We must say 'no' to taxation

Let's draw an analogy between the macrocosmic state of the nation's economy and the microcosmic state of the Arizona economy and then the economic state of the individual family. Each is a reflection of the other.
 
What happens when the disposable income of the family decreases? I submit that the prudent thing to do is for the family to reduce its expenditures on nonessentials - nonessentials meaning things that we can live without, at least temporarily, until we can find a way to restore or increase disposable income. In simpler terms, we as individuals or as families, must learn to live within our means!
 
As individuals, or as families, we cannot get more income by taking the income from other families to augment our own so that we can continue to spend as though nothing ever happened. Instead, we must adjust our expenditures - give up, at least temporarily, the things that we first experienced as luxuries but which now have become, in our minds, necessities. A luxury, once enjoyed, can soon become considered a necessity.
 
This, in my humble view, is what is happening from the family level, to the city level, to the state level, and then on to the national level. What it boils down to is too much instant gratification - from the head of the household, to the city councils, to the mayors, to the state legislatures, to the governors, to the national Congress and Senate, then to the president.
 
We love to say "yes" to our family members, because we want them to love us. Politicians love to say "yes" because they want to curry favor with the electorate, and assure re-election. All politicians love power! In a real sense, the head of the household is a politician in his home.
 
Unlike the head of the household, the politicians can enact "fees" and "taxes" with which to fund these "nonessentials" - these gestures of immediate gratification, only to breed demand for more gestures of immediate gratification, at the expense of the taxpayer.
 
A politician never met a tax that he/she didn't like. A good local example is the "hospitality tax," into which the politicians are trying to breathe new life. Just what part of the word "no" did they not comprehend in the last election?
 
It is past time for all of us to say "no," at least temporarily until we can solve our economic problems - not just treat the symptoms, but to first stop the hemorrhaging. We can then reassess our positions and act rationally.
 
This process needs to start at the family level, then the city/county level, then the state level -where governor Jan brewer is proposing an additional 1 percent hike in the state sales tax - then to the national level where President Obama is trying to spend us into prosperity. He needs to read Lincoln.
 
Someone has to say "no" - "no" to living beyond our means.
 
Families in some cases, the city council and mayor, the state and federal governments all seem to believe that living within our means borrowing the money to do it - even if we are borrowing from future generations.
 
After all, we won't have to repay the loans; our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will pay the price for our instant gratification, and then they will have their own instant gratification issues.
 
A group of us has organized a "tea party" in downtown Yuma on April 15 at Gateway Park at 5 p.m. to protest out of control taxing and spending on the part of the government entities - from city hall to the White House!
 
We are going to start saying "no" to all of the above, and we need participation from all who are sick and tired of being taxed into oblivion. Taking away our income to gratify someone else is patently wrong, and it needs to be stopped.
 
Our incomes give us the liberty to live life as we wish. Taking away that income is taking away our liberty.
 
I encourage all who wish to say "no" to income confiscation via new taxes for the purpose of instant gratification to join us on April 15 at our tea party to "symbolically" dump some tea into the Colorado River  and to mail a tea bag to each of our governmental officials, from city hall to the White House.
 
Someone has to have the courage to say "no." Let it begin with us - the taxpayers! I hope people will come and join us in saying "no" to uncontrolled governmental taxing and spending.

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John Mitchell is a local restaurant owner and an organizer of the upcoming anti-tax "tea party."