TOP SHELF on Happy Hour:
We're making sense of these tea party protests. Thousands of anti-tax, anti-government, anti-spending protesters showed up from sea to shining sea. The protesters mostly fired up about spending trillions bailing out corrupt and poorly run companies.
They're also angry about the wealth redistribution policies that helped get President Barack Obama elected, and which are still helping him score high job approval ratings.
Funny thing is, they say most protesters out there are working class, middle income Americans so they're presumably on the plus side of that income redistribution equation. Hmmm...
It's true that state taxes are rising and federal taxes are falling for most of the folks at these protests. Perhaps all those reasons are why the protesters failed to attract larger numbers. Nothing like the tens of thousands of protesters at the G-20 summit in London a few weeks ago.
For example, in Hartford, Connecticut, police estimated 3,000 people showed up at the state capitol.
20 years ago an estimated 40,000 converged in the same spot, to protest against the personal income tax.
But it doesn't matter that turnout was modest at most protests across the country.
Their argument is worthy of debate nonetheless. Smaller government, less spending on entitlement programs, and lower taxes. I mean who likes paying taxes?
Stocks gained today ahead of more earnings. What are the markets telling us about all this? Tea parties be damned?
