 60
Newark, NJ - 50
Opelousas, AL - 50
Nicholson, GA - 50
Napa, CA - 50
North Platte, NE - 50
Oakland, CA - 50
Frisco, CO - 50
Pittsburg/Antoich, CA - 50
Carbondale, IL - 50
Sevierville, TN - 40
Carterville, IL - 40
Nobelsville, IN - 35
Gadsden, AL - 35
Pataskala, OH - 30
Green Cove Springs, FL - 30
Richmond, CA - 30
Selma, AL - 30
Lake City, WA - 24
Bound Book, NJ - 20
Plainville, CT - 13
Sitka, AK - 12
Fort Plain, NY - 12
I present this data merely as a reference; it is not intended as a value judgment about the success of the protests or their lack thereof. One should bear in mind that ours is a large country, and that gatherings of this magnitude (if several hundred individual protests can be thought of as a "gathering") are not especially uncommon. For instance, protests in favor of immigration reform drew several million participants in the spring of 2006, including several individual events of at least 300,000. Likewise, anti-war protests in 2003 involved attendance of at least 300,000 in a single American city (New York) on a single day.
4.16.2009
"Tea Party" Protests Appear to Draw At Least 250,000
@ 6:36 AM
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214 comments
I think we have the order of magnitude right, which is all that matters. All in all, this was really pretty poor turnout and alot of the folks were the truly whacked. I think Fox and the right are terribly embarrassed if they will tell the truth, of course, they won't.
The self delusion of the current repub response continues...
Wow, Nate, what a great, thorough catalog you've got here. Just excellent. You've even got my hometown (which drew more people than I expected).
And thanks for the note about comparable protests in the past. When so many other "news sources" are bound to exaggerate the size and import of this thing, it's good to have someone who can look at it objectively and in context.
Lets compare to single Obama campaign speeches:
200,000 Berlin
100,000 St. Louis (organizers claim 1,000 at St. Louis tea party)
80,000 Denver (5,000 at the tea)
75,000 Portland
This was an epic fail by the Republican, despite all that Fox News did to stoke the fire. Speaking of which, politico has an excellent analysis of Fox's role in these protests, and discusses how the network has blurred the line between journalism and advocacy: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21275.html
Its a good read. My favorite statistic from yesterday was found on dkos:
Crowd at Boston Tea Party = 7,000, equal to 46% of population of Boston
Crowd at Boston Teabaggers's Party = 500, equal to 0.08% of population of Boston.
These results are better than I expected, but considering all the promotion by the Republican apparatus and Fox News(I know, I know. Basically the same thing) I don't believe the teabaggers really represent any kind of "ground swell" movement against Obama. These were just people throwing temper tantrums because they feel trapped into a corner politically and they're lashing out.
You guys are completely delusional if you think these protests were a failure. It was, in fact, a huge success for the conservative right.
I hope you all continue to be in denial and view the upcoming revolts with apathy.
@Bradford:
You're comparing these local grass roots events with Obama rallys? How is that a good comparison? That's like saying Brittney Spears drew 20,000 at some arena in Denver, but the tea party only drew 5,000. Dumb comparison.
Americans have strange attitudes to tea.
I wish you'd spend more time learning how to brew it properly, rather than throwing it away in protest at having to pay taxes. Then us poor foreigners could get a decent cup somewhere aside from Philadelphia and Boston, and tourism revenues would soar, meaning you'd have to pay less tax after all.
You have Des Moines, IA on there twice.
Excellent post regardless!!
262,000 is 3 Springsteen concerts, but less than the 325,000 party affiliated voters in NY-20.
.
I didn't sense the passion nor clarity of purpose at these anti tax rallies that was shown at a) the Obama campaign rallies ; b) the Vietnam anti-war rallies; c) the civil rights protests. The "goal" was more scattershot: inflation, "genterational theft", stop spending, lower taxes.
Effectiveness: When CT implemented a state income tax in the early 80s, some 40,000 people rallied in Hartford with much more passion and vitriol than was shown by the some 3000 protestors yesterday. PS CT still has their income tax.
Actually, I think that this should be counted as a small victory for the Right. It certainly wasn't a failure. The true value, of course, is that Fox News et al can dress themselves up in populist language, and claim that 'the people are in revolt!' It's often the minority that shouts louder than the majority, after all.
Panter: a PUMA with asthma
"I hope you all continue to be in denial and view the upcoming revolts with apathy. "
How successful can these "revolts" be when Obama is still very popular? A few people throwing temper tantrums doesn't constitute any kind of "revolt", and saying such things makes you and your "movement" look ridiculous.
"You're comparing these local grass roots events with Obama rallys? How is that a good comparison?"
These were hardly local grassroot events. They've been being coordinated and promoted for months by the Republican Party and Fox News. Compare this to a genuine grassroots efforts like the protests over Prop 8, which had comparable numbers(I believe even significantly more), which were *actually* spontaneous, and the tea parties were hardly any real success that would have the influence of changing the political atmosphere.
Of course to the rightwing, the Prop 8 protests were worthless("the voters had their say! Why do you libtards hate democracy), and the teabagging parties were wildly successful and a complete condemnation of that evil Obama's socialist policies....despite the fact the voters did just have their say by electing Obama and Democrats across the country in a minor landslide.
GROG: You guys are completely delusional if you think these protests were a failure. It was, in fact, a huge success for the conservative right.How does one define success?
Did it change minds? Will it win elections? How will it affect policy?
I doubt protests of any kind accomplish very much. If the converted are the only people showing up, then I don't see what has changed. And I believe that's true regardless of the political affiliation of the event. If you can get a well-organized fraction of 1% of the population to turn out, but they represent only 30% of the public, then they still represent only 30% of the public, and not much is going to happen.
So whose minds might have been changed by these events? Or is it only polarizing the debate by oversimplifying the issues? If the issue is government spending, where is the plan on what spending we're going to cut? Because people like programs but are loath to tax themselves to pay for them, people are also in favor of less government but are loath to endorse meaningful program reductions.
So: what are the practical results of these protests?
From what I saw of these parties they were made up mainly of white racists who probably would be comfortable at a klan rally! This was a modest success for FOX. There really was no overwhelming theme except we hate the govt and Obama. The tax issue is absurd because Obama just passed a giant tax cut and taxes were a lot higher under the sainted Ronald Reagan.
There is no groundswell of rebellion except among the small base of right wingers who are pissed a black man is running the country. The silence was deafening during the last 8 years of republican deficits.
Yesterday gallup poll had Obama`s approval at 63% -disapproval 28%, so I guess a few of the 28% showed up at parties.
Omaha World Herald Estimates-
1500 Omaha, NE
150 Papillion, NE
http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10610896
I love how you say that you make no value judgments, but that you then say that, essentially, not many people were there.
I completely agree with you, both in terms of the number of people and about its lack of importance, by the way.
It is ridiculous, too, that so many people are lambasting Obama as a socialist when so many of the same people benefit more than anyone else from his tax cut, and that he wants only to raise taxes to levels still near the historic low on those top 5% of earners.
This is why I love you, Nate! You are easily the best, most transparent and innovative commenter on the web (though it's strange because your innovation comes simply from presenting actual information to people, something most commentators and journalists feel they must selectively dole out).
Conservatives can't protest. Protesting is a liberal concept.
These "protests" failed, utterly. Anyone who claims they didn't is delusional because any left-wing cause can double this easily.
Jblackstone- to respond to your last statement, it's that these people have principles and don't want to be purchased by government hand outs. I know, this is a tough concept for your party.
Does anyone know where I can go to access lobbyist/politician filings for Q1 2009? Or are they not required to file outside of an election cycle for some stupid reason?
"Dumb comparison."
That comment would make sense if these protests were setting themselves up in direct opposition to the policies of Britney Spears, but as it is, they only give a chance for the news organizations covering the events (excluding Fox, of course) to highlight Obama's sustained popularity and the various "right direction" poll numbers, which continue to improve.
It would be interesting to know what percent of the 250k or so protesters call themselves independents.
I just added the listed volumes and I got a total of 264,495. And I don't believe that you have anywhere near all of the cities listed. My city of Lafayette, La is not on the list, and we had a rather large turnout. Also, I think the fact that this happened in so many locations speaks volumes, not in one place, as the events you listed as comparables
Hey, guys. That's 'Marietta, OH' and not 'Marietta, WV' in the one place. I was at that one in Muskingum Park. I own the local alt-weekly in the city and dropped by to do some reporting.
I estimated the crowd at 300-350, myself. But 500 doesn't seem to be too egregious an estimate, given how these things usually work.
Are the Republicans officially pretending the budget didn't tank and the bailout didn't happen under Bush?
Genuinely pathetic shit.
Dayton Ohio isn't mentioned in this listing.
We had 6000 people attend, all crammed into Court House Square.
If you're going to make a list; Get it RIGHT!
http://www.nbc29.com/Global/story.asp?S=10189834&nav=menu496_2_5
Charlottesville, Va: 1500+ in the shadow of Monticello Mountain, home of Thomas Jefferson
The Madison, WI estimate of 5,000 was from the organizers. People I know who walked past thought that it was considerably smaller.
"Also, I think the fact that this happened in so many locations speaks volumes, not in one place,"How is that relevant? Several thousand people show up at several thousand locations to watch several thousand highschool football games every Friday night, but we don't consider highschool football to be a particularly potent political movement.
Getting like-minded people to show up at a free social gathering a few miles from their homes is not difficult. Given the vast social, financial and media support devoted to Tea Bag Day, these numbers can only be regarded as underwhelming.
Hillsborough, NC -- closest to Chapel Hill/Durham -- had about 150 people. About 85 percent of those people were either under 10 or over 70.
I live in Tuscaloosa, AL. Six hundred is a GROSS overestimation. There were about 135 on the facebook group for the event and at least 2-3 hundred people were protesting over the course of the day. An overwhelming majority were University students from the University of Alabama which has a class size of 20K. I base this on football gamedays where there can be thousands of people on the quad. If you worked the math backwards on density and space between people, you see that 600 just doesn't work out. To be fair, I didn't sit around all day counting people.
As a thought experiment, lets make the absurd assumtption that all 260k participants had voted for Obama and have changed their opinion of him since the election. Had they voted for McCain instead, that would result in a net swing of about 3% in McCain's favor in the final national election tally, and Obama would still have wone the popular vote by around 6.5% which is still a healthy victory.
A more realistic assumption is that the vast majority of the participants in these rallies did not vote for Obama, so it really does not represent any change in the status quo that existed at the time of the election. Which basically means the whole thing was a political publicity stunt rather than any kind of indication that there has been any significant movement in public opinion away from Obama. Now, admitedly, publicity stunts can be effective, so I think it remains to be seen if the events were a success or failure. If we see any significant and permanent erosion of Obama's job approval numbers in the coming days, then I think we would have to conclude that it was a success. Otherwise, I would call it a failure. The Republican base, which has already been demonstrated as being inadequate for the GOP to win consistently at the national level, was already fired up and has been since before the election. If they did not convince a large number of moderates/independents to change their opinion of Obama, then I don't know how you could call these events a success.
The reason why the turnout is largest in Atlanta is that it was not just a protest but also featured an appearance by a celebrity: Sean Hannity. Had Hannity not appeared, there would have been less people, probably the 2,000 which seemed the average in other cities. I think that is significant, and wonder how many people turn out to see Hannity alone, in general. Probably a lot.
Also, if it weren't held on April 15th, I doubt half as many would have showed.
However, $5 says most of the "Tea Baggers" are the same people who screamed "Terrorist" and "Kill him" at McCain-Palin rallies during the closing weeks of the '08 campaign.
Same rhetoric, same idiocy, same fail.
What you libnuts fail to take into account is that most conservatives who wholeheartedly agree with the point of these tea parties but are of the 'work hard, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps' variety and actually have to work for a living and are too dedicated to their jobs to come out and make a ruckus even though they vehemently oppose Obama and his mindless economic policies and authoritarian power grab.
The reason libs can muster so much support at these kinds of rallies and protests is they are usually made up of bums and ne'er-do-wells who aren't employed and are looking for someone else to give them a handout, pay the bill, etc.
