Tea Party figures found failing to pay taxes

[pampango]

Source: Buffalo News

James Ostrowski and Leonard A. Roberto, central figures in competing factions of Buffalo's low-tax tea party movement, both have a history of failing to pay federal income taxes, Erie County records show.

Liens totaling $52,459.83 have been filed against Ostrowski's Buffalo home for unpaid federal taxes dating back to 2001, the county records show.

Roberto settled five liens against his properties in Depew and Alden about two years ago after a long battle with the Internal Revenue Service that, he said, cost him upward of $150,000.

The Western New York Tea Party Coalition, which is affiliated with Ostrowski, has endorsed Davis, an anti-immigration trade protectionist who lost three congressional races -- one a primary -- as a Democrat.

Read more: http://www.buffalonews.com/incoming/article389049.ece

[SpiralHawk]

1. TeaBagliCons (R) = shirkers and grifters

...yet another woeful display of the classic Republicon Family Pharisee Values...

[jpak]

8. Deadbeats that still use the roads, bridges, airports, support the wars etc.

yup

[loudsue]

15. And running as "DEMOCRATS" in their state's primary elections.

I keep telling DUers: these posers need to be EXPOSED, not cheered, when they are running in the primaries against republicans. THEY ARE REPUBLICANS!!!

[freshwest]

40. How can they get on the ballot there as Democrats without party approval?

[plumbob]

61. In Texas, you pay your filing fee and you name your party with the secretary

of state. There is no party approval required or requested.

Same elsewhere, I would imagine.

[freshwest]

64. Not my state, though. And didn't the Democratic party bump Kucinich off the TX ballot?

[plumbob]

66. Here's a good link for that: it revolved around the party rule loyalty

oath, which Kucinich signed in 2004, but wanted not to do this time.

As the judge noted, he could run as a Republican or as an independent without signing anything, and the judge also noted that even if he signed it, it would not be legally enforceable.

It's a pro forma deal, which if you look at the Blue Dogs, is obviously honored only in the breach. It was too bad, too, because Dennis is my guy.

http://blogs.chron.com/texaspolitics/archives/2008/01/kucinich_stays_1.html

[freshwest]

67. Yeah, I seem to remember that... But it didn't seem fair at the time. He lost in court.

Guess he should have signed, after all, his winning was always a long shot. I loved both Kucinich and Gravel for bringing up a POV that the 'big' candidates didn't. Even Paul was denied and hassled like Kucinich was, but I'd forgotten in the emotional rhetoric that surrounded those primaries.

Not that I watched the GOP debates, etc, but Paul had a large anti-war youtube group I communicated with back then. They were not adverse to having either Gravel or Kucinich on the same ticket with Paul, some wanted that fusion. Paul said if people voted for universal health care he would work to make that happen.

I was not surprised the GOP tried to run Paul out of office just before the elections; but I was disappointed when it appeared the Democrats tried to run Kucinich out at the same time by offering candidates to take their seats. I believe though, that Kucinich is now on the way out due to GOP gerrymandering. He had an appeal out a while back for funding as his seat will be eliminated and he will have to run with a different demographic.

There were rumors the GOP funded a Green Party candidate in TX and elsewhere to diffuse the vote. It seemed to have been admitted. Nothing is too low for the GOP to do.

Of course they have the Koch brothers money to finance this stuff, so they have a motive to make all the mischief they can. so they do.

Thanks for the reply there.

[Tesha]

2. Well, because *NOT* paying taxes to the Homeland during a "Time of War" is Patriotic!

In their small, twisted minds, anyway.

Tesha

[rasputin1952]

3. Typical..."I want everything!...

but you pay for it!"

[ejpoeta]

7. which is funny because they always whine about how THEY pay for

the welfare recipients to get something for nothing, when they are the ones that want something for nothing.

[rasputin1952]

10. "I don't want my tax money going to some 'welfare queen'"...

Well, I don't want my tax money building more nuclear weapons, or aircraft carriers the Navy says they don't want or need.

I want my tax money spent on infrastructure repair; I want my tax money spent on feeding kids and getting then their inoculations so they don't get polio or some other disease we can prevent, like tetanus. I want cancer screening, HIV/AIDS cures, I want mothers to be able to take their kids to a doctor, I want an end to abject poverty. I want my tax money spent on decent education, a chance for every kid to learn and do their best. I want my tax money to be spent so that no child goes to sleep hungry

I don't want my tax dollars spent on arming people we may wind up fighting in the future...in fact, I want my tax money spent on peaceful things that advance human dignity...I don't think that's too much to ask for.

[ejpoeta]

11. +1!! hear hear.

[zbdent]

24. how about all the tax money going to a teabagger who gets farm subsidies from the gummint?

of course, the "liberally-biased media" won't report that as hypocrisy ...

[rasputin1952]

48. The governement subsidizes everything...

I say get rid of them and let "pure" capitalism roll out.

$9.00 a gallon of gas; $8 for a 4# bag of sugar; $12 for a bushel of corn...want to bet there would be riots in the streets. But the Teabaggers need their "year in the sun", give it to them, take away SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and everything else...baseline government w/pure capitalism at the helm...they'd be dead in less than 24 hours.

