Missouri senators split on Occupy Wall Street demonstrations
New York City police officers stand guard near the New York Stock Exchange where Occupy Wall Street protesters have been camped out for months. Photo by David Shankbone.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – With the Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York spreading their influence across the country and sparking sympathy protests in cities across Missouri, Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt both weighed in on the movement.
Both of Missouri’s Senators compared the protestors to the similarly outraged Tea Party. McCaskill said it’s equally wrong for conservatives to dismiss Occupy Wall Street as a disorganized mob as it was for Democrats to write-off the Tea Party.
“I certainly understand the frustration they’re talking about because if you look at the sliding wages of the middle class,” McCaskill said. “That’s why there’s some sense of urgency about tax reform that will make the tax code more fair.”
McCaskill has championed some of the issues being advocated by the demonstrators, backing the so-called “Warren Buffet Rule” that would place higher taxes on billionaires and she has led efforts to try and repeal federal subsidies for oil companies.
About a month ago, protestors began descending on Zuccotti Park in the heart of New York’s financial district in an effort to bring attention to what they say was the financial industry’s unpunished role in the nation’s financial collapse. Similar protests have sense cropped up in other cities around the county, including St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph.
Although Blunt, Missouri’s Republican Senator, said he respects free speech rights of the demonstrators, he called them misguided in their views. He expressed more ideological sympathy for the Tea Party, echoing their commonly-held view that state and federal government taxation and regulation are more to blame for the failed economy than the private industry.
“I don’t know that this is the best way to channel that energy in getting the economy going again,” Blunt said, adding, “I frankly, think the idea that somehow Wall Street is responsible for the problems that the federal government has or that the state governments has is not the right idea.”
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Posted by Tim Sampson on October 15, 2011. Filed under Business, Featured.
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