Thousands of people turned out nationwide on “tax day,” April 15, to protest the unprecedented level of spending by the federal government over the past several months.
The questionable spending began with a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry during the waning weeks of President Bush’s administration, but the spending also has accelerated since President Obama assumed office — in the form of a $787 billion stimulus package.
The protests were commonly referred to as “tea parties” that invoked the legendary Boston Tea Party. According to the New York Times, more than 750 tea parties were held across the country. Dubuque’s own protest drew more than 175 people for the lunchtime rally and a smaller group during the evening event, according to the Telegraph Herald.
But there were bigger crowds in the bigger cities. Along with tea bags, protesters carried signs lamenting various concerns. A few such posters read: “Stay out of MY Piggy Bank,” “D.C.: District of Corruption” and “Honk if you’re upset about your tax dollars being spent on Illegal Aliens.”
The inspiration for the widescale demonstrations came after a rant by CNBC commentator Rick Santelli on Feb. 19. Santelli railed against the the Obama admininistration, which he said was “promoting bad behavior” by trying to help people at risk of foreclosure, and he adamantly urged a tea party protest in Chicago.
My godmother, Anne Roeder, attended a tea party in Cincinnati, where she said more than 4,000 people gathered for the event.
“We marched from Fountain Square in downtown about 10 blocks to City Hall where things came to an end,” she said. “We were chanting ‘U.S.A.’ and singing ‘God Bless America.’ It was pretty touching!”
Despite such a huge turnout in Cincinnati, there apparently was little media coverage, Roeder said.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of coverage on the evening news, though we saw several cameras there,” she said. “In fact, on one channel, they had a short report about the tea party, but the caption under the reporter said that ‘hundreds showed up to protest taxes’ when in fact there were thousands.”
My uncle, James LaFlame, of Lakeland, FL, attended a protest in his hometown.
“At the peak of the event, I’d say there were around 250 people there — not as large as some other cities, but for a town like Lakeland that’s a fairly decent showing.”
Laflame said that he had never attended a protest of any kind before, so he was nervous that the Lakeland protest would be dominated by “conspiracy nuts.” To his relief, it was quite the opposite. He said there were even many who feared a possible backlash from supporters of the over $787 billion stimulus package.
“At our protest, out of 100-plus signs, only a handful, 10 at the most, mentioned Obama, and none mentioned Democrats,” he said. “The focus was on profligate government spending, which has been happening for far longer than Obama has been in office.”
There is debate in these difficult economic times as to whether Obama’s stimulus package will have the desired effect. But it is important that Americans can have the freedom to express their fears and frustrations, which makes America great, without fear of a backlash.
