New York City should bill Obama campaign for cost of policing Wall Street protest
President Barack Obama yesterday said of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest that:
It expresses the frustrations that the American people feel that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street. And yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.
Vice President Joe Biden said:
What is the core of that protest, and why is it increasing in terms of the people its attracting? The core is that the bargain has been breached with the American people. The core is that the American people do not think the system is fair or on the level. There’s a lot in common with the tea party.
The leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said:
God bless them for their spontaneity. It’s independent … it’s young, it’s spontaneous, and it’s focused. And it’s going to be effective. The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace. No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street.
At the same time, union leaders have been getting involved in the action, and similar protests have been springing up in other areas of the country.
All of this does not happen by coincidence, obviously. What first seemed to be merely a protest by the usual band of idle rich kids who object to all the things that have made their lives so easy has become an organized political escapade. Throw in the prediction by President Obama’s good friend Van Jones of an “American fall [autumn]” to match the “Arab Spring” and it’s clear that this is a premeditated effort to gin up a movement: what many supporters are themselves calling a “progressive” alternative to the Tea Party. Of-course the Tea Party has never tried to occupy urban streets or otherwise shut any business down or break any laws. Tea partiers rally to make a statement and then go home—and back to their lives and their work.
Cut to the chase: This is all about the election next year. Will it work in enabling the reelection of Barack Obama and leading to an improvement in the currently dire prospects for Democrats nationwide? It certainly has at least an outside chance of working as far as stimulating the moribund base of the Democrat party, which Obama needs as an absolute minimum. It will surely not, however, bring back to Obama the independents he needs to augment that base and win reelection. How could it? Will the critical mass of middle-class Americans, working day by day and watching their 401k and general worth dip and dive, really identify with people who have nothing better to do than camp out in a park for weeks and yell slogans against stock brokers?
It is in fact a politically stupid gambit, brought to you by the same people who thought passing Obama-Care would be a political winner. It will look even worse should the sporadic lawbreaking and relatively minor violence turn into something uglier.
Meanwhile, cash-strapped New York City (which is hurting not because of Wall Street’s greedy profits but due to insufficient Wall Street greedy profits) is spending millions keeping the protestors under some kind of control so that others in the vital financial district can just go about their jobs. As the protests balloon and expand—thanks to the encouragement of President Obama, other Democrat politicians and union leaders—the cost of policing will also just continue to go up (not only in New York but other urban areas being blighted by the same phenomenon). New York City has already had to cut back dramatically on police, fire-fighters and a range of city services which are depended upon disproportionately by—guess who—those with low-incomes.
Mayor Bloomberg had it exactly right (which has not been so common for him lately) when he said:
What they’re trying to do is take away the jobs of people working in the city, take away the tax base that we have. We’re not going to have money to pay our municipal employees or anything else. Everyone’s got a thing they want to protest, some of which is not realistic. And if you focus for example on driving the banks out of New York City, you know those are our jobs … You can’t have it both ways: If you want jobs you got to assist companies and give them confidence to go and hire people.
Considering that these protests are now being encouraged by President Obama himself, and clearly instigated and coordinated to some extent by Democratic party leaders and their agents, it surely would be altogether fitting to send them the bill at least for police overtime and other related costs. However, it is doubtful that Bloomberg has the cojones for that kind of move.
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In the course of the current economic depression (because I am certain it will be looked back upon as a depression rather than a recession) there has been good reason to anticipate civil unrest. The very real misery and privation, increasing by the day since the fall of 2008, might well be expected to lead to riotous acts, especially in the poorest urban communities, where unemployment is often dramatically greater than the already-awful national average. Yet, the current “Occupy Wall Street” protests are not that. These protests were not instigated by the desperate unemployed but rather by highly ideological brats. And now they are being used and expanded for blatantly partisan political ends, with no regard for the costs that will have to be paid by the neighborhoods and cities where they take place. It’s a strange juncture in American history and politics, and one we could certainly have done without. It will not reelect Barack Obama, but it will increase the high price America has already paid for the mistake of electing him in the first place.
