Benjamin Franklin relates in his Autobiography that during the French and Indian War Governor Morris continually "worried the colonists" with demands for money to defend the province. Franklin was active in raising funds but that he and most of his contemporaries resisted the Crown's taxation of the average colonist without taxing the estates of the rich or of tax schemes that taxed the wealthy estates less. The idea of tax falling on the people in proportion to their ability to pay was strong among the revolutionaries and rang powerfully in the cry for "no taxation without representation." As the documents published from the time by Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris (The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six) prove, this cry was as much about taxing the English monopolies that had acquired special privileges to carry to and sell products in the colonies as it was about fair taxation.
Today's arguments over taxation should be informed by our history, but it is clear that people are ignorant of this background. The Tea Party especially should be opposed to the Bush Tax Cuts and should be pressing for a taxation scheme that hits the wealthy like Warren Buffet as hard as his secretary. Excuses heard from Fox News to Senate Republicans that there should be spending cuts and not tax revenue increases are absurd when we find hidden in their arguments such facts that the effective tax rate on corporations is one of the lowest in the world due to corporate tax avoidance. Efficient tax collection based on a fair system would reduce the tax burden for most taxpayers (http://www.ombwatch.org/...). Efficient spending monitoring of government spending is the answer, more spending audits of the military, the CIA, private health providers and energy producers will solve most of our budget problems (low estimates already 4 years old show at least $228bn could be saved per year http://www.theepochtimes.com/....