Tea Party meets this Thursday at Big Jakes
Local chapter continues into its eighth year
By Rick Kennedy, managing editor
The “Hope for America” Tea Party, which serves as Hempstead County’s localized version of the national Tea Party movement, meets again this Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Big Jakes in Hope, just as it has much of the last eight years.
Local chairperson and local Tea Party founding member Barbara Cox still leads Hempstead’s Tea Party group gatherings, which came to being in Hope shortly after the national “Tea Party” movement emerged in 2009.
Hempstead’s version of the group, which Cox often calls by its formal name as the “Hope for America Tea Party,” supports limited government, financial responsibility, Constitutional government, free markets, debt reduction, and civic responsibility.
Although often confused as a “political party” or a subset of the national Republican Party, Cox says the group is neither, instead representing part of a national movement with its namesake motto “Taxed Enough Already,” where TEA is taken from.
“Our goal is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens,” Cox said, “And we welcome all people who identify with these values.”
Cox said the Hope Tea Party meets the fourth Thursdays of the month at 7 p.m. at Big Jakes BBQ.
