The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Do the math and the you'll find a family of four lives well below the poverty line. The SEIU is leading the charge to get a livable wage for working men and women. Watch it.
Since the GOP want merit pay for public school teachers, we should also implement merit pay for Congressional members as well. There should be a Citizen's Board (non-corporate) whose responsibility is to set up the criteria for this program and base it on the number of bills Congress passes in different categories (i.e. JOBS). They should be docked money for obstructing the passage of any bill which would enhance the lives of our citizens. Each year the Citizen's Board should meet to decide on how well the members met their goals and the amount of money they should receive. If they did not pass the mustard, they should be asked to resign. Like Romney says what is good for the goose is good for the sauce.
Linda S Houston
7/18/2012 6:48:07 PM
Pat, the real crime is the sweetheart million dollar Congressional pensions that these fat cats voted in for themselves. And every time one of them is about to get indicted they quickly resign so that they can still collect their pension. (Ensign, Weiner). Yes, the Democrats are just as guilty as the others, they all voted this stuff in at midnight before holiday weekends. Social Security just not good enough for them, no sir. So...............they get their million dollar pensions then they vote to cut our bare bones social security that isn't even enough to live on anyway.
Puyallup Girl
7/18/2012 6:33:49 PM
I agree with what all of you have said here. The wealthy need to see what it is like to have to pay things on a minimum wage job, or like my husband and I will have beginning next August, a small retirement. I asked my husband the other day, if the GOP would be able to take his retirement away, and he said nobody would sit there and let them do that. These rich people have no idea what it is like. Absolutely none. How about all the many graphs that shows like The Ed show have been showing for several years now, depicting the horrendous, disparady between the rich and everyone else. Everything has gotten more expensive over the last 40 years, but wages for the middle class and the poor have remained stagnant. The real reason that Romney won't show his tax returns, is that there are some staggering, damaging things in there, about Bain Capital, and his overseas-blind-trusts, that he doesn't want the public to see, could any of it be bribes? Just saying!
Rob, Oregon
7/18/2012 11:09:45 AM
Shrub and co. succeeded in the largest transfer of wealth in decades in this country. That was from our pockets into the wealthy pocket. The greed merchants in this country do not want to give that up. Unlike the great depression, how many brokers sailed out of the windows on Wall St this time around? If they did, they would have landed on the trillion or so of cash they stole from the rest of us to cushion the fall.
Not everyone has suffered in this recession. Millionaire and Billionaire ranks have gone up thanks to Bush's party favor tax cuts. When the rich righties talk about taking "their money" , I'm just in shock and awe at the people on the lower rungs of the ladder that keep voting for them. It seems they still have plenty left to throw to the Romney camp to guarantee their cush tax breaks.
The majority of Americans now agree on the wealthy paying their fair share, and the country has always done better when they have. Yet, every day it's the same old bullshit sell of job creators and trickle down. They dont CARE about the middle class. Indeed, they often campaign on LOWERING the minimum wage. The whole time their lower class base is swallowing every piece of chum Fox news and the rest are trolling with, they get their hands deeper into your wallet. If the base could get past gays, guns, God, abortion, his birth certificte is fake!!, healthcare, etc.and take a good look at how they are barely treading water while the top is laughing all the way to their off shore accounts, they may figure out the biggest con job of modern times. If you aren't rich, they don't care about you, period.Your something stuck to the bottom of their shoe.You don't deserve a living wage, healthcare, a decent education, some dignity, a roof over your head. The repub solution is to have one set of working class attack the the only workers who have any benefits at all until nobody has squat. They want to tear down the middle, not build it back up.
Pat, Grand Lake Co
7/18/2012 9:27:41 AM
When W took office, Congressional pay was $141,300 and 8 years later it was $169,300. My math is fuzzy, but I think that's around 20%. Since 2009, Congressional pay has been frozen at $174,000.
TAX THE RICH and raise the minimum wage.... a lot!!
SlawDogg
7/18/2012 9:10:10 AM
The minimum wage in 1970 was $1.65 per hour
a loaf of bread was 19 cents
a gallon of milk was 35 cents
an american made shirt $4
a nice pair of american made slacks $5
a decent home was 20,000 dollars
through inflation, each of these categories is up 10X
Execept MINIMUM WAGE.
In all fairness, a minimum wage of $16.50 would be shocking to some, however, in respect to the cost of goods noted above it would give the minimum wage earner the same buying power they enjoyed in 1970!
Now it takes two minimum wage jobs to earn enough money to get by. Who is getting the difference? That would be Mitt Romney. He needs it more than you do. Just ask him.
miblue
7/18/2012 7:59:00 AM
The solution is to index the minimum wage to CEO compensation, retroactively, and raise the minumum wage by 250% and provide a bonus of "$25,000" for the 30 lost years of demise from failed GOP "trickle down" economics. Now that would stimulate the economy.
Ukeman
7/18/2012 12:08:40 AM
GOP leaders don't deserve to make over minimum wage. They obstruct and vote down any jobs bills that both camps should be behind. They are unpatriotic making Americans pay for outsourcing with tax deductions. They ought to be tarred and feathered.
Dems who are caught up in Corporate-ocracy deserve the same. They need to be exposed as Dino's. If Obama is finally saying he is against outsourcing, the tip of the ice-berg, he'd better not be hedging his bets, or go for half measures. That's my 2 cents.
