Scores of people — some carrying hand-made signs with messages like “Give Us Liberty, Not Debt” and “We the People Want Capitalism!” — crowded into the park shelter despite the rain to hear speeches that sometimes accused the Obama administration of eroding personal freedom and concentrating too much power in the federal government.

Local Democrats told the Globe in phone interviews that the Obama administration’s critics only voice opposition without offering any solutions. They also rejected claims that the administration’s policies were poising the country for socialism.

“They are a group of all talk,” said Jim Hight, president of the Newton County Democrats Club and treasurer of the Newton County Democrat Central Committee. “They criticize, but they offer no alternative.”

Hight said the Republican counter proposals for health-care reform, for example, essentially leave the status quo intact.

He acknowledged a number of the Obama administration’s proposals require a lot of money to be spent, but he said the administration now has to correct a lot of problems festering for the last eight years under former President George W. Bush.

“They just need to step back and look at the past eight years,” Hight said. “They’ll see that’s where the problems began.”

Doug Brooks, a Joplin psychologist who is a member of the Democratic National Committee, also dismissed claims that the Obama administration was setting up the country for socialism.

“We are not on the path to socialism,” Brooks said. “That’s a thing they often say to scare folks.”