TRENTON — Thomas F. Dresser of Jackson became a Tea Party activist because he was angry about the Wall Street bailouts. Now he wants to prevent what he thinks is the next great crisis: the rising cost of public workers.
So the 63-year-old entrepreneur came to Trenton to join the counterprotest against union members gathering Friday.
"I spent 30-40 years going to work every day, voting every two years, thinking that was enough involvement. It's not," Dresser said. "I'm worried about what will be left for my grandchildren, and it'll probably be a pile of debt."
Dresser, now owner of a dry cleaner in Brick, said he was watching news about the financial crisis on television in 2008 when an expected bank loan he was going to use to buy a business fell through.
Dresser said he eventually got a temporary job as a financial officer for an insulation installation company, but the crisis brought him to a new awakening.
"The winds and the tack of the country have really changed from what I believed it was," Dresser said. "Our inability to deal with reality in a democracy is very scary . . . When there's no money, there's no money."
Dresser, trained as an accountant, has spent a career switching jobs. He's bought or opened a series of companies, then sold them off. He likes to speak of his "next idea."
Although Dresser said he's not sure what he thinks should have happened to Wall Street because of the meltdown, the crisis made him believe that government spending needs to be slashed.
Holding a red, white and blue umbrella, Dresser acknowledged that he is opening his dry cleaners with a loan from the federal Small Business Administration.
He doesn't see that as wasteful government spending. What he sees is that public worker pension and benefits are out of control, Social Security and Medicaid costs are rising, and the federal government has a mountain of debt.
The public unions are "sucking the life blood," Dresser said. He doesn't think the private sector can afford it.
"I have school worker friends, teacher friends. I don't want them to not have the life they thought they had," Dresser said. "I just don't know how we pay for it."
Meanwhile, everyone else in America is barely able to meet their household expenses, he said.
"If my business was really cooking today, I wouldn't be here," Dresser said, adding that he wouldn't have the time. "If my dry cleaners doesn't work, who's bailing me out?"
Reach Jason Method at (609) 292-5158 or jmethod@njpressmedia.com
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