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TEA tax protest draws crowd to PTCFri, 04/17/2009 - 3:10pm
By: John Munford
‘TEA Party’ result of frustration at federal government A larger than expected crowd packed City Hall Plaza in Peachtree City at lunchtime Wednesday for a rally to protest against rampant spending by the federal government. Many in the crowd at the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party displayed handmade signs to vent their frustration. The Citizen is estimating the crowd to be around 400 people based on an analysis of photos taken at the event. Much of the participants’ ire was directed at recent federal spending including the bailouts of large corporations by the federal government. Almost all of the signs were original except for a few that read exactly: “You are not entitled to what I have earned.” Among the other signs were: • Save America, Shut Down Congress • Pork: the feds’ favorite white meat • PTC (Push Tax Cuts) • Next time, read the bill stupid • Mr. Obama you have run out of our $$$ • The people you tax are making hard choices. How can you do any less? • Pillage and plunder. At least the Vikings did it openly!! One baby wore a sign “I didn’t read the bill either,” a reference to the federal bailout legislation being so onerous in size that reportedly many of the federal legislators voting on the bill didn’t have enough time to read it. Though local state officials spoke during the event, it was resident Marty Harbin who stole the show. Taking the microphone after several state elected officials, Harbin played the crowd like a preacher at Easter services, even gathering a few amens along the way. “They let Delta go bankrupt, why not General Motors?” Harbin said, drawing much applause from the crowd. “... We the people have the power. We need to say we have had enough.” Harbin displayed a dollar bill and tore off sections to represent the various taxes paid by Americans. In the end he was left with a strip of a dollar bill about an inch wide. The next move, Harbin said, is incumbent on people in the crowd taking action. “If you walk away from this place and do nothing, you are as guilty as the liberals,” Harbin said. State Representative Matt Ramsey told the crowd that fiscal issues at the federal level are not just a problem created by one party. While blaming current President Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership in the U.S. Legislature, Ramsey also laid the blame on Republicans at the federal level who didn’t take advantage of the opportunities they had to reduce government during the eight years George W. Bush was president. Ramsey didn’t let Obama off the hook, though, noting that the President was unable to meet his campaign promise of eliminating earmarks, the process by which U.S. legislators “slip” funding for pet projects into bills that are completely unrelated to those projects. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, last year Congress approved 10,160 earmarks totaling $19.6 billion, an increase from $17.2 billion in 2007. Combined with the bailout package at three quarters of a trillion dollars as cited by Ramsey, these figures are what is drawing the attention of TEA Party participants. Ramsey noted that state government faced declining revenues and instead of raising taxes they cut the size of state government. State Senator Ronnie Chance noted that the legislature cut $3.3 billion in spending. The Georgia Constitution requires that the state budget be balanced, he noted. “It can be done in other states and at the federal level,” Chance said. The peaceful rally, which at one point had a brief crowd chant of “Throw the bums out!” ended with the singing of “God Bless America.” The crowd was also treated to information about the Fair Tax movement by local supporter Angela Bean, who noted it would place a sales tax on all goods in lieu of income and social security taxes. Doing so would allow illegal immigrants to contribute to the government. “It would be the biggest transfer of power from government back to the people,” Bean said. login to post comments![]() |