An estimated 500 anti-tax protesters stood in the shadow of the White House on Wednesday to voice their contempt for policies they believe have foisted unchecked federal spending onto American taxpayers.
Despite permit snags and chilling rain, the crowd, part of a nationwide “tea party” rally timed with tax day, gathered in Lafayette Square to condemn and ridicule the Obama administration’s economic policies. The event mirrored similar protests around the region, including in Woodbridge, where a few hundred protesters braved the rain.
The activists’ ambitions for the day were blunted by two brief quarrels with authorities. A plan to dump 1 million tea bags in Lafayette Square ran afoul of the National Park Service. Organizers originally had planned two venues — the second outside the U.S. Treasury Department — but scuttled that rally after the Secret Service barred them from setting up a stage or audiovisual equipment, said Rebecca Wales, the event’s lead D.C. organizer.
The participants’ gripes — articulated in speeches, shouts, slogans and placards — were diverse, but tended to center on the $787 stimulus package, corporate and home-foreclosure bailouts, and skyrocketing national debt. They said they felt abandoned by party leaders, both Democrats and Republicans.
GOP congressman and officials were quick to issue statements praising the tea party events. But they were, for the most part, conspicuously kept at arm’s length by the event’s organizers. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was reportedly denied a speaking role at a rally in Chicago.
“I don’t think this is about party, this is not about politics,” said Gail Kalbfleisch, at the Lafayette Square event. “We want our country that we grew up with, we want a country that can go forward. If we wanted to live in Europe, we would go to Europe.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he found such tax-increase gripes, which included complaints of new cigarette levies, “amusing” in light of Obama’s more comprehensive tax cut policies.
Protesters who opted to rally in the suburbs relayed similar anger.
“We have a government right now that is shredding the Constitution,” said Joan Howell of Woodbridge, outside the McCoart Government Center in Woodbridge.
She said that she didn’t want her two daughters, who were working as waitresses while in college, to have to pay the country’s debt.
Writers Julie Mason and Teddy Kahn contributed to this report.
