Bankrupt tax protester gets own bailout

Corporate bailouts. Troubled assets. Bank rescues. Federal stimulus. While the Bush and Obama administrations were scrambling to put spins on what they labeled "economic recovery" programs, angry taxpayers had a more simple description: increased government spending.

Increasingly frustrated that their voices were not being heard, they banded together to form organized groups that they called "Tea Parties," a reference to the infamous 1773 Boston Tea Party which sparked the American Revolution.

Beginning on Tax Day, April 15, 2009, Tea Party activists organized a number of protests across the country, speaking out against what they view as wasteful government spending at taxpayers' expense. Many have called for a tax revolution, evoking imagery from the American Revolution and taking as their slogan "Taxed Enough Already."

In the midst of it all is Jenny Beth Martin. Martin is credited with co-founding the national organization, Tea Party Patriots, which has, as a main priority of the organization, to bring attention to and oppose massive government spending. Speaking just before a Sept. 12 protest in Washington, D.C., Martin explained that she, like many Americans "don't want to bailout things and organizations and individuals who haven't been fiscally responsible."

Martin may know a little bit about not being fiscally responsible. She filed bankruptcy along with her husband in August 2008, having racked up debt including more than $71,000 to Ford Motor Co. Martin also lost her home.

Martin and her husband have made no secret of their financial woes, even talking about it on appearances on Fox News' Fox & Friends. She told Fox: "We've been hit by the financial crisis and the recession, and we are like everyday Americans."