Some farmers who complain about "welfare queens", living on $220 and some food stamps a month are "bleeding the country dry"...while $285,000 checks for farmers are seen as somehow "earned"...they are "welfare kings", and they suck.

[PADemD]

37. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to direct where our tax dollars should go on our tax returns?

[butterfly77]

38. +1

[Plucketeer]

42. I want MY tax dollars spent on....

outing and prosecuting these phonies! :grr:

[zbdent]

25. like those who call for "right to work" legislation

(don't make me pay part of union dues, but get benefits negotiated by the union, and the union will defend the person anyway ...)

talk about welfare queens ...

[freshwest]

41. Yeah, close up experience with those deadbeats. Arrogant until their tail's in the grinder.

[rasputin1952]

49. As a former Shop Steward, I had to defend non-union workers under

the contract. I treated them as well as I treated my Union brothers and sisters...:)

[mwb970]

4. republican = criminal

= liar = thief

The only kind of equality republicans will ever understand.

[RedCloud]

50. Exactly.

[Evasporque]

5. Not low-tax....no tax.

They really want America to be a frontier again...all guns, no government bunker mentalists.

[meow2u3]

20. In case you didn't remember, only they are allowed to pack heat

Let a Democrat, a liberal, or a minority - especially a black man - pack heat and these hypocrites will call them dangerous criminals.

Read between the lines. When the Tealiban talks about gun rights, they mean only conservative, bigoted, and emotionally unstable, non-Hispanic white criminals acting above the law are allowed to have stockpiles of guns, legal or not.

[Control-Z]

63. Is that pic

from Tremors?

[ejpoeta]

6. do they realize the original tea party was about taxation without representation

not i just don't want to pay any taxes, right?

[Gore1FL]

12. Actually the orginal tea party was protesting corporate tax breaks. n/t

[No Elephants]

32. I thought a tax on tea was the immediate issue?

[EC]

46. It was shifting the tax from the corporation (i.e. tax break)

to the colonies. Since the colonies had no representation in the English Parliament, they had no say to the tax. The English saw this as a way to shift the tax off of the citizens of England (since they would have rebelled and that would be in elites neighborhoods) and off the trading companies....win - win in their eyes...what did they care if a few vagabonds in the New World complained?

[No Elephants]

52. What is "the corporation" Or did you mean all corporations?

[Gore1FL]

47. The lack of tax on the tea was the issue.

It undercut the profit margins of those who brought in tea through smuggling.

The Boston Tea Party was <Pick One>: (black marketeers, smugglers, small businessmen, or entrepreneurs) whose business's were being undermined by the crown's corporate welfare that gave the East India Tea company freedom from taxation.

[No Elephants]

54. How did East India Tea company's NOT paying a tax reduce

profits of smugglers?

ETA: Thanks. I'll research myself from here, rather than expecting to be spoon fed by fellow posters. I appreciate the info so far, though.

[Gore1FL]

65. They could undercut the smugglers n/t

[tonybgood]

53. The Tea Party?

If the Tea Party had bothered to do any research, they'd have realized that there was more hemp thrown into Boston Harbor that day than tea. Actually, that explains it, they're all high!!!

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Wesley Snipes in jail for not paying taxes

why are these lunatics walking the street?

[freshwest]

43. He was used in their propaganda as an example of black booted IRS agents...

[Keith Bee]

13. Not surprising

Isn't "TEA" supposed to stand for "Taxed Enough Already"? Plus the fact they can't stand the idea that their money might feed children whose parents are out of work,

[tpsbmam]

14. They're not alone.....

Tea Party Patriot founder Jennie Beth Martin & her husband owed over $680,000 in tax debt ($500,000 of that was owed to the IRS) before they declared bankruptcy. All of that debt, I note, was accrued when Shrub was president.

Judson Phillips is an ambulance chaser lawyer and he and his wife Sherry are the founders of Tea Party Nation. In the last 10 years he's had 3 federal liens against him (to the tune of $22,000) which he claims have been paid.

I have no doubt there are way, way more.

As I've read along, I'm sensing a real pattern here....they fucked up and now they're blaming the government and taxation instead of themselves for fucking up. (Allowing for legit disagreements over tax debt...doesn't sound like there's been much of that here.) Yeah, it's okay to tell liberals and the poor to take responsibility for themselves but when it comes to them.....it's alllllll the fault of big gubmint, doncha know!!

[meow2u3]

19. Your sig line is awesome!

Ok, to get back on topic, I see the pattern here. It's OK if these right-wing tax dodgers get something for nothing, but let a poor person; an unemployed worker whose job was shipped off shore; a single mom; a senior citizen who didn't retire filthy rich; or anyone struggling to make ends meet ask for a financial hand up, and right away these criminals call them welfare queens.

They're the damn welfare queens--or welfare monarchs, to put it better!

[tpsbmam]

30. Thanks....feel free to swipe it...

I pulled it off twitter.

