Tea Party Politics From Colonial Boston to the Obama Bailouts

Bedford's Bill Martel writes a piece on the history of Tea Party Politics in U.S. News and World Report:

Two hundred and thirty-six years ago this week, Britain's Parliament passed the Tea Act. It lowered taxes on tea.

And the Colonies were furious.

Why? The act gave a monopoly to the British East India Company on trade to the Colonies, effectively scuttling colonial tea smugglers and angering locals who had been quite satisfied with their own arrangement. As one more sign of British arrogance and meddling, it eventually sparked a revolution.

Two hundred and thirty-six years later, the very idea of taxation is no more popular. And politics are just as complicated. So it's little surprise that April 2009's American tea parties denouncing congressional spending of taxpayer dollars took their cue from patriot Samuel Adams.

Read the whole thing.

William Martel is associate professor of international security studies at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, and author of Victory in War: Foundations of Modern Military Policy.

Edited to show that Bill Martel is from Bedford, not Amherst.