tea party time

It seems the Bush Administration and its rubber-stampers on the Hill have taken the old battle cry of “No Taxation without Representation,” and reinvented it as a cynical political strategy.

In spite of claims that he would never raise taxes, this President Bush has also failed the lip-reading test. By signing the latest tax “cut” bill into law, GW Bush raised taxes on groups that can’t vote or tend not to.

As the New York Times reported last week, the law that will again cut taxes for the richest Americans, triples the rates paid by teenagers on college savings funds.

And, as pointed out by the Times this week (via Think Progress and AmericaBlog), the new tax law also raises the amount paid by Americans living abroad.

Once again, the Republicans in Congress and the White House have used the Federal Tax Code as a campaign tool. The newest cuts serve to energize the base (“This is an impressive crowd—the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.”) by reminding them of why they vote Republican, and Republicans pay for those irresponsible tax cuts by increasing taxes on teenagers, who don’t have the vote, and on ex-pats, who tend to vote at one-quarter of domestic rates.

The Battle Hymn of the Republican: No representation? Ripe for taxation.