Occupy Wall Street protesters planned to march to the homes of five New York billionaires Tuesday to protest the expiration of the state’s millionaire’s tax.
Organizers are planning to protest at the homes of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, businessman David Koch, hedge fund manager John Paulson, real estate developer Howard Milstein and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch, according to CNN Money.
The protesters plan to present oversize checks at each home to illustrate how much less the billionaires will pay after New York’s two percent tax on millionaires expires on Dec. 31.
“While everyone else is struggling and being asked to make sacrifices to get through the economic downturn, these folks are actually being given more money to line their pockets,” Occupy Wall Street spokesman Doug Forand told the amNewYork newspaper. “They live in luxury — these folks don’t need a tax break.”
The demonstrators plan to leave their established zone of “occupation” at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan and travel uptown to 59th street near Central Park, where they will start their march just after noon.
The march is planned by groups associated with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations - UnitedNY, the Strong Economy for All coalition, the Working Families Party and New York Communities for change.
The march comes after disturbing threats were made against politicians in the state capital of Albany last week due to the expiration of the millionaire’s tax. The threats adopted similar language used by the Occupy Wall Street movement - that of the one percent exploiting the remaining 99 percent of Americans. It’s “time to kill the wealthy,” the email read, “tax the millionaires! If you don’t, I’m going to pay a visit with my carbine to one of those tech companies you are so proud of and shoot every spoiled Ivy League [expletive] I can find.”
Meanwhile, about 100 protesters were arrested in Boston yesterday after they refused to leave an area called the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway early Tuesday morning, reports the Boston Globe.
