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As federal income taxes come due, a group of conservative leaders issued the following statement:

Hard working Americans around the country on this April 15th will dig deep into their pocketbooks to pay the taxes liberal Democrats need to fund their massive spending programs. This soaring tax and spend burden will cripple American taxpayers, stagnate the economy for years and stifle any real long term economic growth and stability.  While tens of thousands of taxpayers in cities across America will stage tea parties to protest the excessive burden of federal taxes, the reality is that free spending liberals on Capitol Hill have already guaranteed years more of punitive taxes by passing enormous and wasteful spending bills that will saddle massive debt upon the next two generations of Americans.  .

President Obama has made a mockery of his campaign pledge to provide a net spending cut. His promised net tax cut will be the next to fall by the wayside, because although taxpayers will pay through the nose this April 15th, every man, woman and child in America will still owe the government $184,000 -- the per capita share of the national debt. And that is before the Obama stimulus and bailouts, and the 2010 budget are added in.

· On April 15th, all across America, citizens will turn out to protest the federal government's out-of-control spending by holding thousands of tea parties. This grassroots effort speaks volumes about the government's encroachment on citizens' freedom as well as their wallets.

· The liberals in Congress have proven to be enablers of the president's spending program, passing hugely wasteful programs like the stimulus and bailouts. Just one insurance company, the infamous AIG, for example, has received over $170 billion in bailout money (or over $2,000 for every family in the country), with over $10 billion of that going to foreign banks. Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York told what he called the "chattering class" that "the American people don't really care" about earmarks that will cost them $8 billion. They do care, and the tea parties prove it.

· President Obama also broke his pledge not to increase the taxes of anyone earning under $250,000 per year. Already the federal government has increased taxes on tobacco products and tobacco companies, and has proposed new taxes on energy, small business, capital gains and dividends, charitable giving, and the death tax, as well as an energy producer tax.

· At the state level, 10 states have already increased income taxes or plan to do so, and states across the country are raising or adding utility taxes, fishing licenses, parking tickets, gas taxes, and sales taxes.

There is no justification for the countless billions that citizens will have to pony up this tax season to fund liberalism’s reckless abuse of the federal treasury. At exactly the time when working families could use a break, the Obama regime and the liberal Democrats in Washington and state capitals are burdening them into a future of even more onerous tax days. We encourage all taxpayers to join the participants of the tea parties in telling big government that they have had enough unconscionable spending from Washington.

This statement was issued by:

Edwin Meese, former Attorney General

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council

Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform

Brent Bozell, President of the Media Research Center

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America

Alfred S. Regnery, Publisher of The American Spectator

Becky Norton Dunlop, President of the Council for National Policy