I'm a regular Joe Twelvepack. (In Utah, you have to add a six to make up for the watered-down beer.)

I've worked in the woods, sold auto parts, drove a school bus. I married my high-school sweetheart. I can relate to the common man.

But sometimes it's hard to be a populist. Wednesday was one of those days.

I went to a tea party -- a Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Fox News/pseudo grass-roots production -- outside the federal building in Salt Lake City. And I watched several thousand regular folks applaud pandering politicians, accuse the Obama administration of socialism and protest government economic policies that most financial experts agree will keep our capitalist economy afloat.

The protest, one of about 2,600 nationwide, was billed as the Boston Tea Party II, a new age tax revolt. But it was more like Malice in Wonderland.

The event featured riddles with no good answers. What does the American Revolution -- an uprising against taxation without representation -- have to do with how elected representatives spend our tax dollars? Why would people organize a tax protest when 120 million American families just received an income tax cut? Why would they jeer Gov. Jon Huntsman for accepting federal stimulus funding and chant "send it back," when the money represents their tax dollars coming home to roost?

And it just kept getting curiouser and curiouser.

Congressman Jason "The Mad Hatter" Chaffetz, who lives in a 5,700-square-foot six-bedroom McMansion in Alpine but sleeps on a cot while in Washington to show his frugality, said we can't keep running the country on a credit card.

Congressman Rob Bishop, who has requested more than $4 billion in federal budget earmarks this year, told the crowd he voted against the bailouts and the stimulus plan, and was met with thundering applause.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who fills his campaign chest with money from payday lenders and predatory call centers that prey on the poor and weak-minded, said we don't need the government to put "Band-Aids on our boo-boos." The economy is on life-support, and these guys, with the support of the crowd, want to pull the plug!

Personally, I don't like the way my government went into debt fighting an unjust war and torturing prisoners and spying on Americans and giving tax breaks to the rich. But the Obama plan -- investing money to keep workers in their jobs and families in their homes and teachers in classrooms, to support social service programs and clean energy and new infrastructure, and to keep Wall Street from collapsing and dragging down Main Street -- doesn't bother me a bit.

But I was in the minority. The signs carried by protesters said it all. "Pin the tail on the jackass," read a sign featuring an Obama face on a Democratic donkey. "Obamanation," read another.

Walking back to the train, in a window at 79 S. Main St., I finally saw a sign I liked: "Wells Fargo Bank. Open for Business." Now that's a good sign. Banks are starting to lend again. It's a sign that the government did the right thing.

The last sign I saw was smudged ink on sodden cardboard, tossed on the sidewalk outside The Tribune office at the Gateway. "Cold. Need food. Please help. God bless." It made me wonder if the government is doing enough.

Casey Jones is a member of the Tribune editorial board. E-mail him at cjones@sltrib.com