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The basic idea sounds reasonable enough. Why not have the government nudge citizens along the path to righteousness by making bad choices more expensive? But even the most avid proponents of sin taxes concede that none of the nickel-and-dime proposals on the table is large enough to discourage soda drinking. And they're not really intended to. Soda taxes, like most sin taxes, aren't primarily designed to reduce consumption.

TRANSCRIPT (begins at the 3:10 mark on the above video)

STEPHANOPOULOS:  ... during the campaign.  Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't.  How is that not a tax?

 OBAMA:  Well, hold on a second, George.  Here -- here's what's happening.  You and I are both paying $900 bucks on average -- our families -- in higher premiums because of uncompensated care.  Now, what I've said is that, if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that.  That's just piling on.

   OBAMA:  If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits -- we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can, and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, "You know what?  I want to take my chances," and then you get hit by a bus, and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's...

STEPHANOPOULOS:  That may be, but it's still a tax increase.

OBAMA:  No.  That -- that's not true, George.  The -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.

What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you any more than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance.  Nobody considers that a tax increase.  People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that, if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  But it may be fair, it may be good public policy...

OBAMA:  No, but -- but, George, you -- you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.  Any -- if I -- if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 percent or 8 percent or 10 percent next year, and you say, "Well, that's not a tax increase," but, on the other hand, if I say that I don't want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage, even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then...

STEPHANOPOULOS:  I -- I don't think I'm making it up.  Merriam- Webster's dictionary:  Tax, "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

OBAMA:  George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now.  Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.  I mean, what...

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Well, no, but...

OBAMA:  ... if what you're saying is...

STEPHANOPOULOS:  I wanted to check for myself.  But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA:  My critics say everything is a tax increase.  My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy.  You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we're going to have an individual mandate or not, but...

STEPHANOPOULOS:  But you reject that it's a tax increase?

OBAMA:  I absolutely reject that notion.

IRS data shows that in 2007—the most recent data available—the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.

Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.

But the tea parties really are something. Their origins -- organic, programmatic, accidental or otherwise -- don't matter much anymore. If -- and we'll have to see the numbers at the end of the day -- 100,000 Americans show up to protest their taxes, the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force shifts to the Democrats.  There's no evidence that official Republican strategists connected with the Republican National Committee, John Boehner's office or the NRSC had the insight to conceive of these events, much less to try and bigfoot the organizers.  

There's plenty of evidence that a bunch of hanger-on Republican interest groups, always looking to prove their relevance and hip factor to donors and activists, decided to lend their names and resources to the parties, multiplying their "organic" effect. FreedomWorks is a classic astroturfing shop.  But I also think that we're too obsessed with the distinction between the top and the bottom of a blade of grass. At some point, critical mass is reached and astroturf campaigns can work -- they can catalyze genuine anger and channel it into meaningful political participation.  In the age of hyperconnectivity, just what would an organic grassroots movement look like, anyway?   Are people who've organized on behalf of causes before forbidden from joining? Can the movement not accept help and money from outside players?