GOP screws the working poor....again.

[marmar]

Shafting the Working Poor
Katrina vanden Heuvel

SEE ALL POSTS
EMAIL THIS POST
PERMALINK
COMMENTS (175)

The GOP just shafted the working people of America. By rejecting an attempt to raise the minimum wage, the Republican-controlled Senate showed that it is far more interested in lining the pockets of its campaign contributors than--as Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Monday--arriving at a "new New Deal" and working to "rebuild our middle class." The 52-46 vote was eight short of the 60 needed for approval. (The measure drew the support of eight Republicans --four of these are up for re-election in the fall.)

Sen. Edward Kennedy's amendment would have raised the wage from the current $5.15 an hour to $7.25 – the first raise in a decade. "The minimum wage," as economist Gwendolyn Mink, makes clear, is supposed to guarantee an income floor to keep full-time wage-earners out of poverty. But today, the federal minimum wage guarantees abject poverty for workers... nearly $6,000 per year below the federal poverty line for a family of three."

But the vast majority of Republican Senators, several of them millionaires several times over, don't care about poverty or the well-being of their working class constituents, What they really care about is that they're sitting pretty, having voted themselves another raise --to $168,500 --on January 1.

The rest is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=94467

[me b zola]

1. It's STILL the economy, stupid

(not you, marmar)

Listening to Washington Journal this morning in the first hour which was open discussion, there were two seperate callers that gushed all over bush*, but were madder than hell about the repub Congress for not raising the minimum wage.

All of us here understand the obsenity of the economic policies of this administration and their lapdogs in the Congress. We should also understand that this is a winning issue for us to run our congressional candidates on. That's why I say:

IT'S STILL THE ECONOMY, STUPID!

[marmar]

3. Thanks for the clarification, zola....

but I figured you weren't talking about me! :) :hi:

[me b zola]

6. .

:hi:

[Warpy]

2. If the Dems don't use that this fall, they're NUTS

If they don't know enough to paint the GOP as a bunch of elitist pigs who don't know what a hard day's work is, then they're a bunch of sad fools who deserve to be out of power.

The wedge issue is WAGES.

The party owes a great deal to Senator Kennedy, who has handed them the issue all tied up with a nice ribbon.

[obreaslan]

4. And less than 24 hours later, voted to slash the Estate Tax...

for their buddies. :grr:

I wonder which group of people they care about more? :think:

[ladjf]

5. And they definitely don't need the money.

[riona]

7. It really saddens me

to know that our elected officials are callous enough to vote this way. I wish every one of these people had to spend the rest of their lives trying to survive on $5.15/hr. Isn't there a medical term for people who have no conscience?

[marmar]

8. Yeah, something that ends with ...path...

like sociopath or psychopath, but I forget what it is. (I absolutely hated psychology class - I still haven't recovered from the phrenology lectures!)