Excessive spending, health care and taxes were among the topics as a crowd of about 200 people gathered Thursday for the Tax Day Tea Party Rally at the Forsyth County Courthouse.
“We just wanted to show our support for this movement, that we do need to change the direction this country’s headed in,” said participant Perry Downen. “In my opinion, we’re headed off the brink.
"This country’s not the same that it was when I was growing up. It was a good country then, and we need to get back to that.”
The Cumming event was one of many held across the nation as residents took a stand on Tax Day.
Kelly Henkel’s three daughters attended the local rally, jumping up and down with signs for passing motorists.
“It’s a civics lesson for them,” Henkel said. “We’re exercising our First Amendment rights of free speech and freedom of assembly.”
Kerry Hill’s children are studying the Revolutionary War and the Boston Tea Party.
Taking them to a modern-day Tea Party, she said, would help them understand the level of frustration more than two centuries earlier.
“It’s an interesting relationship and I think for them they can more understand what those people might have felt like back then, so it’s a very good thing for them to experience,” she said.
Hill said Thursday’s rally was also a way to join with others who feel “people are taking away too much of our money and spending it in ways that we don’t necessarily agree with.”
Linda Wolf and her dog, Luther, both donned colonial-era American flags. For Wolf, the rally was about the new health care law.
“I have my own health plan, and I was talking to them about it,” she said. “They said it could easily go up if [President Barack] Obama gets a hold of it.
“I’m totally against it, and I’m tired of seeing him trying to rule this nation the way he is.”
Several guest speakers addressed the crowd. But Marilyn Scher's participation was about prayer and the Constitution.
“The Constitution was built on truth, on God’s word and that’s why we’re standing up,” she said. “To share that is so important because so many people have forgotten.
“I’m not against government, I’m for limited government.”