Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: U.S. Rep. Dan Schaefer, a Republican representing Colorado’s 6^th Congressional District, joined several congressional colleagues for “tea” in Boston Harbor aboard the Beaver II, a full-sized replica of the 18th century ship of the same name.

Dipping a copy of the United States tax code into a large basin, Schaefer and his conservative colleagues vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. Re-creating the historical ‘Boston Tea Party’ in which three vessels were boarded and relieved of their cargo by colonial revolutionaries on December 16, 1773, Schaefer and company announced their decision to completely overhaul America’s tax structure at the event.

“This is one of the most important reforms in American political history,” Schaefer said.

Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-LA, and Schaefer were co-chairs of the National Retail Sales Tax Caucus and had introduced legislation that would repeal the federal income tax – both personal and corporate – and replace it with a “revenue neutral” retail sales tax of 15%.

“Last year we vowed another Tea Party in America,” said Schaefer. “This year we are delivering on that promise. By tossing the U.S. Tax Code into Boston Harbor we may well be making the strongest statement against an unfair tax system since 1773 when a group of hostile colonists rebelled against the British Crown and dumped 342 chests of tea into this same harbor, from this same spot. It’s a revolutionary idea – one we believe Americans will rally around, as they have here today.”

Schaefer told assembled press that the legislation had taken three long years to craft because NRST members had “carefully analyzed” all of the potential ramifications for such “a sweeping change.”

In other news developing back in Colorado, state Sen. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, a Persian Gulf War veteran, announced a Joint Resolution before the state senate that called for a criminal investigation into the exposure of U.S. military personnel to chemical weapons during Operation Desert Storm.

Coffman served as an infantry major in the U.S. Marine Corps during the war and was joined on Military Appreciation Day with several Colorado veterans in uniform.

“There must be a full investigation into what is now widely known the ‘Gulf War Cover Up,'” said Coffman. “The president and congress have an obligation to those who fought in the war. I’m not sure whether or not low-level exposure to chemical weapons is the cause of the reported symptoms of so many Gulf War veterans. We deserve to have our questions answered.”

Coffman referenced a classified report that was leaked to the press in mid-1996 regarding an order the 37th Combat Engineer Battalion received in 1991 to destroy a munitions depot in southern Iraq. The Central Intelligence Agency had prior knowledge that the depot contained a large amount of nerve agents and the Department of Defense acknowledged that a large number of American troops were exposed to the chemical agents Sarin and Cyclosarin.

“For more than five years, the information that every Gulf War veteran has had the right to know has been hidden from them,” Coffman said. “Those responsible must be brought to justice. If not now, young men who may be called to serve in future wars will not have the full confidence in their military leadership.”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.