So let's just get it straight who the potential participants are in each type of rally before we make value judgements.
Almost all of the bums and slackers I know are libs and almost all of the conservatives I know are hard-workers. Plain. And. Simple.
Lexington, KY is estimated at 1250 by an organizer, which is probably a few hundred overestimated from what I would have thought from driving by it.
260,000 people? That's all? That's the number of people Obama gets in one place for just one of his rallies... :-)
Nate I agree with the stance you took regarding this whole teabagging issue but forgive me if I make a few minor quibbles.
I have to admit I didn't watch these events with rapt attention but the few I saw I noticed that not only where there no African Americans but I didn't see any Hispanics or Asians either. Could these numbers of attendees simply represent the rabid racist left in this country?
Also I just read the Washington Post and they estimated the crowd in Lafeyette Square to be around 500, which having seen the 'crowd' on TV I think is being generous. I have certainly seen much bigger crowds at DC annual Gay Pride events. Boy I bet that would make those tea-bagging yahoos really mad to know a gay pride event out performs their 'event.' LOL
It was stupid to this on a weekday. As the Contrarian said, that doesn't work for conservatives. We're all at work. Also, I don't think they did a very good job promoting this. I live in Dallas, and didn't hear about it until the day of on CNN of all things. I think it was a good turnout taking those things into consideration. The next event should be on a Saturday, and do a little bit better job promoting.
Contrarian,
Just a personal anecdote in response to yours. In December of 2002 I got off my night shift (RN) at 7:30 am and drove to the area where a local Iraq war protest was to begin at 9 am. I got out my hand made sign and joined the group for the march and the comments afterwards. I went home, got about 5 hours of sleep and went back to work at 7 pm.
There was a significant turnout - at least as many as the tea bagging protest. There was virtually no news coverage.
As far as getting somewhere on a work day. We vote on a work day. If this was really important to conservatives, more of them would have been there. There was certainly plenty of advance notice.
So, I have to say this to the tea baggers.
"Methinks thou dost protest too much"
And if Rick wants to lead his people out of Texas, I'd be a really happy camper. But the land (including military bases, big military contract corporations and national parks) is part of the USA.
Per the US Supreme Court, they can't have it.
Ginny in CO
"So let's just get it straight who the potential participants are in each type of rally before we make value judgements.
"
Ok, so you follow an admonishment not to make value judgments with this;
"
Almost all of the bums and slackers I know are libs and almost all of the conservatives I know are hard-workers. Plain. And. Simple.
"
Make value judgments much? Do you have such severe ADD that you can't remember the last sentence you typed as you type next?
Some quick math. Granted this is a small sample size built upon anecdotal evidence, but I've spoken with roughly 50 conservatives over the last few weeks about these tea parties who very much agreed with the idea in principle and wanted to participate. Of that group, 2 were able to participate while the other 48 weren't able or willing because of conflicting schedules and other problems.
So that's about a 1-in-25 ratio of representation. Take that 250K that did participate and multiply it by 25 and that's how many people are standing up in blatant defiance of the actions of this government. What does that come to? Roughly 6.25 million people?
Tyler: No way Lexington had 1250. My office looks over Phoenix Park where the protest was held and I listened to the chants of "Fear This!" all afternoon.
I would guess that the protest in Lexington was around 500 based upon similar size crowds in Phoenix Park at earlier events. Also, I am a festival promoter and have gotten pretty good at estimating crowds. When you are worried if you have made enough money to pay the talent, you learn fast to estimate crowd size.
"So that's about a 1-in-25 ratio of representation. Take that 250K that did participate and multiply it by 25 and that's how many people are standing up in blatant defiance of the actions of this government. What does that come to? Roughly 6.25 million people?
"
So now you're counting all the people that wanted to protest but couldn't be bothered? You could do that with about every other protest that has ever occurred, so I don't see how your math goes toward proving that this is really a significant movement.
before we make value judgementsOkay, let me clarify..."before you make value judgements"...
Is that better? I have the authority to make them. Nate himself acted as if he wasn't going to make one and then did that exact thing in the ensuing paragraph. He's as big a liar as me, if that's the rules you're going to play by.
It's past time for a revolution. For anarchy. For secession. It wouldn't bother me one bit to see the United States divide into two or more autonomous regions instead of going down the path we're on. We're headed for self-destruction on the path we're on. It's high time to split and go in different directions.
Contrarian, I've got about 20 odd people that work for me, about half are staunch conservatives. None of them attended any tea parties. So, by my calculations there were zero people that attended tea parties nation wide.
Nate,
If you're missing Pittsburgh, how many other big metros are you missing?
estimates from the Rightwing Conspiracy in your prev. thread.
Bring on the New Confederacy, which is the Old South, Plains States, and parts of the Rocky Mountains. Let Texas/New Mexico/Arizona go indie or join Mexico. Push New England and the Upper MW into Canada. Let California/Oregon/Washington/Nevada form their own leftist state. Let Hawaii and Alaska go free as well.
It's time for a revolution. It's time for blood. The United States as a unified 50 states should cease to exist. It's not working. We need to break apart. It's the only thing that will ensure our survival and sanity.
ldof,
Your math is bad. You are ignorant too. I'm sorry you're such a pathetic fucking weasel.
Strangeite: Exactly, I was suspicious of that figure to begin with. I'm no good at estimating crowds, though, so I wasn't going to offer my opinion, particularly from a street view.
I'm surprised that I haven't caught anything local estimating the crowd size in Lexington. The Herald Leader has put forward 250 for Nicholasville, but no number on Lexington. Odd, it seems.
As an aside, I think I need to change my googleID name association if there's another Tyler on here too (above, commenting on the weekday)... Hints as to how to do that?
GROG - This is republic, which means the guy who gets the most votes wins. Unless a protest represents a significant chunk of a candidate's electoral coalition, it is meaningless.
This is why the Iraq War protests and the immigration reform rallies (which, as has been pointed, drew in one city in a day without any free advertising what the Tea Baggin' parties drew nationwide with the help of the entire Fox News media family) did nothing to stop Bush's policies, and the Tea Bag parties will do jack shit to stop Obama (who has the support and faith of a near supermajority of American voters) from fixing this country.
Until the parties start drawing a significant number of independents and/or moderate Democrats, they're not going to matter. Sorry, GROG; no AstroTurf revolution for you.
Tyler: If you have a blog on Blogger, you would change your id in the settings there (at least that is how I change mine).
I didn't see anything in the H-L either but my guess is that because the crowd was smaller than the crowd that gathers on Sundays in Phoenix Park to feed the homeless, it was a non-story.
It is strange that there are more homeless people in Lexington than there are people upset enough about taxes to attend a rally.
Contrarian - When you painted liberals and conservatives with one giant brush , If figured you were either a troll or an idiot. Once you called for violent revolution ("Tax hikes for people who make more than me? MURDER!!!"), I realized you were both (and I realized I need to add another name to my "blocked" list).
Matthew - Wait...tax cuts are handouts now? Seriously, unless you make more than $250k/y your taxes are getting cut. As in, you are getting exactly what these Tea Bag parties are asking for: lower taxes. Get over yourself.
One more item on the Lexington protest. My favorite part was the guy dressed as George Washington selling David McCullough books for the price of $10.00 for 15 copies.
So much for the MILLIONS promised by Fox News & PJM
It's funny to me how many of these dolts talking about "secession" are the same ones who claim to "love" America. If you love America so much, then go to the poll and change it. If you don't, then move somewhere else, and STFU.
I suppose that even given the course of a full day for realization to set in, it escaped the notice of most Tea-Baggers that the public thorofares and open spaces utilized for these "grassroots" protests (doesn't that imply organization driven from the bottom-up, versus Fox News cheerleading from the top-down?) and the police, fire, and publicworks that provide emergency services, crowd control, and cleanup were purchased, developed, maintained and enabled by...wait for it...TAXES!
I actually thought Reno would have had more than a lousy 200 person turnout. I'm pretty new here, but there are a lot of righties here. I've had more people show up for my performances than showed up for this national "movement" here.
I think it's a sad commentary on our educational system that so many people are protesting things that they are actually benefiting from.
The Contrarian: The United States as a unified 50 states should cease to exist. It's not working. We need to break apart.That's fine with me. Any consensus on what the most dysfunctional states are? Which ones have the lowest per capita incomes (though they also often have lower costs of living), lower education rates, higher rates of divorce and teenage pregnancy? I'll give everyone a hint: it's not Massachusetts.
It's the only thing that will ensure our survival and sanity.As Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show, some people (not necessarily The Contrarian) are confusing "tyranny" with "losing." Yes, it's tough being in the minority; many of us have been there for some time. But it has little to do with survival or sanity. Europeans have made different choices with what they want their governments to do and how to pay for it; it doesn't mean they're not surviving (they seem to do OK) or not sane.
As for turnout, I really don't see how it's relevant to extrapolate the numbers that showed up at protests to those in the general population that might agree with them. First, it's all highly speculative. Second, if people want to see if there's support for current economic policies, one can just go out and do a poll--as many already have. No extrapolation necessary.
So can we please stop with the huffing and puffing? If so many people are upset, then they'll go vote and change things.
According to PJTV.com 2000 were at the Belmar, NJ Tea Party which is not listed here. And I attended the Newark, NJ Tea Party which has closer to 100 then 50.
Seriously, unless you make more than $250k/y your taxes are getting cut.You know, this hackneyed line keeps getting repeated over and over and over and over...and I'm sick of it! Numerous tax experts are starting to come forward and say that we can't pay for this massive increase in government spending without taking a litlte more from those making under $250K per annum. Oh, and let's be honest for one thing. That's $250K for a married couple. For one person, it's $125K/year. Not a bad chunk of change, I'll freely admit, but it puts the goalpost that much lower and puts things in better perspective.
That $250K number keeps getting trotted out, and it's a bit misleading. Anyway, the point of my rant was to say that taxes on the middle class will have to go up or Obama will have to tax the rich at a much more aggressive rate (maybe 70%-80% for the top bracket - which will kill economic growth) than he is currently proposing to avoid unsustainable deficits and increases in the national debt.
Mooks like Robby would rather just hit the 'ignore' button on people like me as opposed to listening ot a voice of sanity. I predicted the housing/credit bubble in 2004/2005 and the oil/commodity price explosion of 2007/2008. I'm telling you that massive inflation lurks around the corner and unsustainable deficits are ahead unless there are big changes NOW.
And, dsimon, it looks like we disagree on a number of things, but you have 100% respect from me and you are certainly a voice of reason from the left side of the aisle. Thanks for not having your head in the sand or your fingers in your ears.
The reported numbers are pretty laughable. Just looking at photographs from some of the events is enough to see that.
I walked by the Portland, OR event and the entire square was packed with people. There were still people with signs walking towards it whne I left. The Oregonian says "over 1000". An entire city block packed with people = 1000? Sure.
WOW-TV in Omaha also stated 1,500.
I was at the county courthouse and it was definitely much, much more than 150.
My estimate was at least 500-700, but I am terrible at estimating.
Also, there was another crowd at the Millard Public Library and it was probably at least 200.
What I want to know is: why weren't the Iraq War protests getting this coverage in 2002 and 2003? There were WAY more people out, and it seemed to be dismissed as just fringe loonies then.
Anyone have some numbers on those protests as a comparison? I seem to remember something like 10,000 people marching on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
I applaud your efforts at getting an accurate count. However, calling the news reporters unbiased and the protest organizers biased is not accurate, and the fact that you can't see that shows your own bias. BOTH of these entities are biased.
However, many of these events had sign-ins that record a much better representation of the numbers than an eyeball estimate based on crowd size. For example, the reporter at the Modesto tea party estimated a meager 400 people in attendance. In actuality, there were over 4000 people who signed in throughout the course of the day.
Or in Corpus Christi, you record that 500 people were in attendance, when the article you cite had two estimates of 800-1000 (from the organizer) and 500-1000 (from the police). You chose the lowest of the estimates, without even an average. Are you sure you're not biased? The sign-in recorded well over 1500 attendees.
