A REPORT ON THE NEW YORK TEA PARTY PROTEST, in the Post.
About 150 angry taxpayers held a mock tea party at City Hall Park yesterday, protesting the trillions of dollars in spending Obama and Congress recently outlined in a massive stimulus package and budget proposal.
“I know my basic economics, and know the stimulus package doesn’t work,” said Kellen Guida, 26, who organized the “Taxpayer Tea Party.” “[Obama] is going to add more to the federal deficit in 20 months than Bush did in eight years.”
Plus, an editorial:
Grassroots “Taxpayer Tea Party” groups began sprouting up around the country over the last week or so.
Several cities hosted rallies yesterday, and the wave hits New York today in City Hall Park at 2 p.m.
The spark for most of these events has been a federal spigot pouring out money like a broken fire hydrant in August:
* Bailouts for banks, automakers and home mortgages.
* A $787 billion stimulus.
* Adding insult to injury – a $3.6 tril lion budget.
But there’s a heckuva lot of local stuff for New Yorkers to raise Cain over – including a range of new taxes and fees proposed to bail out a near-bankrupt state and Albany’s refusal to consider seeking economies from New York’s grotesquely bloated public sector.
The “Taxpayer Tea Party” movement may not go anywhere – but it sure gives overtaxed, tapped-out folks a place to let off a little steam.
At the same time, that 1773 tea party energized more than a few people, so who knows where this one might go?
As far as people are willing to take it, I’d say.
UPDATE: More thoughts here: “Call it what you will , but conservatives organizing protests is something unheard of in recent times. That it happens at all with conservatives, is a huge story. we expect the left to be generating these kind of things. Not the right.”
Plus, Michael Silence finds the Tea Party movement “stimulating.”