sirmitchell:

thedailyfeed:

Occupy Wall Street protesters have cost their host cities $13 million in police overtime and other services in just two months.

“I don’t think they have a sense of what it means when tax dollars are spent in this way,” a spokeswoman for the Oakland, Calif., city government, Karen Boyd, told The Daily. “Oakland is very much a city that has been devastated by the economic downturn. We don’t have an extra $2.5 million to spend.”

 Oakland police estimate that overtime eventually will top $3 million, and Boyd said this may lead to cuts in senior services and libraries. Last year, Oakland laid off 500 city workers, including 80 police officers, to close a $58 million deficit.

This argument is upsetting to me for a couple reasons. One, there was no need for the sort of police presence that was on hand for Occupy protests around the country. Two, (and this is the important note in my opinion) this isn’t $13 million dollars down the drain, it’s $13 million that is going to the middle class essentially, which in turn is good for the economy. Now if we compare this to the $700 billion dollar bailout ( which is equal to 53,846 times what Occupy has cost in police overtime ) which went to millionaires and billionaires, interest free, we can gain a little bit of perspective on this. 

It’s this sort of crooked bullshit that has people in the streets to begin with.