Hundreds gather for second Joplin event

By Derek Spellman

dspellman@joplinglobe.com

Foes of bloated government and the Obama administration’s policies on energy, health care and spending staged a rally Saturday in Joplin.

Huddled under umbrellas and a Landreth Park shelter, several hundred people attended the area’s second “tea party” in three months. The demonstration coincided with similar ones across the country on the nation’s birthday.

Invoking the legacy of the Founding Fathers, speakers inveighed against government intervention in the banking and auto industries, widening deficits and growing federal power.

Some exhorted supporters to contact their elected officials and voice opposition to Democratic legislation on health care and energy. Some called for a resurgence of states’ rights.

“I believe we have a government that is out of control and ignoring the wishes of the people,” said state Rep. Jim Guest, R-King City.

Guest sponsored a resolution that purportedly reclaims Missouri’s sovereignty under the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment and would have told the federal government to “cease and desist” all mandates “beyond the scope of ... constitutionally delegated powers.” The resolution, which did not detail the federal mandates that might be at issue, passed in the House but stalled in a Senate committee.

“Our 10th Amendment protection is slowly slipping away,” Guest told the crowd Saturday, saying he would raise the resolution again next year and that it would likely enjoy more Senate support the second time around.

Chris Yaudas, a Joplin woman who previously worked for a refining company for almost 30 years, criticized the greenhouse-gas emissions bill that narrowly passed in the House last month.

Yaudas said the bill, touted by supporters as a way to create “green” jobs and wean the country off foreign oil, is an energy tax in disguise that will lead to increases in energy costs, federal bureaucracy and government regulation.

“Call it what you want, the bill is an energy tax,” Yaudas said.

Mark Kinsley, of KZRG-AM radio, criticized the proposed Senate bill that would include the creation of a public health-insurance plan and carry a $1 trillion price tag.

John Putnam, one of the event organizers and chairman of the Jasper County Republican Central Committee, called for the people to “take back both political parties, Republican and Democrat.”