Tax Day Tea Party Headlines (More Soon)

Alabama: More than 1,000 meet in Montgomery for tax protest

More than 1,000 people turned out Wednesday at the Alabama State House in Montgomery for the Tax Day Tea Party.

Several carried signs predicting the federal stimulus package will lead to socialism.

Montgomery small businessman Steve Primavera carried a sign saying "Stimulus The Audacity of Dope." Primavera said the stimulus package is using his children's money and selling America's future to China.

The Montgomery event was one of more than a dozen in Alabama and more than 500 around the country.

Montgomery radio talk show host Greg Budell predicted the event could have the same impact that Montgomerian Rosa Parks had when she refused to move to the back of a city bus during segregation.

In Mobile, several hundred people marched down Government Street to a riverfront park for a rally.

Some waved homemade signs that read: "It's easy to spend other people's money," ''‥1 Threat to our economy is politicians. Fire Congress 2010," ''born free, but taxed to death," and "Government, you created this welfare state for voters. Dismantle it now. God Bless America."

montgomeryadvertiser.com


Maine: Bangor 'Tea Party' protest draws hundreds

BANGOR, Maine — There are people in Maine and across the country who are fed up. They are fed up with taxes. They are fed up with President Obama’s spending initiatives. They are fed up with their local elected officials, who they feel haven’t done enough to stop the prevailing tax-and-spend ways.

That anger was brought to light in a very public way on Wednesday with a nationwide series of protests that evoked demonstrations of the country’s Founding Fathers. Reminiscent of the famous Boston Tea Party that protested taxation without representation, Republican and conservative groups all over the U.S. held “tea parties” on April 15, a day commonly referred to as Tax Day.

In Bangor, as many as 300 people protested outside the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building on Harlow Street and then marched to the banks of the Kenduskeag Stream to dump tea into the water.

Only a small amount of loose tea was actually dumped into the water, and the protestors did receive a permit from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, but the gesture was largely symbolic.

“People are fed up,” said Lois Bloomer, president of the Maine Federation of Republican Women and one of the organizers of the Bangor event. “We’re taxed enough. I hope our politicians are paying attention.”

Trevor Bragdon, representing the conservative policy group Maine Leads, circulated petitions in support of two tax initiatives. One would cut automobile excise taxes roughly in half and the other, known as TABOR, would require citizen approval of all tax increases. Both will be voted on in November.

“I think taxes have always been a big issue,” he said. “But, I think with the economy, people are taking a stronger stand. One of the great things about Maine is citizens’ initiatives. If we feel our elected officials are not doing enough, we can gather signatures and push issues.”

bangordailynews.com


Kentucky: Louisville taxpayers take part on national tax day protest

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - American taxpayers across the country spent April 15 protesting what they call out-of-control government spending. Tax Day Tea Party 2009 is a grassroots movement spreading mostly over the internet and by word of mouth based on the historic Boston Tea Party.

It's clear many of the protesters love their country, but hate where it's headed.

"They want to increase our taxes and get all the money they can and throw it away on their programs," said Republican Mike Haag.

The rallies happening across the country are being dubbed "tea parties."

"The first Boston Tea Party was a tax revolt against England," said Haag. "This one is a tax revolt against the people in our government."

The word "tea" on one of the signs spelled out: Taxed Enough Already. Another read that change is all they have left. Parties like the one in Louisville happened in hundreds of cities and were lead by ordinary people like 24-year-old Wendy Caswell. She was never political until now.

"When I went to look for one in Louisville there just wasn't one," said Caswell. "I had the skills, I had the time, so I just decided to start one."

Most of the attendees were Republicans, but Caswell, the organizer, says she's a Democrat.

"I don't understand how printing money and handing out more money when we're already in debt is the solution," said Caswell.

All she did was post one thing online. That one thing spread like wildfire, bringing easily more than 1,000 people to get politicians attention

"I think they're sitting in their fancy taxpayer funded offices laughing at us saying, ‘Oh, oh, oh, big deal tea party,'" said Harry Lee, an independent. "But this is a start let's put it that way."

wave3.com


Tennessee: Tax Protests Held Downtown, Other Cities

Organizers are calling the events tea parties, which stands for Taxed Enough Already. Organizers are drawing comparison to the Boston Tea Party held in 1773.

One of many protests planned for Wednesday started at noon at the state capitol in Nashville, where several thousand people gathered.

Channel 4 reporter Dennis Ferrier said the demonstration at the capitol was the largest protest since the 2002 protest of an income tax proposal.

