As I was teaching the American Revolution to high school students, I got to thinking about how the colonists were upset about taxes. Actually, what they were really upset about was “taxation without representation”. I really wanted to spark my students’ interests and engagement, so I went a bit extreme and ordered several historical t-shirts.
I bought several history themed t-shirts (see links below #ad) and some props (more links for this too) to help my students become more engaged and maybe passionate about the founding ideals of our great country. But, I could not stop thinking about the massive amount of taxes we pay over the course of a year and eventually a lifetime. What bothers me most is that we just keep on paying them. It is like we are conditioned to do it because our parents did and their parents did it and are great- grands paid it, too but WAIT.. did our great- grands pay taxes?
My grandmother was born in 1913 when the 16th Amendment (fed income tax) was passed. This Constitutional Amendment officially gave the Federal Government the ability to tax everyone’s income but only a few rich folks had to pay. So, by the time my blessed Granny was 30 years the l US Government began to officially enforce federal payroll withholding tax. As you know, WWII was going on in the 1940s and the tax was enforced to help pay war efforts.
So, unlike the crying toddler in the video below, we have only been laying down and allowing the government (federal, state, county, and city) to run all over us with the taxation steam roll for about 85 years. That is 9.7 trillion (federal only)in just 2024. YET the stay broke and want more. It is our earnings, it is our country (We the People) but they will charge you penalties and interest if you do not pay your own taxes on time. They will also garnish your wages and throw you in jail. (Did they not learn from Daniel Shay?)
249 years ago, we protested, dumped tea, took up arms against our own mother country and had an entire revolution over small taxes levied on things like tea (see links below about my favorite drinking tea/ not dumping tea).
The State of SC found an extra 1.8 billion in tax money lying around last year. They could not even explain where the money came from and did they send us a check? Nope
It is getting harder and harder to teach early American identity when the “give me liberty or give me death”spirit is rapidly fading away.
Patrick Henry– click here
Oh….and I can’t leave out the 2 pains!!
T. Paine – wrote about fighting for your rights that Inspired the Declaration of Independence
and
T.Pain – wrote about his love for women with no clothes that inspired acceptance of pole dancers.
Thank you for visiting my post and make sure to check out the links below for items I bought to spark student interests.
Tea Teaching Items #ad
Click Here – Historical T-Shirts Spilling the Tea Since 1773
Click Here – Historical T-Shirt We the People
Click Here for Historical T-Shirt The Preamble
Click Here for Tea – don’t dump this tea!
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