Embracing the Tea Party movement

Every April 15, I’m amazed by the number of people lined up outside the post office at the 11th hour, waiting to mail their taxes in before midnight. Friends, tax day is like Christmas — it’s the same day every year! It’s also inevitable, like death.

The struggles of the everyday taxpayer go back centuries. In December 1773, in Boston, a group of disenfranchised colonists led by Samuel Adams and John Hancock revolted against the British government and the Tea Act. They threw boatloads of tea overboard, shouting, “Taxation without representation is tyranny!”

Today, the Tea Party movement is sweeping our nation. For the second straight year, frazzled, last-minute taxpayers were not alone at the post office. The Tea Party held its second annual coast-to-coast tax day rally in protest not only of out-of-control taxation, but the bankrupting liberal spending agenda of the Obama administration and Congress.

During this time of economic hardship, when many Americans feel that their elected officials are ignoring their interests and taxing them unfairly, are you surprised that this group has created such a buzz?

Some say Tea Partiers are radical. In the extreme, they’ve been referred to as redneck and racist. However, at their core, moderate Tea Partiers are an anti-government, anti-tax, anti-deficit and anti-government-corruption group, no different from you and me. Recent rallies have included activists from all walks of life — from former stockbrokers to housewives to truck drivers.

The Tea Party should not be taken lightly. In New York, where we pay some of the highest taxes in the nation, it’s hard to ignore its existence. Our elected officials rake us over the coals and expect us to be content with the status quo. Democratic state Sen. Brian Foley, from Suffolk County, declared war on the Tea Party, calling it “Astroturf mobs.” Foley charged that its rallies were being orchestrated by the Suffolk County Republican Party and would backfire.