The Taxed Enough Already people were/are deceived, but they can't see it. Why? It's not the fault, as some people would have it, of the corporate (Koch) effort to take these disgusted citizens over. And it's not that the corporate claim to being sympathetic and understanding of the plight of being taxed too much, which the corporations surely aren't. No, the deception lies elsewhere and whether citizens and corporations are taxed too little or too much or just enough is actually entirely beside the point. Because the deception lies in the simple perversion of the truth that, since dollars all originate at the Treasury, like a spring flowing out of an Alpine crag, the spending comes first and the collection of revenue for recycling comes last. What Congress would have the country believe, and aggressivley acts to sustain, is the myth that before Washington can spend, the people must be taxed. And it is this perversion which is being made plain by the 25 states (at last count) rejecting dollars for medical services. They are denying themselves healing because they don't want to be bled, at a time when bleeding is long past its time as a routine surgical procedure.
Was there ever a time when Washington was not the sole source of currency? Indeed, before the Civil War, several of the states and territories issued their own. And before that the Dutch bankers, who had corralled all the gold stolen from the Americas, controlled the age of industrialization and world commerce by issuing notes. So, since the residents of New Amsterdam, at a minimum, had to be aware of this model of private banker control over the currency, the fact that the function of managing the currency of the United States was assigned in the Constitution to an elected body, the Congress, was not a happenstance. Neither was the continuing controversy over a national bank which the establishment of the hybrid Federal Reserve in 1913 was, presumably, designed to resolve -- giving the banks a primary middleman, but not an initiating role. And letting Congress somewhat off the hook. What hook? The sole responsibility for managing the expenditure of the country's assets and resources.
But, a funny thing happened along the way. Congress gave up the overt responsibility, what people could see, even as it continued to disburse the currency in the interest of their own longevity in office. And it is that which the TEA people, and the corps, perceived and sought to halt without realizing that it wasn't the spending, but the rationing and targeted distribution that was at fault.
Sort of reminds me of the old saying that "it's not the sleeping, it's the lying awake" that has the perhaps unanticipated and undesirable results. The TEA people want us all to stop sleeping, when what's needed is that the corrupt diddling be stopped.
"Don't give us any money, so there's none to collect." Does that make sense? No, that's downright perverse.