So the math of the liberal MSM and for that matter, yours, is like this:
Saintly protesters like codepink, moveon, acorn, cair, aclu:
reported size = actual * 10
Right-wing extremists like ordinary women and children:
reported size = actual / 5
WOW, even in counting, affirmative action is the liberal thing.
There were 3 separate events in San Diego and the estimated total there between the 3 was over 4000, not 500.
The tea party protests are about excessive government spending.
How is that offensive or radical?
I don't get the hate about it at all. When did liberals decide challenging the government by exercising your 1st amendment rights is crazy?
There were over 7,000 in Columbus, OH. http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/04/16/copy/TEAPARTY.ART_ART_04-16-09_B1_6GDINPB.html?adsec=politics&sid=101
The Contrarian: Numerous tax experts are starting to come forward and say that we can't pay for this massive increase in government spending without taking a litlte more from those making under $250K per annum.I'm not a budget expert, but I think that's right. And I think there's a bipartisan failure here: Democrats are afraid to ask people to pay for the government people say they want, and Republicans are afraid to ask people for the program cuts that would be necessary for the lower taxes people say they want. Neither approach is sustainable.
I would have liked to have heard from Democrats something along the lines of "We need to spend now to avoid a greater economic collapse, but we have to vow to pay this back in a few years when we're all doing better so as not to burden ourselves or our children with massive debt down the road." I think the program still would have passed. And if it didn't, we'd have to take responsibility for the results. "The government" isn't 535 legislators in DC; it's the over 200,000 eligible voters in the US. We can't expect our elected representatives to make hard decisions unless we're willing to make them ourselves.
That's $250K for a married couple. For one person, it's $125K/year.I believe it's $250k for a couple but $200k for an individual.
Anyway, the point of my rant was to say that taxes on the middle class will have to go up or Obama will have to tax the rich at a much more aggressive rate (maybe 70%-80% for the top bracket - which will kill economic growth)That 70-80% number is entirely speculative, isn't it? I don't know what the numbers would be, but I find it plausible that a modest middle-class tax increase along with perhaps a higher rate at a higher bracket (42% for income over, say, 1 or 2 million?) would be a big help, though it's equally speculative. Certainly the tax code in the 90s, which had higher rates for everyone, was not a serious impediment to strong growth. If most people assent to those rates, I don't see that there's necessarily a long-term deficit problem.
The problem is that too many people look at government as some beast that taxes us instead of the means by which we're supposed to tax ourselves. Once we reestablish that connection (which I think was lost during the Reagan years when we were all promised free lunches), then we can maybe start having a real discussion about what we are and are not willing to pay for. But neither party seems ready to address that right now. (And it may make sense to put it off until the economy recovers and see where we're at, though the parties may not want to address it even then.)
And, dsimon, it looks like we disagree on a number of things, but you have 100% respect from me and you are certainly a voice of reason from the left side of the aisle.Appreciate the comment. I think it's best to keep in mind that we may be wrong, tone down the rhetoric, find common ground where possible and agree to disagree otherwise. I think engagement, not name-calling, is the only opportunity to change minds (which is not an easy thing to do). And then we go out and vote.
Keep fooling yourselves, 538.
I was at one of the three Tea Parties in the Kansas City area. Mine was in Overland Park. It started at 6 pm, which was after the article linked by 538 as the official count. You see, most of us conservatives WORK FOR A LIVING in the daytime.
But I am dead certain there were at least 2,500 at the gathering I was at. I have heard someone else quote 10,000, but I don't believe that.
But just keep pretending that your website is agenda-free.
I don't get the hate about it at all. When did liberals decide challenging the government by exercising your 1st amendment rights is crazy?
April 16, 2009 1:18 PM
When did liberals begin whining anytime conservatives played their game? Hmmmm....
Nacogdoches, Texas - 2000 (official)
The basic premise that there was only 306 is laughable. Tallahassee had one, had coverage, is the state capitol of Florida, swamped the capitol green and yet its not listed with about 1500 in attendance. The number of protests was at least 500, not 300. part of this may be your want to count multiple events in the same city as 1 event, they weren't. That shows a bias in your accounting methods.
Ace Tomato: I don't get the hate about it at all. When did liberals decide challenging the government by exercising your 1st amendment rights is crazy?
Who said liberals thought exercising 1st amendment rights was crazy?
It's not the act of protesting that some are criticizing; it's the content. And that's a 1st amendment right too, even if the protesters think liberals are crazy for doing so.
And some of us wonder where these protesters were the past 8 years. Two hugely expensive wars, not paid for. Massive tax cuts, not paid for. Tremendous expansion of Medicare, not paid for. That's not to say that we haven't reached a tipping point for some people, or that the issue shouldn't be taken seriously. But it raises the suspicion that perhaps some less principled people are basing their opposition to fiscal irresponsibility at least somewhat on which party is being irresponsible.
I see Kansas City, Mo at 1000 and that is a very low ball figure. I know because I was there.
You are missing Overland Park, KS, which was the bigger rally - the last count I heard was 7500, and that was during the event and estimated by the police dept(Overland Park a big suburb of KCMO). Jefferson City was around 200. Topeka, KS reports at 1500. Lee's Summit (a suburb of KCMO on the MO side) reports over 200. I am sure I am missing many, many more events just around Kansas City alone.
I appreciate you running a tally and all, but if you are going to do a count, everyone counts in large amounts . . .
Nate: Bend, OR newspaper states "a few hundred" at our "tea party". I drove by the park where it was held and would have guessed 200-300. Greater Bend area population is around 125,000. Considering that 2000 tickets to an Obama town hall last May were gone in two hours and that Bill Clinton drew a full house (2500?) a few weeks earlier (campaigning for Hillary), 300 is pathetic. And keep in mind this is in the "red" part of Oregon.
"It's not the act of protesting that some are criticizing; it's the content."
Dude, you'd be a brtish citizen right now if there wasn't the Boston Tea Party. Our founding fathers were protesting an oppressive government and high taxes -- exactly what the tea parties were about yesterday.
@Contrarian: "It's past time for a revolution. For anarchy. For secession. It wouldn't bother me one bit to see the United States divide into two or more autonomous regions instead of going down the path we're on. We're headed for self-destruction on the path we're on. It's high time to split and go in different directions."C'mon, will you guys "go Galt" already? Please? Do you need a ride to the airport?
Sure, let all the "red states" secede from the Union. But make sure the USA takes back all the military bases and research centers, and gets paid off at fair market value for the interstate highways, national parkland and Internet backbones that can't be removed physically.
Then, see ya later, Jesusland! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Hi Dsimon,
I see your point - but I think the protests are not so much due to the political party as the economic climate. Also, national security and the military are consitutionally sound spending for the federal government. At the time, we were not in an economic collapse compounded by a housing bubble and bizarre banking.
Also, most people who believe in fiscal conservatism were furious at Bush's spending. Not at the tax cuts (I am not sure how we are supposed to pay for tax cuts - that makes no sense to me), but at the spending spree of the Republicans while they controlled congress. It was hideous. They were voted out for it, too.
"Bush did it first" is not really any reason to turn a blind eye to the excessive spending now. When we are told we are in a "catastrophic" economy, a recession about to tip to depression, spending $30 million to study swamp mice tucked into a "stimulus" package is a problem. That's just a speck of the waste that went into the stimulus bill.
I don't know. I've never protested before, but the stupidity of spend, spend, spend has reached a frenzy, and it inspired me to put my voice to the protest. I feel it was a worthwhile voice of people to our representatives.
The Providence estimate is way off. It ran yesterday from 3-6pm. I checked it out at around 5pm, when the headliners were starting to speak. There were 100-200 people, tops.
The Boston Tea Party wasn't protesting high taxes. The Boston Tea Party was protesting a lack of representation in government. These protests have nothing to do with oppression. They are protesting the fact that they lost the last election by 9.5 million votes, a 7.2% point advantage, and 188 electoral votes.
Actually a more direct comparison in terms of numbers would be to the pro tax the rich rallies held on the same day. There were about 20 people who showed up for the one in St. Paul, MN.
Chicago Had Way more than 2000...I have video proof!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpeScv6EPgQ
I actually would consider this count to be the plus end of the plus/minus of what the attendance actually was. Estimating crowd size is pretty hard to do, especially if the organizers are the ones counting. I went by the one in Newport News, VA, yesterday, and 250 seems about right (you could just as easily said 150 to 300, though) but commenters on the local paper's website tried to claim 3000 people were there.
Honestly wouldn't be shocked if the actual attendance was much lower than the reported numbers, but of course we'll never know. Given the hype, it's a dismal turn out, and given the imagery produced-about all that was missing was Klan hoods-moderates in the Republican party will continue to run screaming from the nutbars. Of course, the mass media will somehow turn this into a success.
I guess $30 million for wetland protection and restoration could be construed as $30 million to study swamp mice. It's not like wetlands ensure breeding areas for fish, waterfowl, and shellfish, some of which we've been known to consume, and of course also ensures that our drinking water is clean. It's not like jobs won't be created as well.
To Contrarian and others who are like-minded, the problem is you guys don't have credibility, especially your leaders. Where were you over the past eight years as Bush trampled all over the Constitution, spent far more money than we took in, decided blowing money into the Iraqi money pit was good policy, etc. etc. etc. You weren't protesting bad government, you were defending it. Modern Republicans are just as much, if not more, into an intrusive federal government but they tell you they are for "small, responsible" government and you swallow it hook, line and sinker. So you guys protesting aren't doing it because you are concerned citizens, but because you are supporting your team, the Republicans.
Let's just call it 500,000. STILL PISS POOR TURNOUT.
Bryce wrote:
"These were hardly local grassroot events. They've been being coordinated and promoted for months by the Republican Party and Fox News."
You've been drinking the kool-aid, my friend.
If the RNC had been promoting this for months, as you say, then why did the Chicago organizers turn down Michael Steele's offer to speak at the event? (In case you were wondering, Michael Steele is the head of the RNC)
What is happening here is just the beginning. Of course everyone on the left will try to discredit the movement. It's because you don't know what to make of us "right-wing extremists".
I'll tell you who we are - we are people who work damn hard and don't take hand-outs. We love God, family and country, in that order.
We are neither Democrat nor Republican, and most of us have been pissed off at Washington for years before Obama was elected. His totally inept administration is only waking the sleeping giant.
If I were you, I'd start paying attention.
St Paul certainly had MORE than 2,000. The rally went two hours and many came and went. At its peak there was a solid 6,000 present. Given the constant "changing of the guard" I would put the grand total at about 10,000. Aerial news video is here:
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S880317.shtml?cat=206
When will these damn religious conservatives finally take the hint and shut up. America wants Obama to be in control and tell the us how to live. He is most intelligent President we will ever have and he knows what is best for you. If you disagree with Obama then you are a racist and a terrorist and should be arrested.
Obama is our god now.
It matters not a wit, but since you highlighted it in the earlier version of the post, I wanted to note that there is no "Baxter, Arkansas." The Baxter Bulletin is the newspaper published in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where this particular tea-thingy occurred, and covers Baxter County.
Orlando, first event: more than 4000.
Second event: "thousands".
Do you have Harrisburg, PA on this list? Couldn't find it. We had about 2,000 according to official estimates (once the event started. Prior, I had captured one estimate of 1,000 by the event organizer--but that was early).
http://brain-jockey.com/extreme-americans-the-harrisburg-tax-day-tea-party/
My problem with the swamp mice thing is that it is the sort of program that doesn't have urgency on it. If we are in a catastrophic economy, I would think projects like that would need to wait until we are in a better economic climate. It wouldn't create enough jobs to justify spending $30 million when we are in a hole. The stimulus bill has over 10,000 projects like the mice thing.
Thanks for your effort on this! I will add that the Corpus Christi police estimated 500-1000 according to news reports. So your estimate of 500 for CC is a minimum.
The organizers asked people to sign in, so they may have an exact number at some point.
The program is a value judgment, but it is not $30 million in a hole. It's a number a bit less than $30 million in the pockets of individuals who will likely spend all of it, and then it's also benefit of the work itself, likely something with long range benefits. Calling it a mice thing is not at all equivalent to what it is. It's wilderness protection and restoration, a conservation project.
