50 years. Shorten to the last 24 then. Half and half, and the Chambers have flipped several times. Compared to today's modern world they were not taxed to death. Both parties have taxed us on all levels since WWI. But we do enjoy a few more amenities than the colonists did. King George thought he was on a mission from God.
Here is a partial list of their grievances with the King.
"To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world
for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
HE has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome & necessary for the public good.
HE has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; & when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
HE has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants only.
HE has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
HE has dissolved representative houses repeatedly &
continually for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
HE has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without & convulsions within.
HE has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
HE has
suffered [obstructed] the administration of justice
totally to cease in some of these states [by] refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
HE has made
our judges dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, & the amount & paiment of their salaries.
Read a transcript of the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence as authored by Thomas Jefferson before it was edited by the larger Continental Congress.
www.monticello.org
Nothing like the USA today.