Many of those at the protests said they feel the federal stimulus package will put generations to come in debt and hurting the average taxpayer and small businesses.

A series of people spoke at the rally in Nashville, including U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Brentwood, and local conservative talk show hosts Steve Gill, Michael DelGiorno and Phil Valentine.

Carol Ferguson of Nashville was one of the protesters. The 67-year-old retired insurance underwriter said she's afraid America will become "a third-world country" if the spending continues.

The rallies are being held from Kentucky to South Carolina, where the governor has repeatedly criticized the $787 billion economic stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year. Large protests also were expected in California and New York.

Similar protests were held on Wednesday in Monteagle, Clarksville, Carthage, Murfreesboro, Franklin and Hendersonville.

wsmv.com


Rhode Island: Hundreds protest cost of federal stimulus plan

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Hundreds gathered Wednesday afternoon in front of the State House to protest the federal government's spending plan to help weather a global economic recession.

Similar grassroots campaigns drew thousands of frustrated Americans around the nation Wednesday.

The rally in front of the Rhode Island State House started at 3 p.m. It broke up shortly before 6 p.m. Although the rally's promoters had predicted a turnout of 2,000 to 3,000, a headcount by The Journal indicated the figure was closer to 1,000.

About 20 speakers addressed the crowd.

"It's unconscionable to have to send this bill for all the spending to our grandchildren," said Marcia Kemp, a retired librarian from Scituate, one of about 60 who converged at the corner of Fountain and Gaspee streets.

Holding a sign that read "Give us Liberty not Debt," Patricia Christiansen, a librarian from Tiverson said the rally was about more than just taxes.

"It's about going back to the Constitution," Christiansen said, adding, "Government flows from the states, not the federal government."

Christiansen and Kemp said the government has to cut spending and taxes to help the economy.

Speakers said they hope similar events will take place in Rhode Island later in the year.

Emcee Helen Glover of radio station WHJJ kicked off the Providence event, referring to the large turnout. She said some people had laughed at the idea of the rally, but that attendance was proving strong.

"Look around, people," Glover said.

Robert Healey, a former candidate for lieutenant governor under the Cool Moose Party banner, said, "In my 25 years doing this sort of work I've seen that movements like this come to a head and then they go away. Dont let this happen with this."

The "Tax Day Tea Party" rallies were timed for the day when Americans must file their income taxes, April 15.

Organizers say the events seek to draw on the spirit of the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists, angered at the English imposition of a tax on tea, rioted and boarded English vessels and dumped tea into Boston Harbor. It is, for many historians, one of the defining moments in the movement for American sovereignty.

"This event is all about people saying, 'We have had enough'," Colleen Conley, coordinator for the Providence Tea Party, said in a news release issue earlier today.

At least here in Rhode Island, organizers say the tea parties are not formally connected to any political party or interest group. Many of those expected to attend, however, are supporters of Republican candidates and/or fiscally conservative advocacy groups such as the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition and the Ocean State Policy Research Institute.

Featured guests at the State House rally included local talk radio personalities and bloggers who have been hyping the event, including John DePetro of WPRO, and Justin Katz, founder of the blog Anchor Rising.

Elsewhere in Rhode Island, protesters planned to gather by the public boat launch on Main Street in Westerly starting at noon. Another rally, in front of the main downtown Providence Post Office, was to be held all day to protest the high cost of war specifically.

The "tea party" movement was inspired by comments from CNBC reporter Rick Santelli on Feb. 19, in which he called for a July 4th tea party-like protest in Chicago. Santelli's "rant" became a You Tube phenomenon.

But national frustration over high levels of government spending -- from the banking and auto industry bailouts to the federal stimulus plan pushed by the Obama Administration -- had been simmering even before then.

Coordinated largely via blogs and social networking sites, an organized protest popped up in Seattle on Feb. 16, and was followed the next day by rallies in Denver, Colo. and Mesa, Ariz. "Tea-party" protests and marches of varying degrees of organization and size soon cropped up in Orlando, Kansas City, and Cincinnati, among other cities, according to the Wall Street Journal.

TaxDayTeaParty.com, which bills itself as the "Online HQ for the April 15th Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party Rallies," seems to be the main information hub coordinating today's national day of protest. Tech savy participants as well as members of alternative and digital media outlets are feeding the Web site with updates on rallies in progress. There are more than 300 rallies planned in all 50 states today, according to the Web site.

newsblog.projo.com


Nebraska: Papillion Tax Day Tea Party

A larger than expected crowd showed up outside Papillion City Hall Wednesday to protest higher taxes and increased government spending.

