Houston Joins Other Cities Nationwide in Tea Party Protest

The recent passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (also called the "stimulus package" or ARRA) on February 17th invested $789 billion into the economy through a coordinated series of tax cuts and spending in healthcare, education and other areas. The bill was introduced into the House of Representatives on January 25th, making its unbelieveably swift passage into law a mere three weeks later an almost unprecedented move for our government.

Both the alacrity of the package and the price tag attached to it have prompted heavy criticism from economists and politicians alike. Economists like those at the Cato Institute who took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to decry the package claim that it will do nothing to stimulate the economy and will instead burden future generations with unfathomable amounts of debt. And politicians -- primarily Republicans -- worried that the speedy passage meant that not enough time was devoted to fully understanding the ramifications of the massive undertaking that the package represents.

A grassroots movement called American Tea Party sprung up shortly after ARRA was signed into law. Its aim is to protest not only the stimulus package, but also "giant government programs that reach deep into their pockets. These programs create huge economic burdens on American families and threaten their livelihood now and into the future." The group was spurred into action to create a Tea Party -- in homage to the famous Boston Tea Party in 1773, in which American colonists in Boston protested unfair taxation by their British government without any representation -- after CNBC pundit Rick Santelli and Republican wonk Michelle Malkin called for a "Chicago Tea Party" to be held on February 27th. The new rallying cry? "Taxation Without Deliberation."

Using social media such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook, the call for Tea Parties nationwide -- not just in Chicago -- spread like wildfire. As a result, Houston is one of the many cities that will be holding a Tea Party on February 27th. The protest is scheduled to take place tomorrow afternoon from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in front of the amphitheatre at Discovery Green. Tea Parties will be conducted simultaneously in many other cities nationwide, including Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle, Cleveland and St. Louis.

The official website for the coordinated protests lists additional information about sponsors, the schedule of events and how to use Twitter during the protests. The protests will be live-Tweeted using the hashtag #teaparty. More information about the Houston protest can be found at their Facebook page.

In the face of this overwhelming amount of information, Houstonist is left with only one question: how did our forefathers organize an entire revolution before the advent of social media?