Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Thousands of protesters carrying signs saying “Obama = Socialism” and “Keep Government out of Health Care,” descended on Washington yesterday to oppose government spending and the rising U.S. budget deficit.

“This tax-and-spend government wants to limit our freedom and erode peoples’ rights,” said Leonard Starr, 65, from Richmond, Virginia. “We’re building a giant bureaucracy headed to fascism using untruthfulness and lies.”

Demonstrators, wrapped in American flags, holding banners and wearing shirts condemning Democratic President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, expressed disapproval of plans to overhaul the U.S. health-care system, place a cap on carbon emissions and the bailout of companies.

Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and rein in health- care costs that account for about one-sixth of the U.S. economy. The overhaul would cost $900 billion over 10 years.

The protesters filled Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House and marched toward the U.S. Capitol. The crowd numbered in the tens of thousands, according to CNN and Fox News.

At a near-simultaneous rally in Minneapolis much like the ones he held during his campaign, Obama encouraged supporters to pick up the telephone and knock on doors to gather backing for health-care reform. An estimated 13,000 people were at the Minneapolis event.

Obama to Fight

Obama said the U.S. has never been closer to overhauling health care and promised to fight back against opponents and special interests working to defeat the effort.

“This is when the special interests and the insurance companies and the folks who think, you know, this is a good way to bring Obama down, this is when they’re going to fight with everything they’ve got,” Obama said. “This is when they’ll spread all kinds of wild rumors to scare and intimidate people.”

At the Washington event, Michelle Barker, 38, carried a sign depicting Obama as the “Joker,” a villain in Batman movies and comic books.

“That’s who’s going to be treating us instead of doctors,” Barker, who came to the Washington rally from Miami, said. “The Joker and the government.”

Jeremy Batterson, 40, from Baltimore, passed out pamphlets with a picture of Obama sprouting a Hitler-like mustache. He said Obama was trying to insert a provision into the health-care bill to perform euthanasia on the terminally ill and senior citizens.

“We have to stop him,” said Batterson, who said he was working with a group that supports former third-party presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.

‘Death Panels’

Some critics of the health-care legislation passed by the House Ways and Means Committee have seized on what they are calling “death panels,” a contention which Obama has denounced as “a lie plain and simple.”

The Washington rally was organized by members of the Tea Party Patriots group and the National Taxpayers Union, among other conservative groups, and promoted by Fox News commentator Glenn Beck.

Sabrina Barr, 38, an Atlanta real estate broker with four children, expressed worries about so-called cap-and-trade plan that provides for trading of carbon emission rights to help limit greenhouse gases.

“It would cost money and create more taxes,” said Barr. “Anything that costs us money costs us jobs.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Carol Wolf in Washington at cwolf@bloomberg.net;

Last Updated: September 13, 2009 00:00 EDT