sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
Bo Corwin wasn't looking for sympathy about losing his Jeep franchise when he spoke to tax protesters Thursday outside Washington County Courthouse.
Corwin said he was there to warn the light crowd of people at the "tea party" about the negative effects of government intervention in business.
"The government stuck their nose in a private enterprise," said Corwin, whose family has been selling vehicles for 65 years in Hickory. "It kind of hurt. My situation could be yours, if things don't change in Washington." He added that he will continue to sell vehicles.
Corwin's loss of his franchise last month under Chrysler's restructuring was among a string of complaints speakers aired at the rally led by Washington County Commissioner Diana L. Irey.
One man wore a cardboard sign around his neck that read, "BRING BUSH BACK!!!" while a petition was being passed around that complained about Gov. Ed Rendell's call to increase the state income tax rate by 16 percent.
It's the second Taxed Enough Already rally Irey organized on the courthouse steps, the first of which took place in conjunction with the April 15 tax deadline. The Republican commissioner said Monday she expected as many as 1,500 people would turn out. Washington police, however, estimated the crowd at fewer than 130 people.
Glen Meakem, a Pittsburgh radio personality whose fans want him to run for Pennsylvania governor, said he blamed misled young adults for their huge turnout in the 2008 election that put President Obama in the White House and Obama's fellow Democrats in control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
Meakem said parents need to teach their children about what happened the last time Democrats controlled Washington in the 1970s under President Carter when inflation increased and the unemployment rate was more than 10 percent.
"We allowed the left wing to teach our children not to be proud of America," he said.
He then said Obama is a Socialist who "will lead the world to disaster."
Washington Mayor Sonny Spossey, while at the back edge of the crowd, said he would have preferred to hear solutions to the problems rather than complaining.
"Do you think we like raising taxes?" Spossey, a Democrat, said to a reporter. "If we do lower taxes, we have to cut services, police and fire. I'd have to hear concrete solutions to how we replace that money."
Jerry Bowyer, a radio personality and founder of the Pittsburgh Institute for Public Policy think tank, later took the microphone as keynote speaker.
The problem isn't the American form of government, Bowyer said.
"Our quarrel is with the people sitting in the government," he said.