A crowd estimated at 1,200 or more cheered as Republican politicians bashed stimulus bills, bailouts and President Barack Obama in damp weather Wednesday night at Lynchburg’s main Tax Day Tea Party.
“This is a fantastic turnout,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-6th District, told people gathered on the riverfront.
“You came out in this overcast, drizzly weather to let your friends, neighbors and everybody else here in Central Virginia know that you are very concerned about the amount of money our government is spending, the amount it is taxing, and the amount it is borrowing,” Goodlatte said.
“Yes,” the crowd shouted when Goodlatte asked if they wanted a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Goodlatte said he proposed a constitutional amendment but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “has no intention of bringing up a balanced budget amendment” for a vote. Boos almost interrupted him.
Other speakers at the “tea party” included state Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, and two Lynchburg council members who are running for the House of Delegates, Jeff Helgeson and Scott Garrett.
Former 5th District Rep. Virgil Goode and radio personality George Caylor of WLNI also spoke.
Two Liberty University law students, Brendan McIntyre and Ray Coble, organized the tea party. The university didn’t participate in the event, said its spokesman, Johnnie Moore Jr.
The crowd estimate of 1,200 was given by Joe Seiffert, former city councilman and police chief and now chairman of Lynchburg Housing and Redevelopment Authority.
The crowd surrounded a speakers’ tent next to the railroad tracks and was packed tightly on the hill going up Ninth Street. Some people came from as far away as Martinsville and many of them held signs like Tony DeLeon’s, which said: “Give me liberty, not debt. Born free. Taxed to death.”
“We should have the election today,” said Wendell Walker, a Lynchburg Republican leader.
Bradley Rees, who told the crowd that he would seek the Republican Party’s nomination for Congress in the 5th District, urged people not to let their energy dissipate. Vote, talk to friends and run for office, Rees urged them.
Politicians who say they are spending tax dollars for good purposes have the wrong concept, Rees said. “The common good is the height of arrogance” and “we need a fair tax,” he said.
Rees said he is an assembly-line worker in a Lynchburg factory.
Helgeson told the crowd that as a Lynchburg councilman, “I fought vociferously against raising your taxes” and that the day before, “City Council with four votes voted to raise Lynchburg city taxes by $2.5 million.”
“There are too many weak-kneed politicians who forgot who elected them,” Helgeson said. “When are folks going to stand up and say enough is enough?”
Garrett focused his attack on the federal level of government. “In the first 100 days, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have gone on a wild spending spree that would make a drunken sailor blush,” Garrett said.
The spending included $3 billion for adult sex education, Garrett said, and some of the money went to a program “that last year sponsored a workshop in California on how to flirt with finesse.”
“For 5,000 years, young men and women have been flirting with great success without federal interference,” Garrett said.
Garrett ended his speech by holding to the microphone a recording of his 4-year-old daughter singing “God Bless America.” By the time the child’s voice reached the last verse, the crowd was singing along.
Newman, one of the last speakers, also criticized federal spending and compared it to “five steps forward and three steps back.” He drew applause when he told the crowd “a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.”
Cline also criticized the federal government. “We all lined up today to pay our taxes,” he said. “Did you pay your taxes so a Cabinet official in Washington could dodge theirs?”
“No,” shouted the crowd.
“Did you pay so a corporate CEO could get a taxpayer-funded bailout? You paid because you are Americans, hard-working citizens and you love your country,” Cline said.
“You don’t want to be the ones working for the government. The government works for you and should be listening to you,” Cline said.
Another tax day tea party had started earlier in the afternoon on Monument Terrance, just up the hill from the main event.
About 20 people held tax-protest signs there at any given time.
“It’s a pretty good turnout for a workday afternoon,” said Mike Troxel, organizer of the 3 p.m. tea party.
Bob Allnutt, one of the sign carriers, said he drove up from Halifax to express his thoughts.
“The country needs a big change. We’re in debt we’re never going to get out of. There’s no end to the liberal happenings and money being spent on wasteful things,” Allnutt said.
Claudia Puckette, of Forest, also joined the afternoon protest, saying she lost her job at Merrill Lynch’s Lynchburg office “because of this turndown.”
“I came because I’m sick and tired of Congress doing things like signing bills without reading them, spending money we don’t have, and I don’t want my taxes to go up,” Puckette said.
The government should stay out of economic matters “and let capitalism work as it should,” she said. “We will come out of it faster if the government stays out of it.”
Sandra Taylor, of Saco, Maine, who was visiting her daughter, Amy Whitaker of Madison Heights, said she came out to the 3 p.m. protest because she had asked her state’s two senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both Republicans, not to vote for the stimulus package and they did anyway.
“I’m here to express my opinion about that,” Taylor said.
