The original Tea Party was a response to a very specific, particularly galling act by the English government. The present Tea Party is fairly close to the exact opposite.
England's American colonies were becoming more and more populated, with more and more agriculture, business, shipping, manufacturing, etc. They had noticable participation in the 7 years war (known by Americans as the French and Indian War). They had proven capable of significant independent action and self government, yet the English seemed to only see them as a source of resources and money. They had bans on American manufacture of tools and many finished products. It was galling to have to send raw materials across the ocean only to buy some of them back as finished products, which they could have made themselves perfectly well, for a lot more money. But the English wanted their monopoly. Tea was specifically protected: Americans could only buy it from certain distributors. The shipowners and sailors that lived in Boston and the communities around it were the ones who were doing all this shipping, but they had to go through a middleman who took a very large share for doing nothing but being friendly with the King or some MP, while they were doing all the work. The last straw was when a tax was imposed on this tea. While they did have a few friends there, such as William Pitt, the Americans had no explicit representation in Parliament at all. Taxation without representation! Yet even then, it wasn't so much the taxes as being cut out of most of the profits of all this trade. They wanted a freer market, with no monopolies, or at least a fair chance of being one of those monopolies.
So one night a few of them dressed up as Native Americans and threw a bunch of it into Boston Harbor.
The new Tea Party also likes dress up, but their goals are almost the opposite. They have, and have had through the entire history of the country, extensive representation. Their ideological ancestors were the ones who didn't want to give the vote to slaves, but did want to count them for purposes of representation in congress. They were the ones who murdered the inventor of our countries economic system in a duel while serving as vice president. They were the anti-immigrant "Know Nothings", they blocked acceptance of the 14 points and the League of Nations, they made the Great Depression much worse by blocking Roosevelts stimulative and social and economic programs, and they cheered as Ronald Reagan and George W Bush destroyed them and brought our country back to depression. It was only when they were rightly voted out of office for their misdeeds that they started their dressup. Even then, they still had a strong enough hand in government to cause all sorts of mischief. There is no possible interpretation by which they can be viewed as being without representation. What they want is for people to do what they want, without going through the representative process.
The more interesting opposite is that they are mostly funded by would-be monopolists: The Kochs and their Cato Institute, the Murdoch press, Pete Peterson, The Heritage Foundation. Without Fox News egging them on, there would be no Tea Party. They like to think of themselves as grass roots, but they really aren't. They are puppets--astro-turf. Their funders are very wealthy businessmen, who are tired of this whole competitive, free market thing and would like to have a monopoly. Where the original Tea Party was largely a strike against monopoly, these guys are, whether they know it or not, in favor of it.
And yes, they are against taxes. The American middle class pays among the lowest overall tax rates of the middle class of any advanced country, and tax rates are lower now, during this recession, than they were in any of the economic booms of the past 80 years. They get a lot for their taxes, and they are extremely unwilling to give any of it up, yet they still want their taxes to be lower. Although they are very willing for people that they don't like to give things up, things like eating and being able to go to school. The original tea party wasn't so much against taxes, they were against not having any representation or even a chance at representation, while still having to pay them.
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