The Papillion/Sarpy County Tax Day Tea Party drew an estimated 200 people over the lunch hour. Papillion resident Gaylene Stupich hosted the event and urged those at the rally to stay involved with government issues.

"It just seems like too much spending,” said Carol Coppi of Papillion. “Too many projects that are unnecessary and taxes are going to have to cover this excess spending."

Virginia Haynes, visiting family in Papillion from Huntington Beach, California, held a sign protesting higher taxes and government spending. "Our taxes are just killing us, especially in California. Can't take it anymore."

“I think the timing is very bad. There are so many people out of work right now and they're still having to pay their taxes. They're trying to stay in their homes. They're trying to keep their kids in school and pay exorbitant taxes on top of it all."

Critics of these rallies call the events coordinated, conservative efforts to make the president look bad, though Haynes disagrees. “I'm not bashing Obama at all. I'm tired of paying the high taxes, I’m tired of supporting everybody."

Lorraine Miller of Ralston brought her daughter to the tea party, concerned about her child’s future. "It's our money, but it's also their future. It's really important for me to be here because she wanted me to be here."

"I'm only 15 years old and by the time I become and adult, all this spending that they're doing and all the money that they're printing, I'm going to have to pay for,” said Noelle Miller. "I can't really vote so I don't really have a voice yet, so this is how I speak."

Three other tea parties are taking place around the metro Wednesday evening, at the Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Omaha, the Pottawattamie County Courthouse in Council Bluffs and in Milard.

More than 1,000 tea party protests were planned around the country, designed to echo the original Boston Tea Party more than 200 years ago.

wowt.com


Ohio: Tea Party jams Fountain Square

About 4,000 people packed Fountain Square Wednesday for a “tax day” protest against what they believe to be out-of-control federal spending on corporate bailouts and plans to stimulate the ailing economy.
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The “Cincinnati Tea Party,’’ one of about 600 similar protests taking place in cities and towns around the country on the day American workers tax bills are due, included an hour of speeches railing against the Obama administration, banks, the auto companies and local officials willing to take billions in stimulus dollars.

It moved to Cincinnati City Hall, with at least half of the Fountain Square crowd marching seven blocks up Vine Street and west on Court Street to the steps of City Hall. Cincinnati Tea Party organizers presented to the city council clerk petitions bearing 2,241 signatures asking that the city of Cincinnati not accept money from the federal stimulus package pushed by the Obama administration and passed by congressional Democrats.

“We are going to continue the fight,’’ said Mike Wilson, the 32-year-old internet technology consultant from Springfield Township who founded the organization in February. “We’re going to adopt the legal and effective tactics of the left wing to make ourselves heard.”

Wilson said members of the local committee paid the costs of putting on the lunch-hour rally.

As far as stopping the city of Cincinnati from accepting federal stimulus money is concerned, the horse may already have left the barn.

Mayor Mark Mallory has a list of projects he wants funded by the stimulus package that totals more than $150 million, including $69 million for a $180 million streetcar project. The city has no money in the bank yet from the stimulus package, but has been told that millions will be provided for projects like The Banks, the Eastern Corridor project, and improvements to Interstate 75.

Cincinnati City Councilman Cecil Thomas stood on the steps of city hall, as the marchers gathered around, singing “God Bless America” and chanting “USA! USA!”

Thomas, a Democrat, said the city will continue to pursue federal stimulus dollars.

“It’s already in motion,’’ Thomas said. “It’s going to happen, but this is America, and these people have every right to be heard.”

Cincinnati Police said the rally drew about 4,000 to Fountain Square. An earlier estimate of 3,000 people was unofficial. Another Tea Party rally in Burlington, Ky. drew about 100 people to the grounds of the Boone County Administration Building in Burlington, where they listened to about 20 speakers.

The rhetoric at Wednesday’s rally and march was aimed not only at city hall or county governments, but at Congress and the Obama administration.

One of the speakers was Greg Knox, a Cincinnati Tea Party organizer who owns Knox Machinery, a Franklin, Ohio, company that supplies parts to the auto industry.

Knox became something of a celebrity on conservative blogs and radio shows a few months ago when he responded to a letter he received from General Motors, asking him to lobby his legislators for a bailout for the auto industry. Knox told GM he refused to do so on principle.

Knox read from his now-famous letter to the cheers of the crowd.

