Free Republic

Washington is girding for another debate over raising the federal minimum wage, which has stood at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Many Democrats in Congress – led by Rep. George Miller of California in the House and Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa in the Senate – want to raise that $7.25 amount (actually, $4.87 in 1996 dollars) to $10.10 an hour. They also want to raise the minimum wage for those paid in tips as well as wages – frozen at $2.13 an hour since 1991 – to 70 percent of the standard minimum wage. Meanwhile, those states which have...

It’s hard to imagine a more divisive political figure in the United States today than Ted Cruz. The freshman US Senator from Texas drives liberals and Democrats crazy. If anything, he drives many of his fellow conservatives and Republicans – that is, the members of Congress trying to compete with President Obama through traditional legislative means – even crazier. He’s the face of a newly-revived tea party movement that’s as much a threat to the establishment GOP as it is to Democrats. And as much as any other individual in US politics today, Sen. Cruz was responsible for the 16-day...