The ridiculous thing is that most of the teabaggers aren't rich, they're just stupid and hypocritical. There definitely seems to be a pattern, though, of these morons screwing up their taxes and failing to accept responsibility for their actions. It's alllllll the gubmint's fault! But yeah, those who struggle and work and try are due nada -- they're welfare queens. Riiiight. You're absolutely right -- the tax cheating teabaggers are the welfare queens -- they're the ones living off of US. This BS about them supporting people who desperately need it is hogwash and a total lie. ALL of our taxes do that and believe me, people at the bottom of the economic scale pay plenty of taxes themselves through the umpteen consumption & use taxes. EVERYONE in the U.S. pays taxes.

[avaistheone1]

60. It is!

[femrap]

35. Hey, I want your sig on a t-shirt!!! nt

[tpsbmam]

58. Knew I'd find one somewhere.....the site is new to me but they have a bunch of

funny ones. Site owner(s) is/are definitely a progressive (unless I missed conservative pages).







http://teeswithtude.com/Designs/IfYouDontLikeBeingCalledTeaBaggersWellBeHappyToCallYouKochsuckers/?id=1865&catId=57


For other stuff: http://teeswithtude.com/

Ed to change to "they," -- it appears to be owned/operated by a group of people.

[freshwest]

44. Oooh, that sig! And aren't they the same as those they put down! Irony died and was buried...

[democracy1st]

16. How the hell these people suppose to pay for all these wars !

[drm604]

17. Not exactly surprising.

This is what I would expect from people who are so anti-tax.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. So the immigrants he hates have paid more taxes than he has

Figures.

[kag]

21. Here in Colorado...

Doug Bruce (don't know if he's an actual teabagger), the author of the TABOR (tax-payers bill of rights) amendment that has decimated our state budget, was ARRESTED recently. Actually handcuffed and taken to jail for tax evasion. I'm sure he was behind bars for all of five minutes or so, but it was still gratifying to read about.

[jerryster]

26. Awesome!!

I hope more of these jerks get arrested and exposed. Here's a link:http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17806199

[kag]

27. Thanks for the link

I started to post it, but...I'm just too lazy. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[louis c]

22. I'm a pro-immigration trade protectionist

what does that make me?

[Ready4Change]

23. What? Do they think they are rich?

Only rich people have the right to not pay taxes.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

28. they are all frauds

[A wise Man]

29. Please please tell me why....

you keep calling them "TEAPARTIERS". They are rethugs....rethugs...rethugs...YESTERDAY...TODAY...AND TOMORROW.. Racist...bigot...ignorant..asholes that has revised the definition of AMERICANS. They are republicans supporting republicans. 1+1=2 NOT 11. WAKE UP PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SOS]

31. Support the Troops! (with bumper stickers)

But not with money.

[mwooldri]

33. Now if someone paid those liens on the property... and ...

... they in turn inherit the lien...

could Mr. Ostrowski's home be foreclosed upon?

Mark.

[abelenkpe]

34. That's what the tea party is about

Not paying taxes. Dismantling the gov. Destroying the community.

[chelsea0011]

36. They may look like crooks to us, but tea baggers will view them as heroes

for not paying taxes.

[freshwest]

39. Fits their philosophy to a 'T.' They only want enough government to get into women's pants.

Everything else they call 'picking their pockets.'

'Like hey, don't touch my junk, man!'

Texas GOP representative Ron Paul has a sign on his desk:

'Don't steal. The government hates competition.'

This story plays both sides.

It outrages those who believe government is an expression of the common good and expect people to pay their fair share. GE and Tea Partiers don't believe in that philosophy, they claim they can make it without it.

Or if they can't, it's because of years of paying taxes so they have no problem taking social security, medicare or anything else they can get -- after all 'We was robbed!'

It will outrage the Tea Party if made to pay, as martyrs to the statists.

How to get our minds around this, I don't know. It's circular logic.

[EC]

45. Duh...

Their main platform is no taxes, what do we expect? The guy that crashed a plane into IRS building had tax problems too. Why don't they just pay their taxes to begin with and have no problems like the rest of us?

[tonybgood]

51. Don't you think it's time for a new tax code?

If people can't figure out how to pay their taxes, let's make it simpler. When the Secretary of the Treasury can't figure out how to pay his taxes, perhaps it's too complicated.

[rurallib]

59. I doubt very much that they can't figure their taxes

Sounds like a willful violation to me.
Baggers seem to think that all those gummint services appear magically.

[Lost-in-FL]

55. And water is still wet!!!

An ex-coworker, a fundie nonetheless, HAD to divorce her husband because she lived in fear of the "gubmint taking away her private property" cause her husband refused to pay taxes. For over 12 years since they married, she had to pay her own taxes because she did not want to go jail and he refused to pay his part. He also had a sucessful small business but the IRS finally caugh up with him. Of course, he blamed the "gubmint" for that. He is now living with mom and pop, no business, no job, no credit, no credibility... cause of the "gubmint".

[NoGOPZone]

56. It'll be hilarious if they try the "It's UnConstitutional" defense in court. nt

[felix_numinous]

57. K&R

[alp227]

62. well DUH. they don't WANT to pay no stinkin' taxes! this Davis guy is a slimeball.

and this story is apparently print-only. Davis=plant.