The Misinformed Tea Party Movement

[Rhiannon12866]

For an antitax group, they don't know much about taxes.

On March 16 the Tea Party crowd showed up for yet another demonstration on Capitol Hill in Washington. Curious about the factual knowledge these people have regarding the issues they are protesting, my friend David Frum enlisted some interns to interview as many Tea Partyers as possible on a couple of basic questions. They got 57 responses--a pretty good-sized sample from a crowd that numbered between 300 and 500 people. (Survey results are here.)

The first question that was asked concerned the size of government. Tea Partyers were asked how much the federal government gets in taxes as a percentage of the gross domestic product. According to Congressional Budget Office data, acceptable answers would be 6.4%, which is the percentage for federal income taxes; 12.7%, which would be for both income taxes and Social Security payroll taxes; or 14.8%, which would represent all federal taxes as a share of GDP in 2009.

Not everyone follows these numbers closely, and Tea Partyers may have been thinking of figures from a few years ago, before the recession when taxes were higher. According to the CBO, the highest figure for all federal taxes since 1970 came in the year 2000, when they reached 20.6% of GDP. As we know, after that George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress cut federal taxes; they fell to 18.5% of GDP in 2007, before the recession hit, and 17.5% in 2008.

Tuesday's Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

[Gman2]

1. They dont want to be talked sense to.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. They get their information by talking to each other,

Rather than reading *shudder* or researching the facts... :dunce:

[hay rick]

3. Everybody knows all that money is spent on

welfare and immigrants. Facts are way overrated.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. And that "trickle down" economics works...

x(

[ihavenobias]

5. K & R n/t

[4lbs]

6. If the U.S. Government truly received in the neighborhood of 40% of GDP in taxes, then we'd have

enough to pay for free Universal Health Care, free college education, two years of unemployment, pay off the federal deficit, pay off all 50 states' deficits, and fund every other Progressive social program ever dreamed of by liberals.

The US GDP is on the order of $15 trillion. 40% of that is $6 trillion dollars.

The current US federal budget is $3.6 trillion.

Throw in an extra $2.4 trillion to reach that 40% of GDP and you can have everything above.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. If they were actually "informed," they would not be

teabaggers.
BTW, "Tea Partyers" is much too benign a name for this racist and bigoted bunch, IMO.
They don't even WANT to be informed. They just want to keep on believing what they want to believe, and not be bothered with the facts.

[OnyxCollie]

8. Steve Forbes should be aware that the teabaggers are misinformed.

He's the chairman of FreedomWorks, the Astroturf, 503(c) tax-deductible foundation that's taking advantage of gullible teabaggers and tax laws alike. (Corporate image advertising is tax-deductible; corporate issue advertising is not.)