Andy Caldwell's Plunger Rebellion Announcement

We were tipped this morning about a tea party and plunger rebellion scheduled for April 15, 2009 in the Santa Maria, California area.  The email included a request to forward the flyer along to help promote the event.  We did that, but we also thought we’d post the text of the email and the flyer here because we bet even if you live nowhere near Santa Maria, you’ll still be able to appreciate the frustration in this electronic invitation…

“I would like to invite you to a T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already) Party and what I am referring to as a Plunger Rebellion. Please join me and bring a protest sign against higher taxes and a plunger. Why a plunger? Because things are backed up and we have a big mess on our hands! The event will be held on April 15 at 5:30 pm in the Mervyn’s Parking Lot in Santa Maria located at Broadway and Cook. By the way, I am also inviting owners of diesel equipment to bring their now worthless equipment to the rally so people can see what wasted capital investment looks like.

We live in trying times. We are being tempted to risk our economic freedoms in exchange for a mirage of economic security. We will end up with neither freedom nor security if we don’t make some hard choices right now. The truth is we can’t tax, borrow or print enough money to get us out of this jam. We must simply suffer through some tough choices.

America has been living beyond its means for a very long time and has cut itself off from the very economic activity it needs in order to recover. Greed in the corporate world and amongst organized labor, coupled with unbridled consumption patterns by consumers buying houses they can’t afford and relying upon maxed out credit cards for everyday living expenses, along with government entitlement giveaways with no securities to pay for the same, well, no wonder we have problems!

The flip side of having run up bills and commitments we cannot afford to pay is our artificially constrained ability to generate new wealth and related tax revenues via the creation of new products, development, and increased industrial and manufacturing output. Opportunity is constrained by the double blow of government fiat and environmental activism. To put it another way, some of our own people are pirating as much money as they can from a sinking ship, while other forces in our society continue to poke holes in the ship. The ship cannot help but sink taking many innocent lives, i.e., those who are living within their means and are not milking the system for all its worth, along with it.

I believe it is high time that we take a stand and hope that our society as a whole comes to its senses. We can no longer afford to reward corporate executives with exorbitant salaries and bonuses while they run companies into the ground in order to realize short term profits. Relatedly, shareholders need to restrain their urges to fire these same CEO’s who don’t deliver dividends which actually exceed the true earnings and value of the company. Government and private sector unions can no longer expect returns and guarantees for pensions that exceed the routine fluctuations of the stock market. The ability of individuals and families to incur debt of any kind must be tied to, and have a ceiling based upon, their actual earning capacity.

The basic ingredients of wealth creation are economic freedom; property rights, market based capital opportunities, and entrepreneurial spirit. As a society, we must roll back the attitudes, regulations and prohibitions impeding economic growth. Extreme environmental policies that prohibit the use of property and the development and use of natural resources must be rescinded. Excessive taxation and regulation that promotes capital flight and does not reward investment, must be eliminated. And to fuel our recovery, artificial constraints prohibiting our ability to create necessary water and energy supplies, housing stock and infrastructure must be removed.

Please join me on April 15 at Mervyns. I will be armed with hope, petitions, and a plunger.

Andy Caldwell is the Executive Director of COLAB and a 40 year resident of the Central Coast. For contact information, visit the COLAB website at www.colabsbc.org”

Credit for the tip goes to Bill Giorgi!  Click here for the Santa Maria Tea Party Flyer