D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June
2009
Tea Partiers Teed Off
After reading your article about the tax day Tea Party (Editor's Notebook, May), I realized that because you were not in attendance you really didn't have a good grasp of what was happening in Gough Park. First, the event was not in any way connected to a particular political party. I helped with the organization of this Tea Party and can and will personally vouch for that. Several times during the day a list of rules was read over the public-address system stating the Tea Party's purpose so that it would not turn into a political bash of any sorts. The announcer often asked for the Democrats, Republicans and Independents to raise their hands in turn. This was done to make the participants comfortable and let them know they were participating in an event that claimed no party. The Tea Party was held for all taxpayers. Many Tea Parties were broadcast live on TV and radio. I was able to watch one for a couple of hours and they were also of no particular party affiliation.
Secondly, taxes were not the only issue. It was also a protest of what we feel is reckless spending of both the last administration and the present one. Many people signed the protest that was sent to our representatives in the Senate and the Congress. As you know we haven't even begun to address the $11 trillion deficit. Where is this money going to come from? That shoe hasn't fallen yet, and to say that some of us are a little concerned is putting it mildly. This will have to be addressed by the American people. We are morally responsible to do so — the earlier, the better.
Although many of us do not like to pay taxes, we realize that they are somewhat a necessity. We all realize that the government needs funds to operate. However, the billions in earmarks for pet projects in this economic downturn is not, in the protesters' view, the right thing to do. These too were on the protest list at the Tea Party. I was personally so infuriated about Congress allowing their automatic pay raise happen that I wrote to Speaker Pelosi, Senators Reid, Bingaman and Udall, and Representative Teague, demanding that they return the money to the government coffers for use elsewhere. Not one of them replied.
Lastly, the Tea Party brought together like-minded citizens to practice their right of free speech. There will be more Tea Parties in the future, and I believe that their focus will cover many issues concerning state, local as well as federal issues. We have a right to know where the billions are going and our Congress and Senate just aren't saying. With all of this wild spending we want to see receipts. It is too bad that you only drove by. I think that you would have really enjoyed our local tea party.
Tim O'Donnell
Silver City
Rather than doing a drive-by report, why didn't David Fryxell stop and talk with any of the more than 650 signed-in participants? Sure, crunch numbers to make the current administration and Congress seem good. Many people are rightfully concerned about not only the never ending bail-outs, the national deficit, and the "pork pandemic" in the so-called "stimulus" bill, but the expansion of government in our lives.
Sean Peters
Cliff
In your editorial on Silver City's Tea Party demonstration, you reprint the Democrat line that it is a partisan affair. Had you left your automobile, and do what real reporters do, listen, and observe, you would know that the demonstration was against government spending by all parties. There were many good speeches by regular working people, who know that we shouldn't be dumping all this debt on our grandchildren. If government cannot let a company fail, it also can keep it from success. The Republicans have not been very frugal with our money even before the Democrats took over the Congress a couple of years ago, and the current President let the current Congress write their own ticket. Unless something changes, we are in for more of the same wasteful spending, and restrictions on our freedoms.
Bill Moore
Silver City
I am disappointed, not surprised, but disappointed that you would regurgitate incorrect facts about the Tea Party held in Silver City. What is most disturbing is that you drove by Gough Park and made several conclusions about the people based upon looking at them. That is the epitome of arrogance. The fact that you did not stop and listen much less ask questions only confirms that you are not a reporter in any sense.
I understand an editorial is opinion but don't you think an opinion should be formed only after ascertaining the facts? I think so and so do many people. I often read the Desert Exposure and have enjoyed the articles about the businesses, people and attractions of the Southwest. Whether I continue to read your publication or not I have not decided. But if your editorial is any indication and I'm sure it is, if I continue to read the DE I will take everything with a very large grain of salt.
You no doubt will defend your position as accurate based upon "research" you may have done through other websites and believe that I am naive but you would be incorrect. I am very well informed and spent several hours at the Tea Party. I asked questions and listened. I am much more knowledgeable than you about the issues raised by the citizens. And I dare say the citizens, even the ones that would "benefit" in your opinion from Obama's tax cuts, are much more knowledgeable than you. That is why they are participating.
