Published: April 15, 2009 10:42 pm      

TEA party protests dominate Tax Day

TIPTON — More than 100 people stood in front of the Tipton County Courthouse Square Wednesday carrying signs and joining in chants. Packages of Lipton Tea were passed around and concerned citizens gathered to sign a petition telling Congress and the president they were “Taxed Enough Already.”

Rallying the crowd with a bullhorn in hand, Jocelyn Lynch recited the first three words of the U.S. Constitution. “We the people,” she began, “are fed up with how the federal, state and local governments are treating us — treating us like cash cows.

“We the people own the government. They work for us,” she said to growing applause.

Tipton demonstrators and those at a Kokomo Tea Party held later in the day at Sycamore Spors/Celebrations joined protesters from hundreds of thousands across the country in criticizing the federal and state governments for the growing national debt. These “Tea Parties” were held on Tax Day as a reminder to governments to be fiscally responsible. The rallies were reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party rebellion in 1773.

While promoted as non-partisan events, many of the backers were conservatives, including Republican Congressman Dan Burton, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin and conservative pundit Sean Hannity along with conservative organizations like American Family Association and FreedomWorks.

Demonstrators at Tipton carried signs such as “Socialism = Slavery,” “Smaller government, fewer taxes,” and “You’re spending our children’s future.”

Robert Jordan, a Greentown resident, was angered about several economics issues, including the $787 billion stimulus package and the bailouts for automakers and the banking industry.

“In capitalism, people should have a right to succeed or fail,” Jordan said. “When government can control the distribution and production of goods, we’ve lost our freedoms.”

“I hate to see people losing their jobs, but how many people do we have to bail out?” asked Lynda McCroskery.

Not everyone is adamantly opposed to bailout spending or using funds to stimulate the economy.

Brett Curnutt, the Tipton County Republican chairman, said he supports certain aspects of the economic recovery acts.

Curnutt, who works for Dan Young GM Center in Tipton, is not entirely opposed to the bailout funds helping the automotive industry. He is, however, opposed to last-minute projects tossed into the recovery plan with no real prospects of helping.

“We’ll hire people for 60, 90, 180 days and not have a job a day or two after,” he said. “All that stuff is like a sugar high in effect. Congress is in a spending frenzy. Instead of taking time and assessing the situation [it is] throwing bad money after pork projects.”

Lynch, The Lipton at Tipton TEA Party organizer, said she became involved after watching the bailouts the Bush administration pushed late last year.

“I’m just an average Joe, a general manager of a local trucking company,” Lynch said. “I’ve never been involved in politics in any shape or form. In the last few months it just became real obvious that Washington spending is going against common sense.

“It started in the Bush administration. This isn’t a Democrat or a Republican thing. Both sides are guilty. I don’t understand why Democrats can’t see its out-of-control spending. Some people think this is maybe just an Obama bashing, but it’s not.”

Lynch said she didn’t see how the stimulus package was helping anyone when most of it was earmarked.

“Let the failures fail,” Lynch said. “I’ve been in the business sector my whole adult life. In business if I had acted the way these corporations had, I would be fired.”

Lynch also acknowledged she may lose her job if these companies such as Chrysler Corp. and General Motors fail.

“My job’s on the line. It sure is,” said the general manager for Waterman Trucking.

“What we’re trying to see accomplished today is to get the average American to want to get involved,” she said. “We’ve been satisfied just to vote on election day, sit back in our homes and trust our Congress to vote the right way and take care of us.”