By Staff
They’re unhappy with rise in taxes and deficit spending
By MIKE VOSS
Contributing Editor
A “tea party” to protest the federal government’s excessive deficit spending and high taxes will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Beaufort County Courthouse.
The Beaufort County Tea Party, taking its name from its more-famous forerunners in Boston and Edenton, is one of more than 35 planned throughout North Carolina and the nation. Most of them are scheduled for today, the deadline for income-tax returns to be filed, but some are set for later this week. Others such as the ones in Raleigh and Wilmington were held in March and earlier this month.
Organizers at the national, state and local levels characterize the event as a grassroots movement fueled by people who say they are unhappy with being overly taxed to pay for out-of-control spending by the federal government.
Larry Britt, chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party, said the local event is open to anyone.
The history of tax-related protests in North Carolina goes back more than 230 years.
In 1774, Penelope Barker led about 50 other women in what is known as the Edenton Tea Party. Those women, not pleased with England’s tax on tea, dumped crates of tea into Edenton’s harbor — before the more famous Boston Tea Party.