Dayton Tea Party rally one of many across the country

Demonstrators hold signs to protest increasing government spending during the TEA Party on Courthouse Square in downtown Dayton on Wednesday, April 15.

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Demonstrators hold signs to protest increasing government spending during the TEA Party on Courthouse Square in downtown Dayton on Wednesday, April 15.

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Staff photo by Nick Daggy Glen Mehltretter of Oxford holds a sign on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati.

By Christa Butts and Steve Bennish, Staff Writers Updated 10:33 AM Thursday, April 16, 2009

DAYTON — A crowd estimated to be several thousand strong spent a chilly two hours Wednesday, April 15, protesting government spending at a TEA Party on Courthouse Square.

Speakers invoked the names of Ronald Reagan and Thomas Jefferson to make their points in wide-ranging speeches that cast government in general as the bad guy amid popular anger after the meltdowns among Wall Street brokerages, banks and insurance companies.

Although about a third of the signs protested against President Barack Obama’s administration, organizers said the TEA Party was nonpartisan.

The event was created in protest of what organizers call “runaway government spending.”

Rob Scott, one of the organizers, said petitions would be circulated in the crowd calling for the repeal of economic stimulus funding or for governments agencies to refuse to accept stimulus funding.

Rallies across the nation were directed at the Obama administration on a symbolic day: the deadline to file income taxes.

The closing speaker was state Rep. Seth Morgan, R-Huber Heights.

“A runaway government is a government that will run over us all,” Morgan told the throng, adding that the president, Gov. Ted Strickland and other politicians will lead the nation into a spiral “we’ll pay for years to come.”

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