Go ahead. Be offended. I am offended by Bush calling himself any kind of conservative.
Posted on 11/12/2006 10:01:34 AM PST by jamesrichards
Minimum Wage Hike Now Likely
The biggest winners in last week's congressional elections may be workers currently earning the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. Democrats have made a top priority to boosting the federal minimum wage for the first time in almost a decade — and President Bush has signaled he will go along.
Voters in six states — impatient with the Bush administration and the out-going Republican-led Congress — voted last week to hike their state minimum wage, bringing to 28 the number of states that have acted on their own to boost wages.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the presumptive House speaker, said she wants to immediately move to raise the national minimum wage. Her counterpart in the Senate, Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, has said he will make a wage increase one of the first few bills that the chamber takes up next year.
The federal minimum wage, which sets the floor for hourly pay in many low-skilled jobs nationwide, was last increased in 1997 — making the last nine years the second-longest stretch without a boost since the legal minimum was established in 1938. Back then it was 25 cents an hour.
Democrats said workers were forced to go to the states and to ballot-initiatives for relief because lawmakers on Capitol Hill have failed to raise the minimum wage — while raising their own pay each year.
“Washington wouldn't act on raising the minimum wage, so America did — and now the new Congress will,” said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
Kennedy has proposed boosting the minimum wage by 70 cents three times over the next three years — bringing it to $7.25.
Congress came close to hiking the minimum wage last summer after Republican leaders packaged the Kennedy plan with a conservative-backed cut in the estate tax and a series of tax cuts for businesses.
Republicans had hoped the popularity of a minimum wage increase would buy support for the tax cuts, but Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate objected to tying the issues together and blocked the package after it had won House approval.
Republicans — backed by the Chamber of Commerce, small business owners and the American Restaurant Association — have generally opposed minimum-wage increases. They argue that an increase could force some employers to lay off some workers or cut some entry-level jobs to compensate.
For small businesses, “their cash flow is far more precarious,” said Marc Freedman, director of labor policy for the Chamber of Commerce.
“Their ability to absorb an increase in (wages) without an increase in production is very difficult,” Freedman said. As a result, Freedman argued, small business will raise prices, take less profit, cut benefits or lay off workers.
Supporters of an increase, including labor unions, insist that the federal minimum wage is the single factor determining how much money millions of Americans take home from their jobs — and that families can't make ends meet on $5.15 an hour.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal non-partisan research group, an estimated 6.6 million workers would immediately benefit if the federal minimum wage jumped to $7.25 by 2008.
Bush has signaled he is receptive to boosting the minimum wage. In a news conference Nov. 8, Bush said a hike is “an area where I believe we can find common ground.”
But, Bush said, he wants to ensure that any wage increase has “compensation for the small businesses” — a sign he still wants to see a some kind of tax cut tied into a wage hike.
I think everyone should make what I do, so I don't have to worry about them.
Then, my pay will have to be increased appropriately...since I can't make what these minimum wage lowlifes make.
Then, I'll be worried about anyone making less that me...
Want to know who stood in the way of the conservative agenda?
Want to know who cost Republicans the election last Tuesday?
Here, again, is your answer.
Yeh. He could hardly contain his glee when the reporter asked him about immigration at the presser Wednesday.
I wonder if we could tie the minimum wage hike to making the tax cuts permanent.
"Kennedy has proposed boosting the minimum wage by 70 cents three times over the next three years — bringing it to $7.25."
And my Big Mac McMeal just went from $5.15 to $7.25 over the next three years.
Somebody hasn't been paying attention to the MSM.
No, we gave up having a say in setting the agenda when we spent the last few years attacking and purging moderates out of the GOP even when they represented liberal states.
Right or left... the side that forms a stronger coalition with the moderate center wins and gets to run the show. We turned up our snooty noses at such a thought and gave Congress and our troops to the hard left.
The GOP is not a religion, it is simply the right-side coalition... the Demo-rats are the left-side coalition, currently under the claws of the hate-America Chomsky-sect.
But we are too intellectually pure and proud to caucus with imperfect conservatives or non-conservative centrists so we walked away and handed the whole ball of wax to the Cindy Sheehag sect.
Yippee...
Sure would be a treat if SOMEONE would pick up the charts and graphs and buy a little time on the TEEVEEE and explain to the idiots in the trailer parks that the minimum wage is a sham and deleterious to ALL Americans. It's so simple, so ECON 101, yet people still buy into the 'free lunch' aspect of it. It's enough to make me want to shave my head and climb a tower somewhere...and all you who voted for the Demokrats...thanks a lot!! Bush was bad enough, but bow??!? SSZ
The dems never filibustered one bill. All they did was whisper "filibuster" and the pubbies ran for their holes.
Bingo. This is primarily a cash payoff to the Dems union supporters.
It does nothing for the "working poor." The minimum wage kills entry level jobs and functions more as a wage ceiling than it does a wage floor.
Go ahead. Be offended. I am offended by Bush calling himself any kind of conservative.
I bingo your bingo. The minimum wage itself is meaningless. It's the union scale indexing that is the issue.
Bingo.
You're being a little silly, arent you? Sounds like a reply from an easily offended democrat. Geez!
ANYONE who thinks that conservatives lost on Tuesday is about as sharp as jello. HELLO! If you're gonna legislate like a DIMRAT when we voted for a CONSERVATIVE, we'll just elect the consarned DIMRAT next time. At least we'll KNOW what we're in for!
Your chart is very telling. I remember how afraid I felt a few days after Clinton won against Bush. After seeing that chart I feel a little bit better. Who knows, maybe all this fear is about nothing again. Maybe spending will go down. We can only hope.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.