WASHINGTON — Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was introduced to the flag- and sign-waving crowd here Thursday as the group's “tea partier on the inside,” a congressman who is “tea party tested and tea party approved.”
An outspoken conservative House member from western Iowa, King spoke at a Tea Party rally near the White House on themes guaranteed to go over well with his audience — eliminating federal income taxes and repealing the health care legislation that President Obama just signed into law.
“Obamacare has to go,” King told a cheering crowd the Associated Press estimated in the thousands. “And when I say Obamacare has to go, I mean 100 percent, root and branch, not a vestige of it left behind.”
King also tackled what he described as government takeovers of the country's private sector, from big Wall Street firms to auto companies and called attention to a sign in the audience describing Obama as a socialist.
“I don't know that I want to put that particular label on him, but I'll tell you — Bernie Sanders is the only socialist United States senator and he's self-professed and no one argues that Bernie's not a socialist. But I will tell you the facts show this: President Obama voted to the left of Bernie Sanders when he was in the United States Senate,” King said. “So the question isn't ‘Is the president a socialist?' We're talking about what's to the left of your sign down there, ma'am. And you can all figure that out.”
Following his appearance, King told the World-Herald that policies being pursued in Washington today have been “lifted off the socialist Web site.”
Is he calling the president a socialist?
“I don't need to,” King said. “Let somebody else find that definition. That's all just the facts.”
King has clearly embraced the Tea Party movement. This week he hung one of the “Don't Tread On Me” flags popular to Tea Party regulars outside of his Capitol Hill office. The flag has become “the symbol of taking our country back,” he said.
This week, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that King was one of four House members who used a total of $14,000 in taxpayer funds to split the costs of a November gathering of thousands of Tea Party activists in front of the Capitol. The money came out of their congressional member allowances.
King said the event followed ethics rules governing members of Congress and that there is no distinction between holding such an event and holding a town hall meeting using public money.
“It's the same thing, only you can draw a bigger crowd for less money,” King said.
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202-662-7270, joe.morton@owh.com
