A thought:experiment
- Thread starter Joe Portale
- Start date
MountainGun -
The organizers of the Boston Tea Party were upset because they weren't paying any taxes at all for the Dutch tea they smuggled into the colonies; the East India Company was being undercut by smugglers, so the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, allowing East India to lower their own prices to the level of contraband tea.
In fact, the colonists were paying less taxes than British taxpayers were; even the Seven Years' War (which got the French out of North America, much to the colonies' benefit) was paid for mostly by the Brits back at home, not by the colonists.
Don't get me wrong - I do think that "taxation without representation" is a legitimate issue; no one should ever be ruled by a government without having the fair chance to vote the scoundrels out. But your "50% versus 20%" example isn't a good analogy, because the Americans were actually paying less in taxes than the Brits.
You will rarely defeat the combined wisdom of TFLers!
What can I tell you? I enjoy long odds.
--Amp
The organizers of the Boston Tea Party were upset because they weren't paying any taxes at all for the Dutch tea they smuggled into the colonies; the East India Company was being undercut by smugglers, so the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, allowing East India to lower their own prices to the level of contraband tea.
In fact, the colonists were paying less taxes than British taxpayers were; even the Seven Years' War (which got the French out of North America, much to the colonies' benefit) was paid for mostly by the Brits back at home, not by the colonists.
Don't get me wrong - I do think that "taxation without representation" is a legitimate issue; no one should ever be ruled by a government without having the fair chance to vote the scoundrels out. But your "50% versus 20%" example isn't a good analogy, because the Americans were actually paying less in taxes than the Brits.
You will rarely defeat the combined wisdom of TFLers!
What can I tell you? I enjoy long odds.
--Amp