Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., was starting in on his opening statement at today’s first supercommittee hearing when a huge din broke out, amplified by the acoustics of Rayburn 2123.
“What do we want?” yelled protesters.
“Jobs!”
“When do we need them?”
“Now!”
Code Pink, the anti-war-turned-anti-austerity protest group, had placed four members in the hearing room to hold up funny money and ironic signs with slogans like “Tax the Poor.” They bolted outside to join the protests; Medea Benjamin of Code Pink said that the protesters were from This is Our DC, a heretofore obscure anti-austerity group, which I was only dimly aware of from leafletting it had done in northwest D.C. It took around eight minutes for police to escort them out of the building. They were very long minutes. Duct-taped audio/visual cords were running on the floor through the room’s main entrance, which meant that the dense wooden doors couldn’t fully close.
Camp passed on a chance to finish his statement, and the Code Pink protesters were allowed back into the room.
