Just for shits and giggles, I’m going to collect the official statements of White House officials on the growing #OccupyWallStreet movement. If I’ve missed any, please share and I’ll update this post.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, 3 October 2011:
I haven’t discussed it with him. I’m sure he’s aware of it because he follows the news. I would simply say that, to the extent that people are frustrated with the economic situation, we understand. And that’s why we’re so urgently trying to focus Congress’s attention on the need to take action on the economy and job creation.
And as regards Wall Street, I mean, one of the things that this President is very proud of is the consumer protections that were put into place through legislation that Republicans are now eager to try to dismantle. We think that’s a bad idea…Because these are common-sense consumer protections that would prevent the kind of abuse that credit card companies engaged in against credit card holders, that would protect against some of the actions that were taken that led to, or contributed to, the financial crisis that we saw in 2008. These were measures that the President felt were very important, and there’s a clear effort within the Congress to prevent the full implementation of legislation by holding up this nomination. We think that’s cynical and a bad idea.
Vice President Joe Biden, 4 October 2011:
“I really don’t know about the Van Jones group, except what I read in the press,” Biden said. “I don’t disrespect the tea party. I think the tea party and the Van Jones folks are different halves of the same concern.”
Biden continued: “You have on one end Van Jones’s guys, whoever he is, talking about Wall Street.
”Suddenly, both Harris and his co-host Tedd Webb laughed and reminded Biden that Jones was the “Green czar” in the administration.
“Oh, is that… alright,” Biden replied.
White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, 5 October 2011:
“I don’t know if it’s helpful,” he said. “I wouldn’t characterize it that way. Look it: People express their opinions. In the new social network world, they can do it pretty effectively outside the normal way, historically, people have done it. So whether it’s helpful to us, or helpful for people to understand in the political system that there are a lot of people out there concerned about the economy — I know the focus is on Wall Street, but it’s a broader discussion that we’re having.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, 5 October 2011:
“I feel a lot of sympathy for what you might describe as the general sense among Americans as whether we’ve lost the sense of possibility and whether after a pretty bad lost decade in terms of income growth or fiscal responsibility…followed by a devastating crisis, huge loss of faith in public institutions, people do wonder whether we have the ability to do things that can help the average sense of opportunity in the country,” Geithner said at The Atlantic’s Ideas Forum, just a few blocks from both the U.S. Capitol and the White House.
