From CapitolBeatOK Staff Report

At the state Capitol in Oklahoma City last week, an estimated 400 people gathered to protest the boost in government spending and economic intervention they believe is respresented in President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.

After the event, state AFP director Stuart Jolley told The City Sentinel, “The message sent from Oklahoma to Washington is: ‘don’t mess with our money.’ We appreciated the involvement of seven legislators and more than 400 citizens in this rally. I hope the ‘tea party’ rallies elsewhere in the country went as well as ours did.”

Jolley said the group rallied to send a message that have had “Enough housing bailouts, enough bank bailouts, enough bailouts, period. People who played by the rules and paid their own debts shouldn’t be forced to pay for other people’s bailouts. t rewards bad behavior and encourages more bad behavior.  We support Rick Santelli’s call for a Taxpayer Tea Party to defend our country’s founding free-market principles.” Santelli made the call days before during a CNBC commentary.

Rallies were held in dozens of other cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, Tulsa, and Chicago, to show opposition to bailout plans. On February 17, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which has sparked intense opposition from group’s like AFP. More than 420,000 Americans signed AFP’s NoStimulus.com petition.

AFP is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed  to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFPF believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFPF educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits.  Americans for Prosperity educates and mobilizes grassroots citizens.