The next series of protests will be to split the Union! Mark my words. A secession is on the horizon!
CIA employees won't be tried for waterboarding
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30249847
Liberals heads explode!
Obama is turning out to be more of an extremist right-winger and hakwish president than Bush was on foreign policy. That's too bad.
I'm not terribly disappointed they've decided not to go after waterboarders, although I'm glad we've pushed that into the dustbin as an interrogation tactic. I do hate to see Obama escalating the conflict in Afghanistan and his slow response to withdraw troops from Iraq.
Why again have we felt thte need to be the big bad interventionists under every administration since Truman? Why do we have military bases in over 100 countries around the world? It's high time we listen to people like Ron Paul and other like-minded libertarians and constitutionalists who argue our military might is best expressed by keeping it here at home.
Too bad Obama is just another puppet for American Imperialism...
Hi Nathan,
I am not saying there is no value to a conservation project. But you yourself mention it would have long range benefits. That's not "stimulus" for an immediate jolt to an economic crisis. Remember, injecting the economy was the reason for a stimulus bill at all.
Those pet projects should have been submitted and reviewed in the normal processed, not tacked onto an "emergency" bill justified as needed to save us from total economic collapse.
That's pork. That is what is making so many of us "crazy".
Nathan . . . they didn't even get a chance to read the bill before they voted. Can you honestly say you are just fine with that? Doesn't it bother you at all that they passed a bunch of projects without letting anyone review it?
Obama supported it, signed it and has promoted it. He said "the buck stops here". Okay, so does it? Then he is a fair target for the gripes of fiscal conservatives.
It isn't bitterness because Obama won the election. It's anger about what he has done (or more accurately has not done) with it.
I was at the Tea Party in Cincinnati and I know we had at the very least 5,000. They can try to downplay us and this movement all they want. We are not a democracy we are a republic. At the end of the day we have the trump card in this battle against the assault on our Constitution it is called the Supreme Court. Just because the majority is drinking the kool-aid it doesn't give them the power to dismiss the Constitution. And if they think the Constitution is irrelevant then under what Authority is
Mr. Obama president? Under what authority do you think these clowns have the right to levy taxes against us anyway? The Constitution stupid! So we are here to tell you arrogant theives that your not going to be able to pick and choose which parts of the Constitution you want to participate in. It's all or nothing for us. If you think we will submit, you obviously don't have a clue who we are. We are the best of the best. The producers. The people who will survive with or without the rest of you, in fact we will survive in spite of you. I'll see this Country dissolved or collapsed before I will live under tyranny. And yeah...you can label me a right wing extremist.
like i said. there are two parts to the project. there is the jobs that get created, where most of the money goes. the individuals that are likely to get that money are people who will spend that money. that's essentially putting $30m into the economy. more than likely, that money by itself will have a far greater than $30m impact to GDP through the multiplier. And we have far ranging secondary effects that will last for years. Some will have a real dollar amount that we will be able to count on and others will have tangible benefits that we can't put a real price to.
I have no problem with them going ahead with these projects. I'm sure there will be some really crappy projects out there, but if the ones that tend to be pointed out as pork are the worst in the stimulus package, then I expect that we're in good shape.
The parts of the bill I have a problem with include the $40 billion of tax cuts to people who will likely not spend any of that. That's a waste of money and harming the economy.
I see it's a virtual tsunami of conservatrolls and radical righties on here today spewing racist bigotry and hate.
Fuck you all. Fuck you! November 4th decided this, and the decision was for you to SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
I want nothing more than for all of you to die a horrible, violent death. And personally I'd love to shove my dick in the mouths of your rotting, stinking carcasses.
Just fucking die you RethugliCANTs! Fucking die and rot!!
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
Just wait and give all of the far way out right wing bloggers and Fox a chance all. I am confident that they will have their crowd estimation at at least 300 Million.
300 million what?
Is this a troll?
SYLVIA: Under what authority do you think these clowns have the right to levy taxes against us anyway? The Constitution stupid!
That's right, the Constitution. That Constitution provides for majority rule by the elected representatives of the people, including taxation and spending policies. We voted for our representatives, and then they voted. Taxation with representation. Authority granted.
I'll see this Country dissolved or collapsed before I will live under tyranny.
Again, I think there's some confusion here between "tyranny" and "losing." Claiming that one's taxes are too high is not tyranny; it means a majority of citizens think otherwise. Happens all the time. I don't want to pay for what I think is a ridiculous waste of money for missile defense, but I keep losing that argument. Still, that doesn't make it tyranny. You don't get to opt out of laws you don't like. But it means I have to try to change other people's minds, and then maybe the law will change.
Welcome to democracy, where you don't always get what you want.
Ray, you make me want to be modest!
Not on the list: St. Louis, where attendance was anywhere between 7,000 and 10,000.
Yeah, I guess us tea PARTIERS had pretty poor attendance compared to you professional protesters. The difference? Our protesters work. Our protesters are legal citizens. Our protesters are the ones paying those crippling taxes.
Hey, Contrarian. When you talk about taxation, remember this: no matter whether 95% of Americans will pay less or not -- in 12-18 months the inflation will hit hard. The money we don't pay in taxes will be worth less, which means living wages will need to go up -- and a lot of people who didn't expect it will be pushed into that high-tax bracket. The people who choose not to address that have their heads in the sand.
Another city not on the list: Salem, Oregon. http://taxdayteaparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/salemoregon-two.jpg
Also not listed: any city in Hawaii. Honolulu had a big crowd, around 2000, and spilling out of the square in front of the capitol into the street. Lahaina, Maui, had a good turnout, and there was at least one more I know of in Kona on the Big Island.
And one more thing: none of the protests, folks, were organized by Fox, the Republican Party, or any other big entity. This was a bunch of grassroots movements that kind of percolated together through intelligent use of the Internet. Every protest was a little different. Not ONE had any violence; the only insults cast were at politicians of both parties, some baiting reporters, and the few liberals who actually had the guts to turn up -- good for them. If you actually went and looked at the pictures, the online coverage, the stuff posted by us amateurs who don't have the sophistication of liberal protesters -- you might learn something important.
Like Washington is in deep, deep trouble.
That's a very impressive number, but it's way too low. For instance, St. Louis is reported to have had 10,000 people in attendance, and I don't see it on this list at all.
Also, I know some of the other numbers are low, as the media at large is pretty against these things and was lowballing many numbers. I was in Fayetteville, AR, yesterday, and I counted at least 1,000 people in a double-checked headcount, and that was only at ONE POINT in the three hour rally, which had people continually coming and going as they got off work, etc. Remember, conservatives are mostly middle income WORKING people with FAMILIES so to get them out is a huge thing - much easier to get college kids with nothing else to do out on the streets.
Also, there were at least 800 of these things nationwide. So your numbers here are too low for several reasons. There was probably at least twice what you're saying. And "craziness"? Eh? There were HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people protesting in the streets of America yesterday, and not ANY kind of mahem or disorder on any scale, large or small. When was the last time a lefty protest was so well-behaved?
kywrite,
Dude, I'm on your side. Re-read what I've posted. I'm all for this uprising. I know who foots the bill. I would have been at one but work couldn't wait.
I'm ready for the pending rebellion. This government needs to go!
When was the last time a lefty protest was so well-behaved?
Oh, maybe dozens if not more anti-war protests, which were also all across the country. They weren't so long ago, you know....
Both sides need to get off their holier-than-thou schtick.
kywrite,
See my post at 12:49 and see what I have to say about inflation, among other things!
"I see it's a virtual tsunami of conservatrolls and radical righties on here today spewing racist bigotry and hate.
Fuck you all. Fuck you! November 4th decided this, and the decision was for you to SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
I want nothing more than for all of you to die a horrible, violent death. And personally I'd love to shove my dick in the mouths of your rotting, stinking carcasses.
Just fucking die you RethugliCANTs! Fucking die and rot!!
Mike in Maryland"
WOW - A LIBERAL IN MELTDOWN OVER FREE EXPRESSION BY PATRIOTS. THE TEA PARTIES WERE A SUCCESS!!!
in 12-18 months the inflation will hit hard.
Yup, that's one danger. But the other danger was having the economy slide into a years-long depression. Given the choice, which is the less worse option? I'd rather risk inflation, which we can deal with, than a potential economic collapse which would be harder to dig ourselves out of.
That's one problem with these protests. No one likes bailouts. No one likes risking inflation. But few people who are protesting these things are offering better alternatives.
If people think it would be better not to bail out the banks and let them fail, then say so. If people think we're better off without the stimulus and so risk having neither public nor private investment for the foreseeable future, then say so. But let's not pretend that just being against what this government is doing would magically make everything A.O.K.
If people think we need to cut the budget, then say where, get a majority, and get legislation passed to do so. Do these protests do that? It's easy to talk about cutting spending...until people actually have to give things up.
(And don't talk to me about earmarks. Over two-thirds of the budget is defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and debt service. That means cuts in anything else are going to have to be pretty drastic to make much of a dent in anyone's tax bill.)
it's better a bit of inflation (especially since we have had negative/zero inflation) than 10%+ unemployment.
I'm ready for the pending rebellion.Well shake a leg and get back to HQ. Your fellow platoon members or looking for you.Anyway, if Fox really did manage to rally out a 1/4 million that is pretty impressive ... considering the kind of lame whining it is, much adieu about sweet dick all.
Nothing would drive the message home more than to have Nate Silver's head on a stick paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"And we have far ranging secondary effects that will last for years."
True. Higher debt and higher taxes for years to come.
Govt spending programs are like Herpes - once you get them, they are with you FOREVER.
"Are the Republicans officially pretending the budget didn't tank and the bailout didn't happen under Bush?"
Are Democrats officially pretending that Speaker Pelosi has not been Speaker since January 2007 and that we didnt have a Democrat-run Congress for 2 years prior to the fiscal crisis, and that SEn Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide) and Rep Barney Frank (D-Fannie Mae) didnt actually write ALL the bailout bills????
Another note about inflation. Going into this global downturn, most people were afraid of deflation. Deflation is a real mess because then no one has an incentive to consume as they wait for further price drops, and there's no good way to counter it.
Given the risk of deflation or inflation, inflation is the preference of most economists--even conservative ones.
it's better a bit of inflation (especially since we have had negative/zero inflation) than 10%+ unemployment.Let you in on a little secret. We're going to have both...and it's not going to be a "bit of inflation"...it's going to be out of control.
It's a zero sum game, and dsimon thinks it's an either-or, black-and-white scenario. You have to create economic value for there to be economic growth...you can't just print a bunch of money to get spending going again, "put up with" inflation as a result, and call it good. The negative consequences that will result from the inflation that is to come will far outweigh the benefits if we don't do something to create economic value.
Otherwise, it's just a big Ponzi scheme.
In Portland Oregon Channel 6 News (the local CBS affiliate) put the estimate at 4,000 attendees. The Oregonian (associated with NBC) put the number at 1,000 (like this list does). I was at Pioneer Square in Portland Oregon yesterday. NBC is full of it. Channel 6 put the estimate in Salem Oregon at 5,000 not the 1,500 listed here. If rest of these estimates are as comparably reduced, then the total nation-wide estimate should be exceeding one million. It seems someone is underestimating ire of the average American. They do so at their own peril.
I understand that you are trying to get all the info from news print and other "objective" sources which is understandable. But I think it is obvious that the list is way off. If you just look at some of the youtube videos of some of these rallies you can easily see that. Austin had way way more than 1500. Also, there are some towns in the thousands that are not even represented on the list. Not to mention the small towns like Hutchinson KS with hundreds of people showing up.
It was a well intentioned attempt though. No one else seemed to be able to keep an official "tally" at these things.
"But the other danger was having the economy slide into a years-long depression. "
Not Really. That was just the power-hungry socialists trying hard to not "waste a crisis" so they engaged in fearmongering.
The economy would have a faster recovery if the Govt got out of the way. All this free-money 'STIMULUS' is like giving caffeine to a cancer patient. Sure they may be more active for a while, but its no healthier. We have officially replaced the Housing Bubble with the Big Govt Spending Bubble ... and when that bursts, what are the options?
Freedom's Truth: Higher debt and higher taxes for years to come.
