STEVE CHAPMAN: The Truth About The Tea Parties. “The scale of the federal response to the crises has come as a frightening surprise to many Americans, who suspect the cure will be worse, and less transitory, than the disease. . . . So why did people rally across the country when they should have been planning how to spend their tax refunds? Because their true dismay is about the mushrooming of federal outlays, which the demonstrators regard as a future tax increase in the making. Which, of course, it is.”

UPDATE: A.C. Kleinheider says it’s 1994 all over again. Which is a mixed bag . . . . Beware of the “professional conservatives.”