Activists ready for mass Tea Party protest
By: William C. Flook
Examiner Staff Writer
April 14, 2009
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| Protesters speaks their minds during a demonstration rally against taxes, echoing the historic Boston Tea Party. – AP photo (AP) |
Anti-tax activists will gather across the Washington region Wednesday as part of a nationwide tax day protest, which organizers hope will demonstrate public anger with the Obama administration’s ramp-up of government spending and debt.
Tax day Tea Parties being held across the country are intended to evoke the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty threw British tea into Boston Harbor as part of a tax protest that helped spark the Revolutionary War.
While tax protesters have marched before, Wednesday’s protest represents the largest concerted effort so far. It will also be the most closely watched, acting as a test for how well conservatives — disgruntled with the direction of the Democratic White House and Congress — can mobilize dissent over the $787 billion stimulus package, corporate bailouts and the president’s $5.6 trillion budget proposal.
Liberal commentators have lambasted the effort, and suggested that the turnout would be limited in size and confined to the hard-right fringe.
A year away from midterm elections, lawmakers are waiting to see what happens on tax day.
“It’s a real barometer of the public out there,” said Virginia Tech political communication professor Robert Denton Jr. “And [lawmakers] are virtually forced to pay attention.”
Whether the event locally amounts to a flop or a coup will, of course, hinge on turnout, projections of which remain elusive. Rebecca Wales, the lead organizer of the event in D.C., declined to venture an estimate. Perhaps overly hedging, she said she expected “more than five” people.
Local organizers are, however, confident enough in public interest that they’ve split the protest into two venues: a “grassroots” stage at Lafayette Park and a “national” stage outside the U.S. Treasury Department.
Johanna Ashworth, 26, plans to show up to both. She and her husband left upstate New York in August for Centreville, mainly for “lower taxes and higher income,” but quickly ran into local tax increase proposals. Ashworth, who is studying for the Law School Admission Test, worried tax policies under Barack Obama would punish her for pursuing her lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer.
“It’s all across the country; it’s not just here in Virginia or New York, it’s everywhere,” she said. “I can’t imagine paying more federal taxes, on top of state taxes.”
Nationally, the Tea Party protest is scheduled to take place in 700 locations, with the largest crowds expected in San Antonio and Atlanta.
“The sky is the limit; we’ll be easily into the six figures” nationally, said Eric Odom, administrator of TaxDayTeaParty.com. “Where we are in the six figures, I have no idea.”
The Tea Party won’t have to bring huge crowds to have an effect, Denton said. For candidates and parties, he said the event offers a great opportunity to target volunteers and raise funds.
