As French strikers try to paralyze their country in their efforts to save the welfare state, the parallel with the U.S. could not be starker. In one country the popular, grass-roots movement is trying to save and increase government expenditure. On this side of the Atlantic however, the Tea Partiers have usurped and misunderstood the traditional revolutionary slogan “No taxation without representation”.

On the ballot this November is the Missouri Earnings Tax Initiative, also known as Proposition A. You may have seen some of their advertisements on Hulu. This referendum would require a vote on the one percent earnings tax in the two major cities in Missouri, St. Louis and Kansas City, in 2011.