Excerpts from an article in the Cuba, New York, Patriot, :
“It was like the Boston Tea Party.”
That was the reaction of one motorist who was stopped last week on the Southern Tier Expressway during the Indian protests.
Members of the Seneca nation were stopping traffic and passing out leaflets in the wake of a state appeals court decision that said that Indian-owned businesses have to collect state taxes on the sales that are made to non-Indians.
The reaction to that ruling was immediate — and serious.
Indians took to the streets, closing the expressway and a number of roads in the Salamanca area in protest. They also passed out leaflets urging non-Indian residents to support their resistance to the state.
A number of local residents are supporting the Indians in their struggle — which is certainly understandable, since non-Indian local residents have reaped benefits from the proliferation of Indian-owned businesses that don’t collect state taxes.
The state court did not rule that the Indians themselves have to pay taxes, you see — it said that non-Indians have to pay the taxes whether they buy from an Indian store or a non-Indian store.
A lot of non-Indians supported last week’s protests, not because they feel deeply one way or another about the Senecas’ treaty rights, but because they feel very deeply about one issue — taxes.
They hate taxes, and they see an opportunity to stick it to the state through buying from the Indians.
The passion that buying Indian gas and cigarettes inspires has its genesis, at least in part, from a tax resistance, which in turn has its root in the prevalent feeling that the federal and state governments are out of control. Governments are over-taxing the people, squeezing them every way they can, and the people are mad.