Mike Rowse
Silver City
Regarding your article "Taxing Problems," first there were over 1.1 million American Patriots protesting on April 15 in over 850 cities nationwide, that were associated just with the Tax Day Tea Party group. This includes groups totally organized by conservative Democrats, and does not including other Tea Party groups sponsored by other organizations. To allude that this is a GOP movement is misleading. While there are some GOP-type people trying to stick their nose into this movement, personally, I wish they'd just go home — as they have been part of the problem for years. The true message of the Tea Party is all tax-and-spend politicians — regardless of party — change your ways or we are going to change things.
The movement is not just about protesting the current tax rate. That is a dodge ball tossed out by disinformation experts to draw focus away from the real issue. Tax rates are relatively low now compared to prior years. To point at the current tax rate as the sole argument of protestors is ridiculous and an attempt to marginalize the frustrations of protestors.
As you correctly observed in reporting, the people protesting obviously are not in the high-income tax bracket. The obvious question is, if those people are not the ones who pay the bulk of the taxes then why are they protesting? The answer is simple. Under prior administrations, tax and spending by Congress escalated to out of control levels. The silent majority has been complaining about this for years but not in an organized fashion. The tipping point started with the Wall Street bail-outs under the prior administration, which were done under the protest of the majority of the American people. Congress has forgotten that they represent the people. They are bailing out some citizens and corporations deemed more equal than other citizens and corporations, and are doing so without representing the wishes of the citizens.
Had you actually stopped and listened to the speakers, you would have learned about the actual facts and figures which had been obtained from reliable sources, including the Federal Reserve. Instead you just assume that the protestors did not do their homework. The problem is not the current tax rate. The low tax rate argument is a bait and switch tactic to fool the American people into thinking that government can spend more and tax less. That is a mathematical impossibility that even the most simple-minded person can figure out. Government has been spending more than their tax receipts for decades, and the trick to maintaining the shell game that people can have their cake and eat it too is through printing money out of thin air at a slight positive inflation curve. However, the shell game got out of control when Congress got out of control with their spending starting as far back as the 1970s.
The bail-outs are not just a bitter pill. The true danger that lies ahead involves an unfolding hyperinflation. If you study the history of hyperinflations, you will discover that there are 11 very important markers that signal a hyperinflation is unfolding. With the Fed's recent announcement that they are monetizing the debt, the last marker is officially in place. The economic and political implications of a hyperinflation in this country have dire consequences individually and as a nation. The beginning phases of the hyperinflations will be heralded as an economic recovery. There will be full employment as people will have to go to work in order to buy the most basic of necessities, yet things will get more expensive daily. Check your history. Once the money printing machine starts after the critical-mass point it doesn't stop until economic collapse. Government never recalls the money it puts into circulation— it just spends more and creates more money to pay for it. It is time to invest in wheelbarrows.
The truth is deficits are growing because government refuses to reverse its spending. Much of this spending is not even constitutionally authorized. Deficits are not growing because the tax rate is too low. Deficits are growing because Congress is spending more than it is possible to collect in taxes from the people, even for generations to come.
The solution is not more taxes, it is less spending. Just as individuals cannot borrow and spend their way into wealth, neither can a nation.
Leslie Bronken
Deming
Editor's note: Thanks to all the readers
who wrote in response to May's editorial. Just a few points of clarification
and correction:
First, the editorial was not intended as a news report on the Gough Park gathering or other Tea Parties in our area, but rather as a commentary on the difficulty of the issues involved and a suggestion for some New Mexico tax-and-spend questions equally worth addressing. We apologize if, in researching the national Tea Party movement, we applied too broad a brush to local activists.
It is nonetheless true that prominent Republicans were at the forefront of the nationwide Tea Parties, which were organized in large part via a Web site founded by Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader. Since April 15, GOP leaders — notably Texas Gov. Rick Perry and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford — have attempted to capitalize on the Tea Party movement. Neither any of the above letters nor any of the media coverage we've seen mentions a single prominent Democrat by name who supported the Tea Parties. There's nothing wrong with that — Democrats have been staging protests for years— but it undermines the claim that the Tea Parties are truly nonpartisan (unlike, say, the budget-balancing Concord Coalition, which prominently features former Democratic Sen. Paul Tsongas).