“I have six children so I am not unfamiliar with the concept of wanting someone to bail you out when you make a mess,’’ Knox said. “I make them stand on their own two feet and accept the consequences of their actions and work them through.”

cincinnati.com


Illinois: Crowd turns out for TEA party rally in Champaign

CHAMPAIGN – Chilly winds and gray skies did not deter a noontime crowd of about 400 people from a West Side Park rally against a number of issues including higher taxes, corporate bailouts, the federal stimulus package and the Obama administration.

The keynote speaker at the Wednesday rally was Randall Stufflebeam, a Belleville man who was the Constitution Party candidate for governor in 2006 and said he intends to run again in 2010.

We don't need a flat tax or a fair tax," he said. "We need no tax, the way it was in 1913."

Other speakers included Jim Davis of Heyworth, who noted there were hundreds of similar TEA (Taxes Enough Already) parties throughout the country today. "The tremor we are feeling today is running through this great land," he said. "We need to warn people of the dangers of socialism."

Athena Anderson, a 20-year-old part-time Parkland College student from Tuscola who was one of the organizers of the Champaign rally, said the next step for the group is to keep supporters connected and to plan for another rally, probably in July and probably in Champaign.

"We just want to help keep the people involved and help them get their opinions heard," she said. "We're all amateurs at organizing this, but we want to keep it going."

Several times during the rally, speakers made the point that the organization was not affiliated with any particular party. "We don't want to be Republican or Democratic," Anderson said. "Most of us are libertarian, actually. We want our congressional representatives back and our government limited."

news-gazette.com


Maryland: Hundreds turn out for Taxed Enough Already Party

CUMBERLAND — Overcast skies and occasional showers Wednesday didn’t dampen the spirit of several hundred area residents taking part in a local Tax Day TEA — Taxed Enough Already — Party held downtown Wednesday.

As part of nationwide protests of President Barack Obama’s fiscal policies, the local event drew dozens of citizens to the corner of Baltimore and Mechanic streets.

Carrying umbrellas and protest signs —messages including “Do Away With the IRS” and “Stop Spending Our Kids Money”— the peaceful protesters braved a steady early-afternoon drizzle out of their concern for current governmental policies and the well-being of future generations.

“I’m worried about my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren,” said Flintstone resident Ron May, troubled by government bail-outs.

“Spending this much money might get us out of the recession right now but what’s going to happen to generations that follow that have to pay it back? Who’s going to pay all this back,” asked May, a former one-term Allegany County commissioner.

Cresaptown resident Jarold C. Rice Jr. held a small U.S. flag, as did many others, awaiting the official start of the noon event.

“This is the greatest nation on earth. We built it with a third-grade education. It’s now run by a bunch of Ph.D.s and they’ve ruined it.

“I’d like for one of these Ph.D.s to step up and tell how to solve these fiscal problems. We cannot leave this indebtedness to our children and grandchildren.

“I’m here because of the issues. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. I’m also elated that so many kids are here today,” said Rice.

As participants signed up for notification of future rallies by Tea Party organizers, others picked up T-shirts displaying the wording “Taxed Enough Already.”

Wayne Robertson of Cumberland stood near the organizers’ tent with his wife, Toyia, at his side.

“Our Constitution is being weakened by what is happening by this president’s people and policies.

“I’d like to know what will come of this. Hopefully, it will be something better to stop what is happening. I just heard on the news coming in that inflation was 24 percent last month,” said Robertson as U.S. Congressman Roscoe Bartlett began to address the crowd.

“You will be working another month to pay your taxes. ... The first time you make any money for yourself will be around the first of July,” said Bartlett.

“This is a great, great message. I’d like to send a picture of this to the president. If the president were here, he wouldn’t need his teleprompter. All he would have to do is read the signs and he would have a speech. The people have spoken with their signs,” he said.

Toyia Robertston said, “We need to talk to him — not him talk to us.”

Mona Lisa Garland of Cumberland said she took part in Wednesday’s event “to let the people know we want the taxes to stop.”

“We want smaller government. We feel we are not being represented by the current government. Our elected leaders are not representing us.

“I think they have their own agenda and I think that is socialism and big government,” she said as numerous motorists passed by, some honking their horns and others yelling as they drove south on Mechanic Street.

The citizens’ rallies were being held nationwide, protests patterned as a takeoff on the Boston Tea Party of more than 235 years ago.

Lisa Bittinger, organizer of Cumberland Maryland TEA Party Organization, said the group is registered with the Internal Revenue Service and may be contacted at lisabitt@atlanticbb.net.

