From coast to coast, evacuations are beginning. New York’s Zuccotti Park is now empty, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg cleared out the tents and sleeping bags and reopened the area to the public. In Oakland, Calif., Mayor Jean Quan, a Democrat, ruled that no more lodging would be permitted.
Once considered the Democratic counterpart to the Tea Party, the Occupy Wall Street movement is becoming an embarrassment to the Democrats and President Obama.
And with Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on record as supporting the protests, many Democrats are likely hoping the encampments will just vanish.
Democrats originally hoped that OWS would do for their party what the Tea Party did for Republicans — energize the base and get out the vote. But it has became apparent that OWS is no left-wing Tea Party.
Tea Party supporters limited their gatherings to weekends because they generally had jobs. And they didn’t camp out, take drugs, commit crimes, or threaten innocent bystanders. They just wanted to cut government spending.
Whereas the Tea Party is a set of spontaneous rallies, without central organization, OWS is organized mainly by unions and the activist group MoveOn.org. Manny Herrmann, online mobilization coordinator of the AFL-CIO, fills my email box drumming up support for OWS rallies.
As always happens when riding a tiger, Democrats lost control of OWS, which has filled parks across America with filthy tent cities, discouraging shoppers from patronizing local businesses.
The encampments sully neighborhoods and are fast becoming a catalyst for Republican, not Democratic, voters. Rather than encouraging people to vote Democratic, the protesters are showing voters the face of the loony left. That’s why mayors are not waiting until winter to clear the parks, when snow and cold would nudge campers to find more comfortable accommodations.
Consider McPherson Square, three blocks from the White House, now occupied by protesters. Until this past September, my office overlooked the park.
I watched as in 2010 the city cordoned it off and slowly — very slowly — refurbished it, repaving walkways and planting new grass. The city likely used stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
McPherson Square was finally reopened to the public earlier this year. In fine weather people had lunch on the benches and sunned themselves on the grass. Now, the grass is gone, the area is covered with plastic tents, and no one, aside from protesters, can use the benches.
What is surprising is the leeway given to the protestors. McPherson Square is a public park, with zoning laws that prohibit camping. No Boy Scout troop would be allowed to camp in McPherson Square, and, if Examiner readers wanted to urinate and defecate behind its trees, they would be arrested.
Protesters are breaking similar laws in encampments all over America. But, for some reason, authorities have put up with OWS and its satellites.
Protestors complain about income disparities. A new study by the Pew Research Center shows the increasing gap in the well-being between the young and the old.
Older Americans are doing better than in the past because of the buildup of assets, especially home equity. Younger ones are doing worse, because their unemployment rates are so high.
Unemployment rates for college graduates in their early 20s have risen from 5 percent in 2005 to close to 10 percent in 2010. And many graduates have to pay off college loans averaging $22,000.
Congress and Obama need to solve the underlying problem — lack of jobs, especially for the young, and the ensuing lack of economic mobility. Instead, the administration just delayed the construction of the Keystone oil pipeline from Canada, which would have provided 20,000 jobs. Go figure.
Examiner Columnist Diana Furchtgott-Roth ([email protected]), former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
