Times: Pinellas tea party up in arms over spending

Tea party opposition to government spending is no secret. On Tuesday, according to the St. Petersburg Times, protesters took it to the Pinellas County Commission to make their point.

The Times reports that tea party protesters who showed up at a Pinellas County Commission meeting to oppose “$15 million in future spending for land for affordable housing and a proposed increase in the tax rate for emergency medical service” carried signs that included slogans like, “Say No to Social Justice.”

According to the Times, “they left behind yellow stickers on doors printed with a message: ‘Government FOR the people, not AGAINST the people.’”

The Times adds that protesters called “the spending unnecessary” and said it catered to “special interests”: “Glenn Pav, a host on WGUL-AM 860, compared the housing funding to a United Nations usurpation of our state and local government.’ Others said the money would pay for ‘winter homes’ or ‘illegal immigrants’ or a ‘redistribution of wealth.’”

Rasmussen Reports released a poll Tuesday saying that a “national telephone survey finds that 49% of American Adults now think government programs increase the level of poverty in the United States, while just 20% say they decrease the problem.”

The poll adds that “while 68% of Republicans and 60% of adults not affiliated with either major political party think government programs increase the level of poverty in America, just 20% of Democrats agree.”

It also points out that “Florida and Missouri have already passed measures that require some form of drug testing during the welfare application process, with Florida now requiring all applicants to be tested.”

In late June, Gov. Rick Scott signed a piece of legislation that requires all welfare recipients be drug tested, a decision that Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, called a major “violation of privacy.”