Minutes after the crowd that was assembled at an Americans for Prosperity-backed Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday broke out into chants of “shut it down,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) claimed that the Tea Party doesn’t want the government to shut down and that Democrats would unfairly blame the movement if it did.
“They want to blame it on you,” Bachmann said. But there was a large part of the crowd willing to step up and take the blame.
There was John Oltesuig — the guy decked out in colonial gear holding a sign that read “SHUT ‘ER DOWN” — who despite his sign said in an interview that he would “prefer not to shut it down.”
“However, the Heritage has done some research on shutting the government down and they found out it isn’t the extreme kind of situation that the Democrats make it out to be,” Oltesuig said. Still, said Oltesuig, “I’d rather have our politicians act like adults and make some real cuts because they should realize we can’t continue.”
Here’s video of some of our tea party interviews on whether or not the government should shut down, and if it does, who should be blamed.
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.