Today I had a few hours between classes, so I headed down to Boston Common for the Tax Day Tea Party! All I can say is that I am so glad I decided to go. There was a crowd of what seemed like about 1000 people gathered near the State House, holding awesome signs, waving flags, sitting on the steps, milling around, handing out literature, speaking to reporters, and standing up for liberty! I could hardly hear the speakers (who included Michael Graham and Carla Howell) but just being in the presence of so many liberty-loving Americans was one of the coolest things ever. In attendance were people of all races and all ages, from little kids to teenagers to adults to old people. Some were wearing period costumes, some had anti-Obama and anti-tax t-shirts, and most just looked like regular people. There were not only people active in the liberty movement, but also people who stopped by during their lunch break or who just saw the protest and decided to join in. The Tea Party made me proud to be from Boston and gave me hope for America.
The media is giving Boston’s Tea Party, as well as the other ones all around the country, a lot of attention! I saw reporters and camera crews from Fox News and CNN, among many others. Check out these articles: CNN, Fox News, and CBS. I took some pictures myself, which will be posted tonight when I have time to make thumbnails, some of which you are looking at now. Click here to see the rest!
Hooray for liberty!!!
It seems like the world (or at least Boston) is going in a bad direction right now. The Boston Globe, an integral part of many people’s daily routines and an invaluable source of news, is in danger of closing, and now another venerable Boston institution, the MBTA, might have to drastically cut its service and raise fares. In other depressing news, the iconic Zakim Bridge will no longer be lit up at night to save money for the Turnpike Authority.
If the state does not raise its gas tax by 19 cents a gallon, the T might have to raise fares by 25-30%, eliminate commuter rail service on nights and weekends, eliminate bus routes and subway stops, and reduce the frequency of trains and buses by 50% during midday, nights, and weekends. These are just a few of the cutbacks – check out the Globe for a more extensive list.
I am vehemently against raising the gas tax. Massachusetts has WAY too many taxes already, and more taxes are the last thing the state needs. I’d rather have $7 tolls than a higher gas tax, and I’d rather have the T cut services and raise fares than have any kind of tax increase.
However, there are a plethora of things in the bloated state budget that should be cut before the T. Just take a look at this game, which was created by the Globe to show how hard it would be to balance the budget if Question 1 passed (which it very unfortunately didn’t). I was able to fairly easily cut more than I needed to by eliminating government spending on health care ($13 billion) and human services ($3.59 billion), and a couple more billion in various other categories. A lot of people would disagree with me on this, but I don’t think it’s the government’s role to pay for people’s medical services or social programs. Cuts in these areas could be used to give the T and Turnpike the funding they need to balance their budgets. I love the T, and the Zakim Bridge is a beautiful icon of Boston. While I am really supportive of the state government cutting its budget, these are the last things that should be cut.
If you live in the Boston area, you’ve probably heard that the New York Times Co. is threatening to close the Boston Globe if unions don’t accept $20 million in cuts. The paper has been losing money lately because of falling advertising revenues, a problem that has only been aggravated by the recession. Although the Globe has a reputation for liberal bias, which I have noticed in many of its stories on local and national politics and on its editorial page, I think that losing the Globe would be a terrible thing.
Boston has three daily papers:
- The Boston Globe – the “liberal” paper. My parents subscribe to this paper, so I have been reading it for a long time. Although I don’t agree with most of its editorials and I have noticed bias in some of its news articles, I really appreciate that its coverage of crimes and trials is almost always factual and unbiased.
- The Boston Herald – the “conservative” paper. I read it online and occasionally buy it if there’s a big news story or if I’m bored. I agree with its politics more than the Globe’s, but its crime stories are usually anti-defense, sensationalized, biased, and sometimes defamatory, which really annoys me.
- The Metro – the free paper, which I read most days. This is actually my favorite of the three papers. Its articles, although less in depth than the other papers, are unbiased, and its editorial page has a wide range of opinions.
If the Globe closed, we’d be left with the Herald as our major paper, which would be kind of scary. I don’t like it that public opinion in Massachusetts tends to be dominated by liberal thought, but it would be sad not to have the Globe. The more newspapers there are, the greater variety of opinions, and varied opinions are always a good thing. On a side note, does anyone remember Boston Now? That was a short-lived free paper that existed a couple of years ago, and I was really sad when it closed. I love newspapers, and while I love the Internet too, there is no way that it can compare to opening up an actual paper, reading it at breakfast or at Dunkin’ Donuts, and cutting out and saving articles of important events. I am a big opponent of the trend toward websites instead of newspapers, Kindle instead of books, iTunes instead of CDs, and Hulu instead of the TV. Don’t get me wrong: the Internet is one of my favorite things in the world, but society would be much worse if it replaced books, CDs, TVs, and newspapers. We should try as hard as we can to reverse these trends and save the Globe.