“We were there to rally against wasteful government spending. We want fiscal responsibility and get rid of the pork,” she said.

Ken Winters, who accompanied Bittinger during a brief visit to the Times-News office, said, “We’re also against the massive spending that is mortgaging our children’s and grandchildren’s future.”

Bittinger said another TEA Party rally will be held at the same downtown location June 27 from noon to 2 p.m.

She said “up to 400 people” signed up for notification of future rallies. However, she estimated that up to 500 people attended the organization’s first rally Wednesday.

A tax increase protest will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Frostburg City Council’s public meeting at the Frostburg Community Center.

Cumberland Times-News


Indiana: Tax protesters rally at Statehouse, across state

INDIANAPOLIS - Thousands of protesters -- many first-timers -- gathered on the Statehouse lawn Wednesday to make it known they were fed up with overspending by the government.

The word "enough" was everywhere -- on signs handed out by organizers, spelled out in red, foam letters behind a country music band, on the homemade signs held by protesters.

Today's protest, which state police estimated drew 2,000 to 2,500 people, was part of a series of tax day protests across the country. Nationally, organizers said the movement developed organically through online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and through exposure on Fox News. Organizers said the Statehouse rally was the brainchild of a small group of Indianapolis residents who say they are nonpartisan.

Protesters complained that government spending puts the nation's children in debt before they're even old enough to pay taxes. Ten-year-old Benjamin Ruddle of Indianapolis held a sign that said, "I'm 10 years old ... please stop spending my money."

Indianapolis small business owners Ben and Bree Finegan brought their two children, 2-year-old Kate and 9-month-old Jackson. Two-year-old Kate held a sign from her stroller reading, "In diapers & in debt."

Ben Finegan said the family, all first-time protesters, came out to show their disdain for lack of government help for small businesses and overspending that could jeopardize his childrens' future.

Pointing toward his kids, he said, "They're giving up on their future for temporary gains."

Several people wore Revolutionary War-era costumes and attached tea bags to hats and signs as a symbolic nod to the Boston Tea Party.

Earlier in Lafayette, protesters dumped a large box of tea bags into the Wabash River.

Several hundred people cheered as the tea bags were dumped in a symbolic recreation of the Boston Tea Party.

"I am prepared to pollute today," organizer Donn Brown told the crowd, a reference to complaints from environmentalists that the tea-bag protest would trash the river.

Tea party events drew protesters to Indiana events from Evansville to Angola, where police officers directed about 100 marchers off the mound where Steuben County's Civil War monument is located.

Jared Fagan, an organizer of the Lafayette event, said the protest was aimed at making people aware of the constitutional limits on the federal government.

"With those powers being taken from the federal government, the taxes and the overspending would take care of themselves," he said.

Rae Schnapp, who is Wabash riverkeeper for the Hoosier Environmental Council, said she had asked protest organizers to not throw tea into the river, where volunteers recently spent time cleaning trash from the banks.

"Two cases of tea are not going to make or break the river," Schnapp said. "It's a proverbial drop in the bucket. I think it's dangerous symbolism."

More than 200 people gathered in the courtyard behind Evansville's Civic Center for an afternoon protest.

"While we're at home pinching pennies and tightening purse strings, the government continues spending trillions of dollars," Erik Varden said at the Evansville event.

chicagotribune.com


New York: Hundreds rally against federal bailouts

A crowd estimated at 500 to 1,000 turned out today in downtown Rochester to protest government spending on bailouts and stimulus.
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The Taxed Enough Already, or TEA Party, was one of several nationwide to coincide with Tax Day. Locally, protesters waved American and Gadsden historical flags, listened to speakers, chanted and hoisted homemade signs with such messages as “Stop spending” or “Taxed too much.”

The protest, which wound its way to the County Administration Building and on to City Hall, tapped into broader disdain for government, with some also calling for term limits and hoisting signs critical of President Barack Obama independent of economic policy.

Cheers went up when a speaker talked of being Christian, and boos when someone mentioned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

But the focus was taxes and spending. And many in the crowd were attending their first-ever protest.

Crowd estimates are difficult because the rally, which lasted more than two hours, spread over three locations with people coming and going throughout.

Sharon Buzard, 64, of Pittsford used to be a high school English teacher in Penfield, and now is an artist and interior designer. She raised a sign that read, “A trillion time$ NO.”

The emotion, she said, is not anger. She said she is scared.

