"Hello, Boston!" Robert Baehr shouted from the podium before a crowd of about 1,500 gathered in the noon sunshine yesterday at Allegheny Landing, on Pittsburgh's North Shore.

Mr. Baehr could perhaps be forgiven for substituting the Allegheny River for Boston Harbor yesterday, given that the theme of this particular protest he'd organized was tea -- as in the Revolutionary-era Boston Tea Party -- and higher taxes, which, he says, will inevitably result from the recent stimulus package and the federal government's bailout of the banking and automobile industries.

Mr. Baehr, a 42-year-old software consultant from Evans City, dubbed the event "The Pennsylvania Tea Party," one of several anti-tax protests scheduled for the coming week. At noon Wednesday -- April 15, tax day -- a rally will be held at Market Square.

"This is not an anti-Obama rally, this is an anti-government rally," he told his audience, many of whom had tea bags dangling from their baseball caps and purses.

Still, there were plenty of signs displaying antipathy to President Barack Obama.

"Feminist Nation Against Obama Nation Tax and Spend," read one poster carried by Jeamour Matthews, 49, of North Braddock. The president's economic policies "will take us into bankruptcy," Ms. Matthews said, adding that she actually blames both Republicans and Democrats for the country's financial woes.

"They're both different wings on the same vulture," she said.

"Obama is running this country down the tubes -- and I'm a registered Democrat," added William Killcrece, 56, of Swisshelm Park.

Peg Luksik, a conservative activist from Johnstown who plans to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in next year's Republican primary, also urged the crowd to call the offices of Mr. Specter and Pennsylvania's other U.S. senator, Democrat Bob Casey, to register their displeasure with the stimulus package and "follow that action up at the ballot box in 2010."

Others hoisted placards reading "Don't Tread on Me" and "Give Me Liberty Not Debt" and "Tastes Like Socialism" -- a theme hammered at by the event's featured speaker, Alan Keyes, a conservative talk show host and three-time presidential candidate.

In a vigorously delivered speech, Mr. Keyes warned of the dangers of a centralized banking system and mocked a recent Newsweek cover that said, "We are All Socialists Now."

"Are you all socialists now?" Mr. Keyes asked the crowd, which roared back, "No!"

He also sharply criticized Mr. Obama for, in his view, working too closely with European governments to stem the financial crisis.

"The individual in the White House tells us we can solve our problems by sacrificing the hope, liberty and prosperity of our children and grandchildren," Mr. Keyes said of Mr. Obama, who defeated him in the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate race.

"We need to hand control of our money back to our people, not to people in Europe, but to 'We the people' in the United States," he said to loud cheers.

Erin Dinch, 39, of Washington, Pa., brought her two children, Brianna, 8, and Zachary, 9, to the protest.

"The government is out of control," she said, "not just from the tax increases I see coming but how this will affect my children. They will be paying for this for generations to come," she said, as Brianna held a sign that read, "Keep your hands out of my piggy bank."

Ms. Dinch said she brought her children because "they need to understand the principles upon which this country was founded, and the difference between socialism and communism."

Asked what the protest was about, Zachary had a ready answer.

"It's basically about how they're going too far with everything. They're spending money we don't have," Zachary said. "We've had it. We're done."