Tea Party Holds Rally to Keep Corker from Bending on Financial Reform

Twenty-five Tea Partiers rally outside Sen. Bob Corker’s West End office over financial reform.

As the U.S. Senate considers a new financial reform package led by Democrats, members of the Franklin-based Tea Party Nation want to make sure Republican Bob Corker doesn’t start compromising. Twenty-five of them held a modest rally in front of Corker’s West End office Thursday.

Some amongst the Tea Partiers believe the government needs to stop bailing out companies instead of prescribing a more orderly way to do it next time.

Retiree Lorene Steffes says she doesn’t see how the Senate proposal would have kept the country out of the current crisis. It does nothing about the home loan giants Fannie and Freddie Mac, she says. But Steffes isn’t dogging Corker, like some of her fellow Tea Partiers.

“Unlike a lot of Senators who are career Senators and don’t know anything about business, Mr. Corker does. So I have confidence he knows a bad bill when he sees it, and I want him to hold his ground because this is a bad bill.“

Corker doesn’t like the current financial reform bill primarily because he thinks it gives a new consumer protection agency too much authority. But he’s said the differences separating Republicans and Democrats could be worked out “in about five minutes.”