Not necessarily. If we choose higher taxes, then we won't have to have higher debt.
Similarly, the unpaid-for Bush tax cuts, two wars, and unfunded prescription drug benefit have also led us into higher debt and made it harder for us to deal with the crisis we have now.
More spending isn't a recipe for higher debt. We just need to decide to pay for it. And lower taxes aren't a recipe for higher debt (thereby leading eventually to higher taxes). We just need to decide what programs we're giving up to pay for it.
Yes, Democrats have not done a good job of asking us to pay for what we say we want. But have Republicans done any better job asking us what we're willing to give up for their tax cuts?
Have the protesters put forward anything that resembles a responsible fiscal program? I await their responses.
"Austin had way way more than 1500. "
This is correct. There were TWO Austin rallies. The one at noon at 1500 and the one at 5pm had 3000-5000.
So you had 6000+ people at Austin rallies and its counted at only 1500 here. Either number btw is larger than any other prior 'conservative'/patriotic/tapxayer rally that I am aware of taking place here.
It's not a "bit of spending" or a "bit of inflation". We are printing and borrowing far more money than ever in our history.
Right now we're getting put on the hook for about $12 TRILLION overall in new spending, almost all of it since Obama was elected. That is 24 times the adjusted for inflation cost of the ENTIRE($500 billion) New Deal, and it's only been a few months. It's 8 times more than our biggest expediture ever as a country, ALL of World War II, and again, it's only been a few months. It's just gargantuan, and we'll never, ever be able to pay it off. Worse, it's likely to drive us to hyperinflation - not just a "bit of inflation".
But even worse than that, these "stimilus" bills NEVER work. Even FDR's treasury secretary, in 1937, admitted that the New Deal was not working. All that spending put the "Great" into the Great Depression for us, whereas the rest of the world didn't get hit nearly so hard. Likewise, Japan spent tens of billions in the 90s to "stimulate" their economy - didn't work.
It can't work because you're taking money out of the productive side of the economy, or printing it, or borrowing it, to "stimulate" the productive bit. Only fundamental changes will alter business behavoir, and that's tax cuts or similar measures. Cut Capital Gains tax rates to zero, for instance, and investment would SOAR in this country - companies from all over the world would invest in America in such an environment. It would be that simple, and wouldn't cost us hyperinflation, either.
Unlike "stimulus packages", tax cuts have actually been proven to turn economies around time and time again.
Contrarian, don't put words in my mouth.
dsimon thinks it's an either-or, black-and-white scenario.
No I don't. We're dealing with fuzzy probabilities the best we can. Anyone who thinks we know exactly what will happen if we to X is delusional, because not all economists are in agreement.
you can't just print a bunch of money to get spending going again, "put up with" inflation as a result, and call it good.
Keynes said you can. Well, maybe it's not good, but it may be better than the alternatives. Just putting money in people's pockets as a temporary measure can be a good thing (preferable if we agree ahead of time that we'll pay that back later).
The problem is: what can you do if people stop spending because they have no money, or fear for losing their jobs, etc.? Just giving them money is one option. Work projects that have a multiplier effect are better options.
Yes, they have bad side effects. But it's speculative to say the side effects will make us worse off than the alternatives.
Another note about inflation. Going into this global downturn, most people were afraid of deflationAnd another thing. This shit about "deflation" is unintentionally misleading, at best, and a flat out canard and lie by the power-hungry socialists at worst.
Yeah, so we've had a little deflation over the last 12-18 months. Big freaking whoop! That's what happens after a bubble, especially the likes of which we just went through.
Housing prices had the sharpest price appreciation in history, by far, from 2002-2007, so don't act like their coming down in value is a problem. It's the market correcting itself after getting unsustainably overheated.
What about other things? Oil? Yeah, okay, it's gone from $150 to $50 per barrel. But where was it a few years ago? Look at some of our food staples: wheat, corn, etc. Yeah, they've come off of 2008's monstrous price levels but they're still high. And some of them will return to extremely high levels, well ahead of a sustainable inflation rate over the long run.
Yeah, that's the key. OVER THE LONG RUN. Don't trot out that shit of "deflation over the last 12 months or so" as an excuse that everything is okay. Bull. Shit.
Across Montana, from Glasgow in the East, to Helena, to Thompson Falls in the West the count totals are 3,100
Billings report: 500
Helena report: 200
Bozeman report: 700
Missoula report: 700
Glasgow report: 700
Thompson Falls: 100
Polson: 300
LC
Local 5pm news in San Diego showed smallish tea party crowds in the city. Was uncharacteristically cold and windy weather a factor? Possibly. Interesting Temecula drew 1,000--it's one of the reddest cities in Southern California. I'd say the numbers were a moderate success for Fox and Co. but not the knockout punch they were hoping to deliver.
Not Anonymous: But even worse than that, these "stimilus" bills NEVER work. Even FDR's treasury secretary, in 1937, admitted that the New Deal was not working. All that spending put the "Great" into the Great Depression for us, whereas the rest of the world didn't get hit nearly so hard. Likewise, Japan spent tens of billions in the 90s to "stimulate" their economy - didn't work.
Funny, there was a NY Times article in the financial section that said, historically, that stimulus packages DO work. Unemployment during the Great Depression dropped substantially until FDR tried to balance the budget too soon. Prewar Germany had almost full employment, as horrible as that regime was. Japan failed because they waited too long and then didn't do enough. And what was WWII, which really ended the depression, but a huge, deficit-financed public works project?
Cut Capital Gains tax rates to zero, for instance, and investment would SOAR in this country - companies from all over the world would invest in America in such an environment. It would be that simple, and wouldn't cost us hyperinflation, either..
The business tax cut argument is very strange. Who is going to invest if no one is buying anything? Why should I build a factory or engage in R&D if people are afraid to spend?
And I'm not so sure companies would come here just because of tax cuts if the cost of labor abroad remain so much lower elsewhere. If they don't come, you've got a lot of revenue to make up for.
By the way, I think it's pretty well established that direct spending has a far higher multiplier effect than tax cuts.
I think the protests count as small potatoes compared to most mass political movements. But, sometimes, when your political fortunes are way down, it can feel refreshing and recharging simply to come together as a community to reduce the sense of isolation in a sea of people who disagree with you.
I am reminded of a gay pride festival I went to once in western South Carolina, in the foothills of the Appalachians, about as red neck a spot in the USA as you can get. It was tiny, poorly organized, produced on a shoestring and frankly kind of pathetic, but also very necessary to help those there feel like they had some kind of community and some hope of bettering their lives.
So these Tea Parties may serve an important psychological and cultural function for the Angry White Man wing of the Republican Party, regardless of how large or small they were. They allow AWM to feel like they're part of a community and acting in concert.
If the point of the Tea Parties was to generate sheer numbers involved like Union activism in the 30's, the 50's civil rights marches, the 60's anti-war movement or pro-life activism in the 80's, they clearly fell short.
But if their point was simply to keep alive some tiny, fading ember of the conservative tendency and console Republicans while their party is in dire straits... well, then it may have been partially successful.
Contrarian: This shit about "deflation" is unintentionally misleading, at best, and a flat out canard and lie by the power-hungry socialists at worst.
That's simply not true. It was a concern voiced by liberal, moderate, and conservative economists. It was a concern by those in both the Bush and Obama administrations. It was a concern held by experts both here and abroad.
You can't just dismiss things because you'd rather not believe them. Sometimes it's better to give some credence to those who have studied the subject far more than we have. And if we don't agree with them, we shouldn't just dismiss them with name-calling. People often have good reasons for believing what they do, and they should be taken seriously.
But since too many people now on this thread seem to be more convinced that their own views are inherently correct than listening or even considering other views on these matters, it's not a good use of my time to engage in further conversation.
Have fun kids!
"I was in Fayetteville, AR, yesterday, and I counted at least 1,000 people in a double-checked headcount, and that was only at ONE POINT in the three hour rally, which had people continually coming and going as they got off work, etc"
So you're relying on your own head count of a fluctuating crowd? Pardon me if I rely on media estimates instead of your apparent photographic memory.
@A, concerning Belmar, NJ:
The Asbury Park Press reported 400 participants in the teabag protest in Belmar. Not 2000.
http://www.app.com/article/20090416/NEWS01/90416009
@SYLVIA:
"Just because the majority is drinking the kool-aid it doesn't give them the power to dismiss the Constitution."
Sounds like you're describing the actions of the Bush-Cheney administration. Did you have a problem with their actions?
I attended the downtown Houston tea party. The 2,000 head count listed here is flat out wrong. The official tally from the sign-in sheets is over 8,500.
Besides that, I saw quite a few people walking in without signing. So much for the accuracy of the numbers here!
You heard it here first. Nosimplehiway is a bigot against the white race and is possibly sexist against males.
How much would I be tarred and feathered as a racist/bigot if I talked about Jeremiah Wright representing the Angry Black Man segment of the Democratic party?
Think about that. If you're capable, that is.
"I attended the downtown Houston tea party. The 2,000 head count listed here is flat out wrong. The official tally from the sign-in sheets is over 8,500.
Besides that, I saw quite a few people walking in without signing. So much for the accuracy of the numbers here!"
Again, thinking you can get an accurate estimate from your own personal observation of a fluctuating crowd is foolish. As for the sign in sheets; unless you actually saw them, i'm calling BS on the part of the organizers.
Sorry, dsimon, I've studied economics a'plenty. I don't have the blinders on nor am I just ignoring what I don't want to believe.
I'm making a very strong point that you can't have something appreciate in value 50%, 100%, 150%, and 200% in just a few years time and then scream "Deflation!" when prices back off a bit.
The "deflationary spiral" people fear is when there is a true decline in economic value which generally leads to broader declines in wages and standard of living....now I'll agree that some of that has and is going on...BUT, a lot of what has been decried as "deflation" that we need to guard against is simply market forces returning things to their proper economic value and not some overheated, bloated, unsustainable price. It's that simple. You don't need my dual degrees in law and economics to understand that.
dsimon,
Imagine that... the New York Times, a liberal paper, ran an article saying that liberal government spending measures actually DO stimulate economies??? You've convinced me.
No, a serious economic survey of the 20th Century reveals the exact opposite of what you're claiming here. Unemployment in the Depression "went down" to a whopping 17% under the New Deal. That's hardly an inspiring record.
The main folly here is that you're presuming that something must "be done" to turn an economy around. It's just not true. People will always buy things and sell things and that's all an economy really is. These systems go through mathematical boom and bust cycles which are easy to understand, as when things are good people do a lot of it, leading to too much, and then the bubble bursts to correct itself. Once it's done, the natural exchange impulses of the eonomy bring it back.
A recent chart showed that every government "stimulus" response to the economy since 1948 was actually enacted AFTER the economy was no longer in recession. Of course, you only get real numbers a few years later, but they always show that the recession is over by the time the politicians "fix it" with their nonsense. The only time this was not true was one of the Bush packages, which was actually enacted a couple of months before the recession was over, but that was hardly time to give it credit for that particular turnaround.
So the economy will naturally come back, as it did in the Depression, but government, as it did in the Depression, can make things worse by slowing that comeback down or putting big roadblocks to real recovery. That's what's happening now, as it happened on a much smaller scale in the 1970s with stagflation.
You also mentioned "tax cuts we don't pay for". I'm all for cutting spending, but you must also realize that tax cuts INCREASE revenue. Of the four major tax cuts in the 20th Century, ALL of them increased treasury revenue in short order. John F. Kennedy even did his massive tax cut for that stated reason - to increase revenues. Democrats used to believe this.
So no, the tax cuts cannot be blamed for causing deficits, as they INCREASED revenues. Taxes are not some static thing that have no effect on economic activity. Like the price of any other item, taxes vastly affect how people do business. So when they're lower, you get much more business, because people can make much more money. This is why foreign companies would invest heavily in the U.S. - to escape taxes.
