CINCINNATI - Tea Party activists waving flags and signs, singing patriotic songs and chanting anti-Internal Revenue Service slogans held rallies outside federal buildings across the country Tuesday to protest the agency’s extra scrutiny of conservative groups.
A crowd packed the sidewalks in front of and across the street from a Cincinnati federal building housing the IRS offices that handled tax-exempt-status applications.
“It’s going to be up to the grass-roots movement to do something,” said Paul Wheeler, dressed in Colonial-era attire with a tri-cornered hat and holding a sign saying, “Internal ‘Revenge’ Service Stop.” He said he had come from Indianapolis, about 100 miles way, because Cincinnati is “the epicenter of some of the complaints.”
IRS officials have acknowledged that some conservative groups received inappropriate attention.
There were also rallies outside IRS offices in Little Rock; Atlanta; Louisville; Chicago; Cherry Hill, N.J.; Denver; Kansas City, Mo.; Helena, Mont.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; and Providence, R.I., among other cities.
In downtown Little Rock, a group of eight to 10 people joined the national effort at lunchtime Tuesday in front of the federal administration building, home to the local IRS office, saying they had to do some last-minute scrambling after hearing about the demonstration plan Monday evening.
They went from Little Rock, North Little Rock and Sherwood to huddle together under threatening storm clouds.
Andre Armstrong, 30, of North Little Rock said that though the individuals in the group don’t necessarily agree on all political issues, they constitute “a loose coalition” connected by a belief in standing up for constitutional principles.
“We’re really not anti-government,” said Bruce Hammerstein, 60, of Sherwood. “The IRS thing should concern everybody. It’s the raw abuse of power.”
“I just love my country,” added Lynn Jacuzzi, 55, of Little Rock. “To see it deteriorating at the level it is, is just very personal to me.”
In Washington, a few dozen people congregated outside the IRS headquarters, listening to speeches and carrying signs.
“I just think what they did was inappropriate, and if they were doing this to liberals, I would be out here, too,” said Shoshana Weissmann, a Republican and 20-year-old George Washington University student who said she is not affiliated with the Tea Party. “It’s scary to think the IRS is capable of this.”
Some former IRS staff members said Cincinnati employees shouldn’t be vilified.Former senior manager Bonnie Esrig said the office was a nonpolitical environment, and tax-exempt-status workloads had soared because of court decisions and rules changes. Esrig, who said she wasn’t involved in handling the conservative group applications, said she believed the workers were trying to streamline the research and avoid repetition.
She and others are skeptical about initial IRS suggestions that a handful of low-level employees were responsible for the practice, saying it’s unlikely workers would have developed and followed procedures that focused on conservative groups without any supervisors being aware.
Several IRS employees in Cincinnati declined to comment or didn’t return phone messages.
Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, a group that organized protests Tuesday, said the IRS was increasing public sympathy for the Tea Party.
“The American people see we were targeted, we were discriminated against, and our concerns about a government that is too large are valid concerns,” she said in Washington.
Information for this article was contributed by Dan Sewell, Ben Nuckols, Christina A. Cassidy, Sara Burnett, Heather Hollingsworth, Walter Berry and Geoff Mulvihill of The Associated Press and by Linda Satter of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 05/22/2013