People attending the Tax Day Rally in Boise came out to hear from speakers at the event, but also to get their message across through signs and chants. Many of the signs were critical of President Barack Obama and federal spending, but there was variety and creativity among sign holders. IdahoReporter.com spoke with several people about their signs and their reasons for attending the Tax Day Rally.
Julia Morgan of north Idaho carried her sign on a broom, because she said voters need to sweep out state and national lawmakers who aren’t conservative. “We need to clean the House and Senate out,” she said. “Those that are not conservative, like the majority of this land, we are going to send them their walking papers. We’re going to put people in that vote the way we want.”
Michael Burt of Kuna dressed up as Uncle Sam because he thinks the patriotic icon can help America. “Uncle Sam is a symbol of America in times of great need and we need Uncle Sam right now,” he said. Burt also said he opposed new federal health care laws. He showed a list of his pre-existing conditions that led to a rejection in coverage from one health insurance provider, but said he found another insurance company that would take him on. “I was able to purchase meaningful health care insurance before the health care bill was passed. So all that [stuff] that happened in Washington didn’t need to happen.”
“I wrote the sign specifically because of the health care bill,” said Amy Marks of Nampa. “The Congress should make no law that they do not themselves follow. I’m unhappy that Congress has passed this law that they themselves are exempt from. I’m a registered nurse. I work at a local hospital here. The government needs to stay out of the hospitals.” Marks added that government regulations and the threat of lawsuits make her job more difficult.
Terry Little of Eagle said his cartoon showing Obama and Democrats as burglars robbing his children’s future is a truthful assessment. “That’s what I call people that steal something when it belongs to you,” he said. “They’ve almost exponentially increased the national debt in the last year. They’ve spent more money in the last year than the government has in the hundred years previous to that. Where’s that money going to come from?”
Juliet Noble of Boise said she reused a sign from a similar rally she went to a year ago in Phoenix, Ariz. She said her sign calls for more personal decision-making and that little has changed since last year. “I’m really sick and tired of having a government that doesn’t seem to listen to what we want,” she said. “I like personal responsibility. I think everybody is more equipped to make their own decisions than to have somebody dictate decisions to them.”
Herb Lasch, a Seattle, Washington, native, said he’s very opposed to federal health care. “I’ll take death before socialized health care or any type of socialized medicine,” he said.
“At this point, I’m very terrified over Obama’s policy toward Israel and over the long-term effects of the deficit that is going to be passed onto our children and our children’s children that is all because of spending money that we don’t have,” said Kirsten Finnigan. “We need to support Israel in every way possible because it’s the center of the Middle East and the center of all the activity that’s going on regarding nuclear arms ... We’re going to take the repercussions of what happens in Israel here in our country.” Recently, the Obama administration has had a tense relationship with the Israeli government over building settlements near Jerusalem and controlling nuclear weapons.
Several protestors also held up signs critical of other government policy issues, including the Federal Reserve, abortion, and water fluoridation.
