New Yorkers Show Why Romney is the ‘Poster Boy for the 1%’
Nov. 2nd 2011
Outside High-Dollar Wall Street Fundraiser for Mitt Romney at the Grand Hyatt Hotel,
New Yorkers Show Why Romney is the ‘Poster Boy for the 1%’
Dozens of New Yorkers Greet Romney with “Greed Is Good! – Romney-Gekko 2012” mock campaign signs featuring the now infamous photo from Romney’s days as CEO of Bain Capital that would make Gordon Gekko proud
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New York, NY – This morning as Mitt Romney surrounded himself with “Wall Street financiers” and “billionaires” for a high-dollar fundraising reception at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, dozens of New Yorkers gathered outside to show America why the hundred-millionaire GOP Presidential hopeful is the Poster Boy for Wall Street and the 1%. Members of MoveOn.org and Americans United for Change waved mock-campaign signs that read “Greed is Good! Romney-Gekko 2012” featuring the recently surfaced photo from Romney’s days as CEO of Bain Capital, where he raked in obscene profits as five of the companies under his firm's direction went bankrupt and thousands of workers were laid off. Judging by the photo, finding places to stuff all those profits that came at the expense of peoples’ jobs became something of a joke amongst Romney and his Bain cohorts. It is a disturbing display of greed and excess that would make Gordon Gekko – the fictional uber-wealthy, cut-throat Corporate raider in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street that coined the phrase “Greed is good” – blush.
Sarah Lane, spokesperson, MoveOn.org: "Millionaire Mitt Romney is Wall Street's dream candidate. A former CEO, Romney opposes raising taxes on millionaires like himself, and even believes that 'corporations are people'. Romney recently claimed he was 'unemployed' even as he sits on millions of dollars, and makes plans to expand his multi-million dollar beachfront estate. Americans are sick to death of Wall Street greed and the corporations calling the shots in our political system, while the rest of us have no voice. The last thing the American people need is an out-of-touch former CEO who will govern for his millionaire buddies on Wall Street, and leave 99% of us behind."
Jeremy Funk, spokesman, Americans United for Change:
“As a hundred-millionaire former corporate-raider that put profits ahead of peoples’ jobs, Mitt Romney is the Poster Child for Wall Street greed and the excess of the 1%. Romney has so far raked in $7.5 million in campaign cash from Wall Street interests – by far more than any other presidential candidate. If given the chance, Romney vows to repay them by doing everything he can to repeal the Wall Street Reform Act, passed into law under this President to hold big banks accountable and prevent the kinds of reckless behavior that caused the financial crisis that left millions of Americans without jobs. A man so out-of-touch with the struggles of everyday Americans, Romney actually said ‘Corporations are people,’ the kind of line you’d have thought Gordon Gekko delivered in Wall Street.”
“This is a guy who wants to privatize Social Security and let his friends and donors on Wall Street get their hands on our guaranteed benefits,” added Funk. “Just imagine what would have happened to millions of seniors if their Social Security had been tied up in the stock market when it crashed in 2008. This is a guy whose only prescription for an ailing economy is to give big oil companies billions more dollars in wasteful subsidies and multi-millionaires like himself another tax break – the same kind of Bush trickle-down economics that failed miserably to create jobs and exploded income inequality in this country between the 1% and the disappearing middle-class.”
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