There would not be the "fear" you're talking about if the government was giving us a stable, pro-business environment. And saying, "this is how we're going to fix this, but lowering taxes and getting out of the way." Worked like a charm in 1981 for Reagan, when things were worse than they are now. Works everywhere and everytime it's tried. You get confidence from stability, not class warfare and screaming from the government, which makes business people and investors hold onto their money in fear. We had a government almost pass a tax on INDIVIDUALS at AIG who took bonuses... that kind of crap is what scares businesses away from doing anything, because they don't know what these crazy politicans are going to do from moment to moment to buy votes from the dumb, angry populist class warfare mobs the Democrats so like to stoke.
"A recent chart showed that every government "stimulus" response to the economy since 1948 was actually enacted AFTER the economy was no longer in recession. Of course, you only get real numbers a few years later, but they always show that the recession is over by the time the politicians "fix it" with their nonsense."
So by that logic, this recession is already over. Is that what you are saying?
"ALL of them increased treasury revenue in short order"
That doesn't make logical sense either.
The Kingston, NY, count of 100 is fairly accurate. Nice job.
I think we need to consider two things in evaluating the parties.
1. The rally was held on a work day. Why would anybody do that, if their purpose was to draw large crowds?
2. The date of April 15 was chosen as the day we're supposed to be most aware of paying taxes, when in fact most working people pay taxes throughout the year via withholding and something like 75% of them get refunds, for which they file BEFORE April 15 in order to get them as soon as possible. It is those who file complex forms reporting capital gains and dividends and business profits who file on April 15, in order to delay having to pay to the last possible moment.
So it's clear from the choice of April 15 as the day for the rally that the Right is aiming at the upper middle class. If you're trying to recruit working people, you hold the thing on a weekend, and time it to some Congressional vote you want to bring into focus.
The upper middle class does, indeed, stand to end up paying higher taxes under Obama. And they know it, and will make as much noise about it as they can. But as a serious political force, there simply aren't enough of them to win many elections.
As for their sense of grievance, I remember a co-worker of mine telling me, the day after Barry Goldwater got waxed by Lyndon Johnson, "today I feel like a forgotten American." You lose, you feel bad. When I felt that way in 2000, I was told "deal with it." Payback's a bitch, ain't it.
We had a rally in Mission Viejo, CA. Over 500 signed petitions, so we must have easily had over 600 in attendance at some point during the 3 hours.
I attended the one in Ocala Florida...we had two and the attendence was about 1000 for the first one and several hundred for the second one.
http://leftandrightpolitics.com/ocala-florida-tax-day-tea-party/
Seems to me that this estimate is ridiculously low. A friend of mine took the day off work and went to parties in Oak Harbor (more than 100 by his count), Anacortes (several hundred not reported here), Mt Vernon (more than 100 by his count by not reported here), and Bellingham (1500 to 2500 depending on the estimate) and not reported here. Just in three counties in Northwest Washington we could therefore add at least a couple thousand, if not more. This list is so incomplete as to be almost useless, but if you consider that there are 3,000 counties in the US, that means that his estimate could be off by as much as 2,000,000 people. An 800% undercount? Maybe the media should be doing its job and actually reporting on these gatherings.
"This list is so incomplete as to be almost useless, but if you consider that there are 3,000 counties in the US, that means that his estimate could be off by as much as 2,000,000 people. An 800% undercount? Maybe the media should be doing its job and actually reporting on these gatherings.
"
Where in the world did you come up with that correlation? In every single county in the U.S., there must have been protesters, and 8 times more than reported in everything single one at that? Riiight. And for the umpteenth time, how is your buddy's anecdotal account any better than the media's?
"I attended the one in Ocala Florida...we had two and the attendence was about 1000 for the first one and several hundred for the second one.
http://leftandrightpolitics.com/ocala-florida-tax-day-tea-party/
"
I wish those pictures focused more on the actual crowds, because the ones on that site don't show much. That doesn't mean there wasn't a big crowd, but it doesn't mean there was either.
I see the imposters are back.
The post by the person posting as me, 'Mike in Maryland' at 3:28 PM is a real fool.
Check out the Blogger profile - My Blogger profile ends with the numerals '5965', yet the idiot who thought to poison the waters, their Blogger profile ends with the numerals '1992'.
My Blogger profile is available for people to see - when you click the Blogger profile for the idiot who posted at 3:28 PM, you get a "Profile Not Available".
And thus the reason I include my Blogger ID in my posts - to make the idiotic Reichwingers show exactly how idiotic they are.
Oh, and 'Freedom's Truth'? It was NOT a meltdown, but a stupid idiot trying to impersonate a person. I believe that is called 'false witness' in the Bible? Shows how smart you are also - in other words, not much at all.
Mike in Maryland
My Blogger ID is http://www.blogger.com/profile/02848893412251095965
"A recent chart showed that every government "stimulus" response to the economy since 1948 was actually enacted AFTER the economy was no longer in recession. Of course, you only get real numbers a few years later, but they always show that the recession is over by the time the politicians "fix it" with their nonsense."
So by that logic, this recession is already over. Is that what you are saying?
Just to help you out y2roby...the argument went like this:
someone (you?): NTY said these stimuli work to get out of recessions.
him: well, these stimuli all came after the recession ended, so there's no proof of that.
He didn't say he was proving or arguing that the stimuli had to come after the recession, just that there was no evidence one way or the other that stimuli had an effect on helping to get out of a recession.
y2roby
Here is the chart showing how recessions are always over before the politicans try to "do anything" about them:
http://reason.com/blog/show/131636.html
And yes, it IS logical that when taxes go down, revenues go up. History has proven this with the four major tax cuts in the last 100 years, all of which INCREASED revenue through the greater economic activity the cuts produced. Here's a chart:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/images/chart.gif
You evidently think that taxes are just something you apply to activity, and that the more the rate, the higher you get, the lower, the lower, etc. But this is mathematically wrong because the tax rate AFFECTS the activity itself.
If you'd think about buying an iphone for $200, then you'd almost certainly buy one for $50. You'd be far more likely to buy at that price than $200. Likewise, you'd be far less likely to buy at $1,000. The price affects your actitivy. Taxes are like a "price" on doing things in the economy. And their rate affects acitivy on the same kind of mathematical curve as setting prices does on regular items.
Apple tries to find the perfect price point for an iphone, where they will make the most money. Charge too much, and they make less. Charge too little and they make less. But hit that perfect spot, and they'll sell enough at a high enough price to hit the zenith for revenue. Again, taxes are no different. And again, history proves this over and over.
I think some of you are missing it. Movements don't start over night. Just like the Left's take over of both houses Congress and the White House. That took years of grass roots organizing and the Republican's screwing up massively. Don't think that it can't happen to you. History shows that it will it's just a matter of time. Remember everything has its catalyst. There will be more of these Tea Party's lets see if the numbers increase before we come to a conclusion.
"Freedom's Truth: Higher debt and higher taxes for years to come."
"Not necessarily. If we choose higher taxes, then we won't have to have higher debt."
CBO has scored Obama's budget as adding $10 TRILLION in debt in the next 8 years. SPENDING drives the debt and drives higher taxes. The fiscal crime of the Pelosi/Ried Congress is that they and Obama are increasing spending far far faster than the economy is growing. Its unsustaintable by definition. The SPENDING is the problem.
Obama dishonestly calls his gimmicky giveaways tax 'cuts' but it doesnt matter what you call them when the spending is exploding. He is hoping that top rate payers will somehow magically pay a lot more, when the whole history of tax revenues and ECON 101 tells you that those higher rates will kill jobs, production, income and drive the rich into more shelters. The rates are high enough already that raising them will NOT raise revenue. Yet Those Obama tax increases are scored by him as a $1.4 TRILLION tax increase "deficit reduction". Not gonna happen.
Not to mention the simple political calculation that it is far easier for the US Congress to spend like a drunken sailor on a credit card than to actually pay for it. When the choice is more taxes or more debt to pay for the higher spending Obama wants - they pick 'deficit and debt' almost all the time.
We know Obama's tax hikes "on the rich" (aka S-corps and small business) will kick in in 2011. But the rich pay a higher percent of income tax than ever before *already*. There's not much more to tap except in the middle-class.
Go ahead, call on Obama to get "honest" and have a heart-to-heart with the American people and tell them that he lied about that 'tax cut for 95% of Americans' and that he really will have to increase taxes on the middle class so we dont bankrupt America. You and I both know - IT WONT HAPPEN.
The numbers are staggering: Obama's 5 year budget plans are about $20 TRILLION. You think he will tax Americans to the tune of $20 TRILLION in the next 5 years?
All signs point to an inevitable conclusion: The US debt load will explode.
PS. "More spending isn't a recipe for higher debt. "
More eating isnt a recipe for becoming obese ... but its a good start!
Simmer down, Mike in MD. You're nothing but a sumbitch troublemaker anyway who is just as bad as the imposter you are calling out. In fact, with some of the vitriol I've seen you hurl where I know FOR A FACT the blogger ID was yours, I'd say the imposter wasn't too far from the truth.
What is it they say? There's a little bit of truth in every stereotype. You're a dangerous psychopath who doesn't contribute anything of value to these discussions who can do little more than to repeat relentlessly, day-after-day how "conservatives/Republicans suck and lie" and liberals have their shit together.
I know, I know, you're going to hurl back the ol' hackneyed and trite internet attack that has all but lost meaning because of it's overuse/misuse and call me a "Troll" and give us the cutesy
DNFTT or
D
N
F
T
T
Do Not Feed The Trolls
Which makes you all the more look like a barbaric idiot. You've outed yourself already as an angry ideologue...and you're gay. Except you're not "gay" in the sense of being happy...because you're one angry, pathetic fuck-off.
1,000 people in Portland, Oregon compares not only to 75,000 people in Portland, Oregon last year for Obama, but also to 18,000 paying customers in the Clark County Ampitheater (Portland area) in 2007 to see Journey.
I liked Journey a lot, in 1977.
"No, a serious economic survey of the 20th Century reveals the exact opposite of what you're claiming here. Unemployment in the Depression "went down" to a whopping 17% under the New Deal. That's hardly an inspiring record."
For years, I believed what the textbooks told us, that FDR somehow 'cured the depression' with the New Deal and 'helped'. Then, in the past year, I actually looked into studies of what the New Deal actually did, and recently read of an academic UCLA paper by some economists that determined the New Deal actually *lengthened* the depression. They blame specific labor regulations that kept wages high but correspondingly depressed employment and job creation.
There is a book called "FDR's Folly" that goes into a lot of how the New Deal was economically harmful.
I was surprised when I found out that unemployment was still double digits in 1939, after 8 *years* of FDR. But then it hit me - It wouldn't have been the "Great Depression" if the economy really recovered properly (in fact 1939 economic activity was still below 1929 levels).
FDR's New Deal was a political success (created Democrat-voting dependents) but an economic failure. It didnt help the economy.
The Keynesian 'solution' was tried in Japan in the 1990s and failed.
Thinking large spending will fix our economy is like a second marriage - a triumph of hope over experience.
Wow, just love the right wing whack jobs that have posted today. I think my favorite is Sylvia, an apparent constitutional scholar. I am sure she was ranting and raving when Bush and company shit all over the constitution the last 8 years, right?
Where is Pete Kent? Surely he is behind this whole teabagging effort!!
Where is Pete Kent? Surely he is behind this whole teabagging effort!!No. I am. And I'm coming to cut your nuts off, punk.
"The date of April 15 was chosen as the day we're supposed to be most aware of paying taxes, when in fact most working people pay taxes throughout the year via withholding and something like 75% of them get refunds"
Are you an idiot in real life too?
I spent the last two weekends working on my taxes. Unlike clowns like Geitner I actually check to see that turbo tax is doing the right thing so its being honest. Why I bother is beyond me, when the Federal Govt will take this hardearned money and burn it on stupid things like ethanol subsidies and housing and bank bailouts, but there ya go. I try to pay my dues and stay out of the IRS' way.
Yes I got a 'refund' on the overpayment of taxes, but my tax bit was still hefty, enough to buy a car. (hmmm, we could have saved Detriot by simply having an income tax holiday!)
Taxes are very much on people minds this time of year and its beyond silly to think it isnt just because people have withholding.
I am all for having a Tea Party Every April 15th until the politicians start listening and respecting the taxpayers.