“I think we’re concerned,” Buzard said, of what she sees as increasingly more frequent and larger spending announcements from the Obama White House. “(The spending) is not being explained to us so we can think it through and maybe understand, which makes us think maybe the politicians don’t have a clue what they’re doing.”

The protest was organized by Rochester Conservatives and We Surround Rochester, part of commentator Glen Beck’s 9-12 project, which aims to unite Americans as they were on Sept. 12, 2001, to “protect the values and principles” of the nation.

democratandchronicle.com


North Carolina: Protesters say no to more taxes

About 300 people gathered Wednesday outside Goldsboro City Hall for a tax day protest that was part of a nationwide movement of Americans speaking out against state and federal government financial policies.

North Carolina Sen. David Rouzer, Wayne County commissioner Steve Keen and John Locke Foundation analyst Daren Bakst were among the speakers at the local gathering of the New American Tea Party, a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about what the group's web site defines as "the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government."

Many of the attendees carried protest signs, some reading "Change, what's left after taxes," "Tax breaks, not pork spending" and "Obama is the biggest threat to American freedom."

newsargus.com


New Jersey: Tea Party protest on the Morristown Green

Several hundred conservatives braved light hail and cold rain on the Morristown Green this afternoon to join a Tea Party protest against President Obama's fiscal policies. Here are some images from the event, which included speeches from several Republican gubernatorial candidates and welcoming remarks by Morristown Councilwoman Alison Deeb (a Republican) and Mayor Donald Cresitello (a Democrat).

Alison told the crowd she voted against a municipal pension deferral last night, asserting (to rousing cheers) that the answer to economic trouble is to curb spending. The Mayor countered that tough times require tough choices, and deferring $1 million in pension payments will enable the town to keep cops and firefighters and deal with immigration problems.

nj.com


Massachusetts: Tax-day protest draws crowd

Fall River —

Dozens of Fall River "tea party" protesters weren’t shy about wanting to throw their politicians overboard.

The protest outside Government Center Wednesday was part of a series of tax-day protests at state Capitols and town squares across the country modeled after the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party.

Tiberio “Ti” Sardinha, an owner of M. Sardinha & Sons Plumbing & Heating for nearly 40 years, was among those rallying outside Governement Center.

“I’m tired of big government. It’s the problem, not the answer,” Sardinha said.

“When business is bad. I don’t raise prices. If business is bad, government shouldn’t raise taxes,” said Sardinha, holding an American flag with a woman he’d just met.

“We were determined to find a tea party today,” said Cecilia Cichon of New Jersey, on the other end of the flag. She and her husband were visiting their Fall River cousins, the Mazurek family, for Easter.

Happily, they didn’t need to travel to Providence for a tea party, she said.

Colorful signs stated messages like “Stop Bankrupting My Children,” “Liberty is All the Stimulus We Need” and “Vote Them All Out in 2010.”

Linda Rapoza, Republican State Committee chairwoman who also chairs the Fall River Republican City Committee, wore her political goal on her head: “Can Barney Frank in 2010” read her red, white and blue hat, along with her preference of Republican candidate Earl Sholley for Congress.

“People are just fed up,” Rapoza said. “They’re over-taxed. There’s no representation on Beacon Hill.”

She said there were at least 70 protesters at the outset of their rally in front of Government Center at noontime. One included a fireman dressed as Thomas Paine to represent one of the founders of American liberty.

By Michael Holtzman
Herald News Staff Reporter


Colorado: Colo. anti-tax protesters join national protest

DENVER (AP) - Several thousand protesters gathered at the Colorado Capitol to join anti-tax demonstrations across the nation marking the April 15 tax deadline.

Organizers say they're upset over government spending since President Barack Obama's administration took over and Congress approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package.

The rallies on Wednesday were organized to echo the original Boston Tea Party more than 235 years ago.

A smaller rally is also taking place in Fort Collins' Washington Park next that city's government building.

kjct8.com


Oregon: About 1,000 protest government, taxes on Capitol steps

SALEM -- Minutes before the official noon kickoff and there are about 1,000 people on the steps of the Capitol, protesting everything from abortions to bailouts. One little girl is carrying a sign that reads: I am not an ATM for Congress.

Oregon is hosting 20 anti-tax tea parties around the state today as part of a national taxpayer tea party movement.

Pioneer Square in Portland will host one at 6 tonight. Special guest star? Victoria Taft. For a complete schedule of where you can join the anti-tax fun, check the link here.

by Janie Har, The Oregonian