15 people were arrested at a noisy demonstration at the State Capitol, as groups that work with poor, sick and homeless protested against Governor Cuomo’s $10 billion dollars in budget cuts.
Chanting “Hey Cuomo you’re the worst, time to put the people first”, around 150 members of the group VOCAL New York marched and unfurled banners to block off all of the entrances to the state Capitol hallways, disrupting the noontime crowd of lobbyists, lawmakers and their staff.
The group’s leader, Wanda Hernandez, says state lawmakers should continue the so-called millionaires tax so that the poor and others can continue to have needed government services.
“We did not crash the economy Wall Street did,” Hernandez shouted. “So why do we have to suffer?”
Police arrested the demonstrators blocking the entry ways, and order was restored after about an hour.
Cuomo was not at the Capitol, he was in New York City. The Governor, as well as Senate Republicans are against extending the tax on the wealthy, Assembly Democrats back the measure.
(Source: WXXI)
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2 Responses
Seems like it won’t stop with Wisconsin, Indiana or Ohio – New York (and perhaps) New Jersey is next. These people don’t realize that if these cuts would’ve been initiated earlier in the game then it wouldn’t be so painful. Wait longer and it would be worse. We shouldn’t wait until everything must be cut (because of threatening interest debts), we should start with entitlement programs immediately. President Obama should take a lesson from fellow Democrat Cuomo on leadership and put the country before politics.
It’s a bad sign when mobs try to use the threat of violence to coerce the elected representatives into doing something that they were elected to do.
And of course, the more noise they make, the better Cuomo’s reputation for frugality, and the better chance he’ll be running for President in 2016.