"I am sure she was ranting and raving when Bush and company"
My 5 year old uses the "But he did it FIRST" excuse.
Well done - we now have it established. Obama's operating on the level of G W Bush.
When you are reduced to excusing the violations of liberties by Obama by saying he's not worse than Bush, you have pretty much crossed into the realm of pure suck-up-ism.
Keep drinking the kool aid, while Obama quietly concedes to reality and keeps every single Bush policies you claimed to hate. I dont see the Patriot Act being repealed, I dont see the soldiers coming home - just shifted around a bit.
Meet the new Obama. Same as the old Bush.
The "official" numbers here at fivethiryeight are highly suspect. Most of them come from news reporters making wild guesses. The writer states it is "notoriously difficult for people to accurately estimate crowd sizes once attendance has reached more than a few dozen individuals" So reporters and Police estimates should be discounted by his assumptions. I was at the Houston event I arrived early and saw the media there...most of them were packing up and leaving a half hour BEFORE the event. No wonder their numbers don't match the signitures and addressed provided by the people who were willing to sign.
This wanst a "right-wing" or "republican" event. Though I'm sure there were a fair number of both of those there.
I dont think any "esitmates" have any value at all. Only actual counts of signitures, those are verifiable. And if you go by the ratio of the descrepancy of 2k to 8k at the Houston event only then 250k nationwide could be hughly understated. Get some actual numbers not guesses.
SAM said: "It's not the act of protesting that some are criticizing; it's the content."
Dude, you'd be a brtish citizen right now if there wasn't the Boston Tea Party. Our founding fathers were protesting an oppressive government and high taxes -- exactly what the tea parties were about yesterday.
Uh, dude......where the fuck were YOU when Bush/Lott/Hastert enacted the biggest entitlement spending binge since LBJ? Federalized educational standards? Turned a near surplus into a massive deficit? Where was the Earl Grey when it was Hank Paulsen bailing out the banks? Or when Bush/Cheney launched a surveillance state? You teabaggers are such whining partisan hacks.....pathetic that only now you are yelping for liberty.
Well put, Freedom's Truth. They keep hounding us on that concept of what we were supposed to be yelling about when Bush was president, like running up massive deficits and "shitting all over the Constitution."
As you said, where is the uproar now over the seemingly loss of a sense of urgency in getting our boys home from war and the continuation of numerous other Bush policies?
Not anonymous:
the New York Times, a liberal paper, ran an article saying that liberal government spending measures actually DO stimulate economies??? You've convinced me.
Instead of attacking the source, how about addressing the merits of the argument? (I'm not going to dismiss what Newt Gingrich says because it came from Newt; even he can be right on occasion. I'm going to show why he's wrong this time.)
Of the four major tax cuts in the 20th Century, ALL of them increased treasury revenue in short order.
But correlation is not cause. This common but misleading refrain fails to take into account other forces at work. First, the economy is usually growing. Second, there are usually more people working and paying taxes. Third, there's usually inflation. Those factors more than overwhelm a couple of points in income tax cuts.
Unemployment in the Depression "went down" to a whopping 17% under the New Deal.
I'd say that if there was a causal connection, that's pretty good. Having a quarter of your population out of work is, well, pretty bad for the economy, isn't it?
Worked like a charm in 1981 for Reagan, when things were worse than they are now
As I recall (and Google confirms), we went into a recession in 1982. The budget went into deficits never seen before, bigger than all previous deficits combined. And then Reagan raised taxes. That's a charm?
The studies I've seen say that the deficit problems we had before the present economic crisis were due mostly to the Bush tax cuts. Under the Clinton tax code, we ran surpluses for a time. I think the evidence is clear that the tax rates of the Clinton era were no impediment to strong and steady growth, even discounting the tech bubble at the end of the decade. Yes, overly high tax rates will decrease productivity. But the 1990s show me that we were nowhere near those rates.
And again, there's that big deficit-fueled employment program called WW II that really got the economy going after the Great
Depression. But since that conflicts with ideology, I guess it can be safely ignored.
If people want to discount the evidence, or at least admit that the evidence is mixed, there's really not much left to discuss.
SAM:
Our founding fathers were protesting an oppressive government and high taxesHistory book, please?
It wasn't about high taxes per se. It was about taxation imposed without the assent of those being taxed, and the lack of assent is what made it oppressive. It wasn't "no taxation," it was "no taxation without representation." Are the protesters saying they're not represented? Or are they saying that if you don't agree with the majority, then it's tyranny? If it's the latter, that's confusing "tyranny" with losing elections.
I understand the concern about spending without paying for it. That's a serious concern (though apparently since tax cuts always pay for themselves, not paying for tax cuts is never a concern). But to say that the issue of today's tea parties is the same as the original is really to ignore history.
I just read Jim Geraghty's "Campaign Spot" article on Tea Party attendance estimates. I'd like to suggest updating Tea Party Attendance for Richmond, Virginia:
He conservatively chose the figure of "2000" to represent reports of thousands in attendance.
However, that figure should be enlarged by a minimum of 1000.
The Richmond Times Dispatch reports "several thousand" in attendance. (link below)
http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/TEAPGAT16_20090415-220803/257444/#comments
Local television station WTVR reports more than 3000 or attendance. (link below)
http://www.wtvr.com/Global/story.asp?S=10180869&nav=menu79_2
The Richmond Tea Party venue was Kanawha Plaza in downtown Richmond, a public space near the Richmond Federal Reserve building..
This venue will accomodate about 3000 persons. The crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder and overflowing into the sidewalks beyond. The local news reports of 3000+ in attendance are conservative and the crowd may have exceeded 5000.
I have pictures of the crowd if density of attendees is in question.
You still haven't counted NYC. NYPD estimate was 12,500. But don't look in the NYTimes for it, as of yesterday they had not acknowledged the existence of Tea Parties at all.
And there were so many smaller rallies in towns no one ever heard of, even if each had 100 attendees, it's a lot when you add them up.
I think the final tally is going to approach 500,000. Those of you who compare this disdainfully to BHO rallies are missing the fact that he started running for POTUS 2 yrs before AND had his corrupt Chicago machine plus moveon.org and George Soros helping him, and ACORN canvassing for him, and millions in donations from Hollywood and those very Wall Streeters he's bailing out, among others.
This movement is just getting started, each location planned their own, and independently (but with mutual communication) produced 800 rallies across the nation on one day, plus numerous local rallies for 2 months before that. Fox didn't get into the game until a few weeks ago.
Those who say that some rallies got attendance because of this or that celebrity - look, remember all the celebrities who appeared with Obama and made videos for him and campaigned for him. Come on.
There will be another one on July 4, and maybe that one will march to the capitol.
" ... if it weren't held on April 15th, I doubt half as many would have showed...."
What is amazing is that many of these locations held tea parties the previous wkend, and had also held one or two in the previous 2 months, as the movement was growing. And these same working stiffs AGAIN showed up April 15. Plus even more people. And this was not only a working day, but last day to finish your taxes, but they still came out. One reason there were so many kids is people took them along if they couldn't or didn't want to get babysitters.
" ....However, $5 says most of the "Tea Baggers" are the same people who screamed "Terrorist" and "Kill him" at McCain-Palin rallies during the closing weeks of the '08 campaign. ...."
There was one instance reported by a journalist, however the secret service at that rally said they didn't hear it and it's their job to listen for that kind of thing. So since the actual number of people who yelled "kill him" is 0, your remark is not only inaccurate but a nasty smear, in the same vein as the DHS report which says "rightwingers and vets could very easily become domestic terrorists" but gives no evidence to support this, it's all innuendo.
Meanwhile, we had 8 yrs of "Bushitler McChimpy" costumes and plays and novels and signs, including assassination threats, effigies of Sarah Palin hung at Halloween, coast-to-coast liberal pundits frothing about "hatefilled" rallies which didn't exist, and completely ignoring their own side's history of violent threats.
Original tea parties:
http://www.openmarket.org/2009/04/15/we-wouldnt-have-teaparties-if-it-wasnt-for-rentseeking/print/
" ... Here’s the background; and to prove that there is nothing new under the sun, it involves company rent-seeking, market distortion, bailouts and stealth taxes. ..."
Debating the attendance figures for these Tea Party events is a rather pointless effort. Nate has simply attempted to document relatively nonpartisan sources for as many locations as possible. Even if one would assume twice as many attendees ( including non-participating onlookers ) in twice as many locations the figure would be a little over 1 million folks. Given the non-stop promotion on FOXnews and conservative radio for the last few weeks, it seems like a rather small turnout.
What really matters in terms of importance is what difference did the rallies make anyway. I would bet my paycheck ( less the Fed, State and local taxes ) that the majority of these folks didn't vote for Obama in November and wouldn't vote for him in 2012, even if he eliminated all taxes and cut Federal spending in half. In fact, some of the really bizarre and threatening posters and signs validate that. So we are left with roughly 30% of US citizens who don't like Obama...what else is new??
I am glad there were Tea Parties yesterday. Nothing blows off steam like a getting together with a bunch of like minded individuals and expressing yourself vocally. Tuckers you out, gets some of that pain out of your belly. If you are a conservative, a republican or someone right of center, you are probably feeling dizzy from the politically losses of the past few months. These protests are absolutely neccessary for the stable discourse of our democracy.
Now, are these the beginings of some new movement? I have no idea. If its a grassroots movement or if its organized by Fox news, it doesn't matter. We wont know if this was a turning point for a few years. 2010 is only 18 months away. That will be the first litmus test.
But in my opinion, I don't see the GOP becoming a viable national party unless they drop the religious wing of their party. While they might be organized, vocal and enthused, they are not good for the long term health of the Republican Party. The GOP needs to court secular independents and blue dog democrates if they plan on winning any national election. Sticking with people like Palin (who's VP nomination put me in the Obama camp)will only alienate those specific groups that will win you the presidency.
LBJ, when he signed the civil rights legislation into law, knew he was sundering the Democratic Party in two. But he signed it because he knew those laws were in the best interest in the country in the long run.
The GOP is in a similiar situation. Do they do something that is extremely painful in the short term but will pay out in benefits in future generation of voters? Do they have that strength of will? Do they have that kind of vision? Only time will tell
I linked these in another thread - if you want to understand the tea parties watch them, they are short and full of facts and figures.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HJjEERXXgk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv4OeKmWjOI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yREOUxo6Qdc
" ... there's that big deficit-fueled employment program called WW II that really got the economy going after the Great Depression. .."
Exactly. FDR's policies didn't do it. Only a war pulled us out AND we changed economic policy after the war. The UK elected socialist MPs after the war and still had meat rationing 5 years later. Churchill ran for PM again after the war and warned them that socialism wouldn't bring prosperity but they ignored him. We dumped FDR's policies and had the roaring 1950s.
Clinton raised taxes, but the 1994 Repub congress lowered them, and then the 90s tech boom took off. Reagan lowered taxes but the Dem congress increased spending, so he couldn't get the deficit under control. Bush's tax cuts in 2001 lifted us out of the double-whammy recession of the tech bubble and 9-11. CORPORATE GAINS tax cuts allow for more investment so business grows and therefore hire more people, who then have more $ in their pockets. Why shouldn't this work? It makes sense. Why do you people think it shouldn't work? Why on earth do you think imposing even heavier taxes on business and wealthy individuals create prosperity? it's completely illogical. And most economists agree:
http://cato.org/special/stimulus09/alternate_version.html
Speaking as someone who has spent nearly two decades as an entertainment reporter covering large public gatherings -- concerts, festivals, etc. -- take it from me: Be wary of anybody's attendance estimates.
And that's not simply because of assorted ill motivations (e.g., organizers aiming to amplify counts, opponents aiming to depress them). The truth is, people suck at guessing crowd sizes.
I've seen crowds estimated as 25,000 by experienced police officials ... only to be revealed (by photographs, toilet usage, etc.) as more like 2,500. I've seen crowds of 50,000 guessed to be a quarter million, and crowds of 100 estimated as 1,000. Ad nauseam.
I wouldn't read much into various press counts, either. (Again, not because of journalists' ill will. The reality is that, unless they moonlight as grandstanding hacks on CNN, most of these city newspaper reporters can be trusted to try for accuracy.) It's just that the reporters get their counts from (A) the closest police officers, who aren't so great at it in the first place; or (B) their own estimates, which are as flawed as any other human's.
