Costs of the occupiers

Michelle Malkin
10/14/2011

The trash generated by the "Occupy Wall Street" protests keeps piling up. So do the bills. Liberal media outlets claim the anarchic, anti-capitalist movement is more popular than the tea party. But wait until Americans across the country get a full picture of the costs of the aimless occupiers.

In New York City, government officials estimate the month-long siege of Zuccotti Park has now imposed $3.2 million in overtime police costs on the public. On Thursday, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office pressured left-wing activists to vacate the park for cleaning, Occupy Wall Street urged sympathizers to flood the city's customer services lines: "Call 311 and tell Bloomberg not to evict us!"

In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter told the press that demonstrators outside city hall have incurred $164,000 in overtime public employee costs and $237,000 in regular time. "At the current rate, if Occupy Philly continues to the end of the month, the city would spend another nearly $690,000 on police overtime alone," the local NBC affiliate reported. "Besides the extra police presence being dedicated to the Occupy Philly protests, other city departments have also incurred costs." the rest