Cup O'Tea!

Yesterday was Tax Day and if you were driving down Burlington St. around lunch time, you would have seen Iowa City's edition of what was a nationwide phenomenon of anti-tax 'Tea Parties.' Instapundit has a great round-up of the nationwide protests with estimated crowds of anywhere from a few hundred to 10-15,000... left-wing blogs ranging from Huffington Post to Talking Points Memo have taken up the meme that these protests are corporate sponsored 'tea bags', referring to the protesters, of course, as 'tea-baggers.'

This a shot (courtesy of the P-C) of the turnout in Iowa City:



To be honest, prior to yesterday I was somewhat neutral about this phenomenon. I liked the fact that it seemed to be fairly non-partisan (albeit right leaning.) People just seemed pissed off at the Government in general- which I could get behind, despite the fact I disapprove of populism in general. However, having seen the turnout yesterday here in Iowa City, I am now convinced that this is something that any politician ignores at their own peril.

Iowa City is the solid blue core of the state of Iowa- the words 'socialist paradise' would not be that far off the mark when it comes to I.C.- and if in this den of Democratic feeling you can get 300 people to turn out for one of these 'tea parties' then there's some real heft and anger behind them- and it doesn't come with corporate sponsorship either.

If I was President Obama right now, I'd do two things:

1. Abolish the payroll tax- or at least institute a payroll tax holiday (abolish it for one year and phase it back in 25% at a time over the course of the next four years.) Doing this would put more money directly into the hands of Americans right now. This would be solid economic stimulus, giving consumers more to spend- and it's good politics, but someday (who knows when, but someday) the Republicans will get their shit together and they'll lead with something like this- and if Democrats get their first, they'll score a solid take away from the Republicans and look good doing so.

2. Tax reform- having discovered the joys of having other people do my taxes, I am now convinced that the first President that can hold up one 8.5x11 sheet of paper and say, 'this is what we all get to use to file taxes' will be re-elected- if he can produce something smaller than that for everyone, he'll be re-elected in a landslide. The appetite is there and again, it's smart politics for Democrats. Taps into something people want badly (especially around April) and takes the Republicans out at the knees doing so, while pouring some salve on the very real anger that's out there.

But who am I kidding? Since when are the Democrats (or the Republicans for that matter) about playing smart politics?