TEA event a time to vent

Opposition to America’s growing deficit and a desire for greater inclusion of a Christian God in government dominated Wednesday’s TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party in New Iberia.

More than 150 people gathered in front of New Iberia’s City Hall at noon, many holding handmade signs reading things like “Bailout debt = fiscal child abuse,” “We the people want our money” and “RIP free market economy.”

Jacques Hebert, an Iberia Parish resident and owner of local business Streamline Industries, was there with 18-year-old daughter Haley and 11-year-old son Jake. He said he is “tired of producing so others don’t have to.”

“I have worked since the first of the year, and it has all gone to the federal government for them to waste,” he said.

The 11-year-old Jake carried a sign that said “I’m in debt already?”

“We’re borrowing so much money from the Chinese, I’ve got to work to pay it off,” Jake said.

Sugar cane farmer Mark Patout said he is “sick and tired of government — federal, state and local — punishing people who produce and giving to those who do nothing.”

“The guys that don’t do the right thing get rewarded and bailed out,” Patout said.

Many, such as Iberia Parish resident and “sovereign citizen” Lee McGee, sitting in the cab of a pickup truck on Main Street prior to the protest, list among their concerns erosions of civil liberties. McGee said he is “fed up” with the government “torturing people in other countries in my name,” and that the president “can wiretap my telephone.”

New Iberia resident Sherrie Kelly came with Lipton tea bags dangling from her ears and a poster that on one side expressed God’s sovereignty over government, and on the other capitalism’s over socialism.

Kelly said she has always been a Republican, “but at this point it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Many at the event said they did not identify with any particular political party.

New Iberia resident Nelwin Bourque said she voted Republican for years, but “now you’re better off being independent.”

Her husband, Merlin Bourque, said the reason is that “Democrats and Republicans are bought and paid for.”

Though all who came and expressed their views expressed them strongly, with a variety of speakers and attendees, not all had the same reasons for protesting.

Some calls, in fact, seemed to be to move in different directions — for example, a call for America to bow down to a Christian God, not “some Muslim wanna be” contrasted with the statement “It’s not a party thing, it’s not a religious thing — it’s a people thing.”

Most at the event, however, seemed to agree with Karl Harvison, reading for event organizer John Stevenson, when he said “We are the Christian majority, and we demand to be one nation under God.”

Harvison also read that “we must unite as Americans — not by race or religion but as citizens living in one nation under God.”

Speaker James “Jim” Wyche said “The most important change is in ourselves, to get in conversation with God.” He also mentioned other changes, like voting “rascals” that vote for tax increases out of office.

There was also a call to abolish the IRS and a call to investigate all congressional spending and politicians.

Through disparate calls to action, however, the common denominator was anger at America’s trajectory and a desire to change it.

“We can get everybody up here to give a different speech and talk about different things, but we’re all on the same page,” said Glenn Ellerbe, who organized the tea party in Lafayette and spoke at New Iberia’s.

An aide from U.S. Sen. David Vitter’s office read a letter from the senator that said Vitter is trying to create a National Tea Party Day this year and next.

Though some tea parties nationally were promoted by FreedomWorks, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington and led by former Republican House Majority Leader turned lobbyist Dick Armey of Texas, local organizers said their TEA Party was not sponsored by any organization.

In Tax Day remarks in Washington on Wednesday, President Barack Obama said he had been true to campaign promises to lessen the tax burden on most Americans.

“My administration has taken far-reaching action to give tax cuts to Americans who need them while jump-starting growth and job creation in the process,” he said.

Obama said a tax cut enacted April 1 “will reach 120 million families and put $120 billion directly into their pockets.”

Local organizers say they are planning more TEA parties in the future.

CNN and the Associated Press contributed to this story.