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Palin rallies tea party with antitax message

BOSTON - Sarah Palin rallied the conservative tea-party movement near the scene of its historical inspiration Wednesday, telling Washington politicians that government should be working for the people, not the other way around.

BOSTON - Sarah Palin rallied the conservative tea-party movement near the scene of its historical inspiration Wednesday, telling Washington politicians that government should be working for the people, not the other way around.

Addressing roughly 5,000 people, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee accused President Obama of overreaching with his $787 billion stimulus program. She also criticized the administration's health-care, student-loan and financial regulatory overhauls.

"Is this what their 'change' is all about?" Palin asked the crowd at Boston Common. "I want to tell 'em, nah, we'll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion, and you can keep the change."

Tea partyers planned a final rally in Washington on Thursday, coinciding with the federal tax-filing deadline.

Palin put her own spin on tax day,: "We need to cut taxes so that our families can keep more of what they earn and produce . . . then, our small businesses can reinvest according to our own priorities, and hire more people and let the private sector grow and thrive and prosper."

She also lobbied for more domestic energy production.

"Yeah, let's drill, baby, drill, not stall, baby, stall - you betcha," Palin said, though Obama recently proposed to expand drilling off the Atlantic, and Gulf coasts.

The gathering intended to hark back to 1773, when American colonists upset about British taxation without government representation threw British tea into the harbor in protest - just a mile from the site of Wednesday's rally.

Several speakers protested suggestions of racist undertones to the tea-party movement, which sprouted as the nation elected its first black president. Nonetheless, virtually the entire speaking program and audience were white. An exception was the singer of the tea-party anthem, Lloyd Marcus.

One attendee, John Arathuzik, 69, of Topsfield, said he had never been especially politically active until he saw the direction of the Obama administration.

"I feel like I can do one of two things: I can certainly vote in November, which I'll do, and I can provide support for the peaceful protest about the direction this country is taking," said Arathuzik, a veteran who clutched a copy of the Constitution distributed by a vendor.