We're disappointed that none of these correspondents took us up on our challenge to state specifically where they would cut the budget to reduce the deficit — especially since non-defense discretionary spending totals only $500 billion of the $3.5 trillion 2010 budget. We're not saying that cutting the deficit isn't a good idea, just that it's harder than most activists acknowledge. Eliminating "earmarks," which total $7.7 billion — 2% of the total — in the budget signed in March, won't even come close.
The New York Times estimated Tea Party attendance nationwide at 268,000 protesters at 207 gatherings.
We did, however, err in extending New Mexico's gross-receipts tax exemption to clothing. As an eagle-eyed caller pointed out, clothing is subject to this tax— making the tax even more regressive; poor people, after all, have to wear clothes, too.
Finally, while during good economic times it's obviously best to balance the budget (as President Clinton managed to do), the lessons of history — for both parties — suggest that balancing the budget during hard times is a prescription for disaster. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover responded to a collapsing economy by seeking to balance the federal budget through reduced federal spending — and deepened the Great Depression. In 1936, FDR raised taxes and reduced spending to close the budget deficit, and turned a recovering economy into the "recession within the Depression."
For a lighter look at the Texas-secessionist notion raised at one of that state's Tea Parties, see the Continental Divide column in this issue.
Truth and Consequences
No offense to Richard Mahler ("The Truth About T or C"); in fact, his writing is pretty good. But to see Desert Exposure do a two-page spread on T or C is very disappointing.
There's a reason towns don't prosper, and T or C's should be especially obvious to anyone who spends any time there. The "hippies of the 60s" and, more recently, the "retro Realtor and friends" who tried to turn T or C into an art town, and who are now trying to boast that their town is "affordable" and has "spas," are laughable.
After having operated a legitimate business there (emphasis on "legitimate"), I can assuredly say significant black markets operate in T or C — as that's what the "hippies of the 60s" call "going to work." Many artists in T or C don't have business licenses, but still sell their art/wares at monthly gallery hops (using the sidewalk or somebody's store), have their merchandise or consignments with shops in town (for cash only), or sell at every fair, festival, farmer's market, etc. to keep sales "under the table" and not collect or pay gross receipts taxes as required by the state.
Massage therapists, acupuncturists and other alternative health care practitioners, who are not properly licensed by the state and city, are "in business" in T or C.
And, within the last two years, two tourists have died in T or C's hot springs. The first went unreported to state authorities for months. After the state came in to make changes in hot springs safety, health and sanitation for operations in T or C, hardly any compliance has been demonstrated. Nobody appears to be tracking infectious diseases even though there are more informal reports of cases and questions about at-risk populations using commercial facilities.
A lodge owner who recently installed a hot tub he calls "the love tub" was recently quoted in New Mexico Magazine saying he wants lovers and honeymooners to come to his place and "do it."
The wild-west mentality in T or C where "everything goes" (in accordance with a small group of people's philosophy, including cronyism) should be history, but it's not. Corruption continues.
When sanitation is poor in a place offering public "baths" and "tubs" and "pools," alternative health practices with unlicensed people, and people dying in hot springs, does it sound like a place you want to visit?
Don't be foolish. Ralph Edwards' contribution has been given, received and more than used. The town, so stuck in time, is in need of a serious dose of reality in the new millennium to launch itself into legitimacy. If they're going to promote "quirky" T or C, then it behooves all of them to do it legally, ethically and fairly.
April Heather Schmidlapp
Deming
Clarification: Jeff Berg's May article, "Into
the Wild," about
the BLM Wilderness Patrol, briefly referenced rancher William Hurt. If Mr.
Hurt was not fully aware that he would be part of an article, we apologize;
there was no intention to invade his privacy.
Let us hear from you! Write Desert Exposure Letters, PO Box 191, Silver City, NM 88062, fax 534-4134 or email letters@desertexposure.com Letters are subject to editing for style and length, and must be in response to content that has appeared in our pages. Deadline for the next issue is the 18th of the month.