Hard numbers aren't as important here as the relative value -- that is, how it appears to stack up against similar gatherings. Was it significantly bigger or smaller than other political protests? From what I've seen in photos and vidoes, the tea parties looked impressive. And that's what counts.
Whoops, sorry about that dangling participle up there in the first sentence. Didn't mean to dangle. How embarrassing!
Pedroman I partly agree. What I hope is that the importance of more limited government and lower taxes and stronger borders and less suckup foreign policy brings all those camps together into alliance. I see some signs that the religious right is not trying so hard to take over the party but trying to figure out a way to be principled while recognizing that they can't enact any of the other goals by themselves.
You libs think Obama got a mandate for his policies. He didn't. He had a deeply leftist upbringing and political history and friends, which he mostly hid with the help of most of the MSM. He ran as a centrist. Many people like Pedroman voted for him because they didn't like Sarah Palin, well, that's not because they wanted a leftist! They crossed their fingers and hoped he would be the centrist he kept telling them he was. He did not win in a landslide. If 48% of the voters pick the other guy that's not a landslide. His electoral college wins were also deceptive, in that some states he won by very thin margins, like FLA. So he won an impressive amount of states but not with large margins in each one.
That's a lot of people who DIDN'T vote for him, and then there are the people who did vote for him but did not want the kind of wild spending he's doing now, not to mention the tax-cheat cabinet picks and the sleazy Chicago politics he brought with him. So he is not as popular as you think. He is now below where Bush was at this point in his first term. Dems and Pubs are almost even now in polls about who is more trusted or less corrupt.
You had a very unpopular outgoing Prez, plus after 8 yrs people usually want to try the other guys, PLUS a huge economic crisis just one month before the election, PLUS most of the MSM promoting Obama like Fox promoted the teaparties. Plus McCain ran a horrible campaign, Palin polarized people, he did that stupid going to Congress stunt AND voted for the bailout. But McCain was ahead right after the GOP convention, and given the wind against him, he should have lost by a lot more.
And THAT'S how popular Obama is not. Most people still wish him well and hope he is doing the right thing but way more of them are doubtful and worried than you want to know,
Add a thousand for Charleston, SC.
www.spyralnotebook.com
Nate: FYI: I believe the local press put Carson City, NV turnout at 1,000.
I have been enjoying this website since August 2008. It is only today that I decided to start posting.
While there have been conservative posts on this site, I have noticed there has been a sharp uptick with the recent Tea Party events. I am guessing most conservatives are looking online for attendence numbers and 538 is one of the few offering numbers with any kind of critical eye.
I think the Tea Parties are just the first salvo of the politics as usual. The 100 day honeymoon is close to over and the conservatives feel that they can get back in the game without any undo backlash. Since it dovetails nicely with April 15th, so much the better.
It also dovetails nicely with the begining of the baseball season which I think is an apt comparison. Tea Party day was only the first game in the political season. Maybe they won on the first day, which always feels good but politics, like baseball, is a long season. While yesterday might have been a good day for conservatives, the electronic world is fast and furious. Coleman and Tedisco are using delaying tactics in a losing battle, todays DOW was up 1.2 percent and the Bush Administration allowed for bugs to be used for interrogations. Hindsight is 20/20 and it could very well be that Tea Party day was a last gasp as opposed to a clarion call that many GOP memebers are hoping for.
The official NYPD estimate for the NYC tea party was 12,500, not 2,000 as you report. Also, there were over 700 tea parties yesterday, not 300 as you suggest. As such, I suspect you are dramatically undercounting yesterday's turnout in an effort to minimize it.
I similarly don't want to make a value judgement - but even assuming that for every one person that attended, one person wanted to attend - 200 is a shamefully pathetic turnout for Philly.
And 250,000 is terribly small for the U.S., even assuming that same one-for-one.
The turnout at Oceanside, Ca was estimated by the police to 4000 to 5000 and not the 1000 that you have on your web site.
Hmmmmm, not surprised that Obama supporters show up in larger numbers. Most of the Tea Party crowd are employed. It's easy to get a bunch of uneducated, unemployed people together to swell numbers about hope and change. It's a little harder to get the people who are actually footing the bill for their hope and change to meet up with conflicting work schedules.
Underestimate us at your own peril.
Neil
Yehudit: FDR's policies didn't do it. Only a war pulled us out AND we changed economic policy after the war.
Yes, the war. The deficit-financed government works program. And I think it's fairly well established that the New Deal programs did help, though they didn't end the depression. When FDR tried to balance the budget two years into it, things got worse again.
The UK elected socialist MPs after the war and still had meat rationing 5 years later.
Yeah, that couldn't have possibly been due to the fact that the nation had been bombed, Europe had been bombed, and they had exhausted their economic resources blowing each other up. No, must be the darn socialists.
Clinton raised taxes
And did so in the teeth of a recovery that was just starting and that conservatives said would kill it. Didn't happen, did it?
Ithe 1994 Repub congress lowered them, and then the 90s tech boom took off.
The lowering was marginal, and the economy was already growing substantially.
Reagan lowered taxes but the Dem congress increased spending, so he couldn't get the deficit under control.
Hogwash. Reagan could have vetoed the budget. Didn't do it once. Can't let him off the hook. Why didn't he do it? Because cutting programs is unpopular.
Bush's tax cuts in 2001 lifted us out of the double-whammy recession of the tech bubble and 9-11.
Again, not true. The tax cuts were supposedly to give back the surplus. If they were designed as stimulus, they would have been packaged differently. The "recovery" coming out of the recession was astoundingly anemic by historical standards.
And the tax cuts were the primary reason we were running deficits at the end of his term. The economy recovered--remember how the administration was touting so many years of growth?--but the revenue imbalance remained.
CORPORATE GAINS tax cuts allow for more investment so business grows and therefore hire more people, who then have more $ in their pockets. Why shouldn't this work? It makes sense. Why do you people think it shouldn't work?
Because if I'm running a business, and if we're in a recession where people are buying less, then I have no incentive to expand no matter what the tax rate is. So no money gets put in people's pockets--except the business owner.
Why on earth do you think imposing even heavier taxes on business and wealthy individuals create prosperity?
There is a point where high taxes become an inhibition to growth. But there also is a point where lower taxes fail to pay for essential government services. The Laffer Curve is correct at zero and at 100%. But we have no idea what happens in between.
The only evidence we have to go on is the Clinton years. Those tax rates were clearly no inhibition to real and steady growth.
Not anonymous:
A recent chart showed that every government "stimulus" response to the economy since 1948 was actually enacted AFTER the economy was no longer in recession.
Yes, I agree that's generally been the case. So do you think we're out of recession already this time?
So the economy will naturally come back, as it did in the Depression, but government, as it did in the Depression, can make things worse by slowing that comeback down or putting big roadblocks to real recovery.
That's assuming that this recession is like all others. Sure, if you leave things alone, things will eventually come back. The question is how much carnage you want in the meantime.
Theoretically, we don't need laws against fraud. Those who commit fraud will eventually be found out, and people will flee their businesses. Of course, clients may have lost everything while the perpetrators have gotten away, but "the market" took care of it eventually. Most of us don't find that a very satisfying result, so we have mandatory disclosure laws. They interfere with "the market," but they avoid the worst outcomes.
I think it's a huge mistake to treat this economic crisis as just another recession where a hands-off approach might be appropriate. Most economists have criticized government responses, both here and abroad, as severely underestimating the extent of the problem. We've never seen banks leveraged this much (due to deregulation). We've never seen so much interdependence and co-party liability as in today's global economy. We've never such a threat of a global credit freeze that might stop things in their tracks. We've never seen such a high probability of cascading failures of the world's leading financial institutions.
Sure, things would clean themselves up eventually without government intervention. But while those who think government action will only exacerbate the problem may be right, they are a pretty small minority. And those who agreed on the need for massive government intervention cross the political spectrum. Paulsen and Bernanke are hardly left-wingers, yet they thought that unless Congress moved quickly there would be no economy left to save.
So we can pretend this is a garden variety recession, but I think the evidence shows it's something far different and so requires different approaches.
Freedom's Truth:
"More spending isn't a recipe for higher debt. "
More eating isnt a recipe for becoming obese ... but its a good start!
My point is that we can make responsible choices regarding our budgetary policy, and there is nothing inherently wrong about consenting to higher taxes for more expenditures. When the tax protesters start proposing real spending cuts that will pay for the lower taxes they say they want, I'll take them seriously. Until then, it's just posturing.
We are going to have to make some tough decisions. I hope that when we're out of this economic mess that Obama will address the fact that we're not paying our bills. Maybe he won't. But I sure didn't see anyone in the Bush administration raise the issue, though there are some budget hawks in both parties who tried to do so.
"They" didn't count MY state at all! I know for a fact, that there were at least two tea-parties here in Hawaii. The larger one in Honolulu, the smaller one in Kona. There were probably others as well...
Call me an extremist, terrorist, whatevah... Big Govt needs to GO!
You are undercounting Tucson Arizona. I can DEFINITELY confirm 2200 because I have the sign-in sheets right in front of me. We gathered names and addresses. Keep in mind, that couples and families only left 1 address, and not everybody signed in.
The police estimated 4,000 which fits right in with the above info. 800 or so for spouses or children plus another 1000 for the 25% or so that didn't give us a name or address.
The newspapers left early before the lunch hour started, when we received a bigger surge of people.
Wow. Evidently, a right-wing blog or TV show linked to this post. Does anyone know which one?
The Tampa number is WAY off. PLEASE Update.
Police at our two April 15th events estimated:
750 at the noon rally
and
2500 at the 5pm rally
Which we guess somewhere around 3000+ attended either one or both of the tax day events.
Visit www.Tampa-Tea-Party.com for a verification post from the site created by those organizing the event. Or contact the Tampa Police or Freedom Works for confirmation.
Thanks!
From The Daily Gazette in Schenectady, NY
A police officer estimated the crowd at 2,000 at the Corning Preserve in Albany. According to the Web site taxdayteaparty.com
you guys are so far off. In Houston they shut the gates to enter Jones Plaza because they said they reached the fire code limit of 3400 or so, and there were a ton of people in the sidewalks outside. 2,000 my a$$
There's no way there was 2500 in Boston. Initial estimates of 500 were accurate. The Op-Ed guy is literally making stuff up, there was no second event, it was a continuation and even the promoters aren't going over 1000. Police say "a few hundred" and pictures confirm it certainly wasn't 2500.
One thing I'd like to point out.
If the estimate of 1 million, something conservative sources are swearing is true..."No really, there were 1 million people teabagging yesterday!! Honest!!" Then this isn't even remotely impressive.
The US population is currently about 303 million. If there were 1 million people total, that would be 0.33% of the population. Less than 1% of the US population. Slightly less than the population of our smallest state: Rhode Island.
Oh crap, now I'm terribly worried.
when you think a bit more, it's not less than 1%, it's less than HALF of 1%.
I'll be going to my bunker now to get a head start on the revolution.
How was the Cindy Sheehan protests handled by the media compared to the tea parties? I seem to remember favorable coverage for far less people showing up for her protests. Even so it doesn't matter how many but why is there a class in this country not wanting you know that a $1 or so a day tax cut (the Obama $400 a year) doesn't cover what is happening to our dollar via the spending/printing of money/ and borrowing. So we are to be ok with a $1 a day while the money I have now losses 10-15% from the continued keynesian economics?
There are so many clueless around it's disturbing.
Obama rallies are not protests. Also Obama gave free beer and food with a rock band show in Germany.
I heard that the tea baggers were in the zillion trillion gazillion numbers!!! ROFL...
Yeah, 262,000 whackos. And your point was? LOL
Grog,
We're in 'total denial'?? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Perhaps you're still 'groggy' over the arse thumping you got last November. The tea bagger protests were nothing more than a joke. The mainstream Americans laugh at you because you deserve noting more than that - a chuckle..
Unlike the professional left wing protestors who suck off the goverment, some of us actually have to work but millions were there in spirit.
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