CEDAR RAPIDS - Protesters held TEA Parties across the nation in nearly 1,500 cities on Fourth of July. They're protesting taxes and government spending. More than 100 showed up to the TEA Party in Cedar Rapids.

At the root of thier protest is a cry for fewer taxes and responsible government spending. Organizer Tim Pugh doesn't agree with President Obama's stimulus plan, saying the only thing it stimulates is the national debt. "Borrowing money is not going to help us come out of a recession, it's going to drive us deeper into it," he says.

In his weekly address, the President spoke to his opponents saying the country needs to make a move. "They forget that we, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America."

"Our government is borrowing us into debt, borrowing our grandchildren and our great grandchildren into debt and we need to become more responsible with our money," said Pugh.

"I think it's time to get back to basing what our founding fathers based our Constitution upon and also when the country fought so valiantly for," says TEA Party backer Nancy Olinger.

Organizers chose the Fourth of July because it's a day to celebrate freedoms. One of those freedoms, they say, is their freedom of speech. "Our country is free, but we have to fight for it and we all need to be fighting for it," says backer Carol Walden.

Twenty-three cities across Iowa held TEA Parties on July 4.