Er uh uh-hum... unless your business is in Pelosi's district and you have an exemption to having to pay the new minimum wage... guess that's a real embarrassment to her and her party.

Raising the minimum wage also increases the school drop-out rate.

Gee, feel-good politics has real negative consequences.

A former student of mine will be 18 in a month. Her mother has already announced that's my student is "on her own" from that point on. Not only is Mom not helping a cent with college--not even the application fees (which my student got waived, after requesting the waiver), she sharges her rent for her room.

Here's the point: this girl knew she'd be on her own. She has worked her tail off at McDonald's--and now she's an assistant manager. She's won the $10,000 "scholarship" for management training, so as soon as she's 18, she's be trained for that responsibility; those benefits include health insurance. She's going to make it on her own and put herself through college.

If a 17-year-old pre-high school graduate can move up from MW, so can anyone with the inititive.

The union wages connection is the real reason for the hike in minimum wage.

What job loss there is, is likely temporary on an overall basis. It's real simple, if businesses need people to roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters, scoop ice cream, clean toilets, make beds, or any of the other services jobs, then businesses will adjust their prices in order to pay the higher minimum wage. Either that or they can close and leave the market to some other business. What they don't have is the option not to roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters, scoop ice cream, clean toilets, make beds, or do any of the other services jobs. It's not like they can offshore toilet cleaning or just not clean the toilets.

What it means is that prices rise so that those on the bottom of the scale can make a bit more. It's classic redistribution. Politicians could also raise the effective minimum wage by stooping the flood of illegals so that wages for such jobs reflect a true market of legitimate workers.

Normally when Democrats introduce their conscience relieving legislation, they surround themselves with the victims they are going to save by their good deeds.

I don't remember Democrats trotting out the victims this go around.

Either I missed it or it didn't happen. If it didn't happen I surmise there just wasn't anyone that fit the mode of whom they describe as the beneficiary of their wonderful work. I wonder why?

The union wages connection is the real reason for the hike in minimum wage.

Posted by: goddessoftheclassroom

Well stricken nail on the head G of C.

That and the feel good campaign promise of the left to decieve the lower wage earner that they would have more money in their pockets at the end of the week. TOTALLY FALSE

The fact is that 90% of the busniss's effected by this increase will pass that increase on to the consumer and/or reduce their workforce.

This was nothing more than a tax hike on the consumer and Jay's point about the "entry level workforce" is spot on.

The 'low income' family is just an emotional ploy to cover the actual reason for the increase - the union lobby.

Mac Lorry:

What they don't have is the option not to roll pizza dough

Correct. However, they do have the option of replacing the worker with equipment.

Another way that min. wage increases destroy low paying jobs is that increase makes cheaper (in a relative sense) capital expenditures on equipment capable of reducing the number of employees. The low paid worker rolling the pizza dough could very well be replaced by the 'automated pizza dough roller'. For such cases, the 'well meaning' bureaucrats have essentially forced the worker to price themselves out of a job.

Mac Lorry is right about prices increasing as a result. Ever wonder why a burger in a full service restaurant is $8 (or more in some cities)? It's because they also raise the wages of bartenders and waitresses when they raise the base minimum.

We just had three MW increases in Florida in 18 months. Bartenders and waitresses were making 2.13 and hour + tips and quite often earned more money than their managers. Now they're up to 3.65 + tips and the managers, who carry a lot of responsibility, couldn't get a raise.

A burger now costs as much as an entree used to because our payroll has increased by 38% over those 18 months.

Correct. However, they do have the option of replacing the worker with equipment.

For those jobs that are hard to replace with machinery such as taking a damp cloth and wiping in a circular motion to get the crumbs off the table, another money saving substitute could be the employment of chimps and orangutans.

Just a thought.......

It's not like they can offshore toilet cleaning or just not clean the toilets.

What they do is one of two things. Either they continue to employ the same number of people but raise prices to compensate or they reduce payroll and put those additional responsibilities on the remaining employees. Instead of having a guy to sweep up and one to clean toilets, they will have one guy who does both.

File this under "More Evidence of Democrat Stupidity."

There should be no such thing as a minimum wage.

Democrats are out to wreck the economy. Then they will claim it's Bush's fault.

And let us not forget that the percentage increase in the prices will fall disproportionately on establishments that compete on cost rather than quality due to a larger % change in the wage they need to pay. In other words, the cost of shopping at Wal-Mart and McDonalds will go up faster than Saks fifth avenue and St. Elmos Steakhouse.

The inflationary pressure will therefore fall harder on those that are earning low wages than on the middle or upperclass, diluting or even eliminating the benefits of the wage hike. As a political manuever the wage hike is gold because the apparent benefit to constituents is immediate and easily understood. The reality that the gold is really painted lead won't come til later and the long term pain will not be connected with the short term gain.

Question for Mac Lorry and others that support minimum wage increases. If Prices of goods go up in order to offset the cost of the MW...well then doesn't that negate the MW increase? Because then you're right back where you started. Taxes and all.

Here's a cut and paste of something I posted the last time this lie came up.

"Minimum Wage, Maximum Myth"
by Steven Pearlstein
(washingtonpost.com):

No doubt Ratner and the others will point out that workers making at or near the federal minimum wage are nearly all employed by small businesses. We will hear all the sob stories about how struggling small businesses with thin margins will be forced to cut back on hiring, pull back on expansion plans and, in some instances, close their doors. Moreover, this won't be a tragedy just for small-business owners and employees but for the economy as a whole, since everybody knows that small business creates virtually all new jobs. Only another round of tax breaks can keep the great American jobs machine humming.

And here's the thing: Most of it is nonsense.

To begin, both economic theory and history suggest that small business will, in time, pass on its increased costs to its consumers. Small businesses that pay low wages tend to compete with other small businesses that pay low wages, so they will all face the same cost pressures and respond in similar fashion. The worst that can be said is that a higher minimum wage will add, very modestly, to overall inflation.

There is also general agreement among economists that a higher minimum wage, at the levels we are talking about, will have a minimal impact on adult employment. Slightly higher prices might reduce, slightly, the demand for Wendy's hamburgers, cheap hotel rooms and dog-walking services. But largely offsetting those effects will be the increased demand for goods and services by tens of millions of Americans who will finally be getting a raise. A higher minimum wage doesn't lower economic activity so much as rearrange it slightly.

The biggest lie of all is that small businesses have created most of the new jobs in America. This canard, perpetrated by the small-business lobby and embraced by politicians of both parties, has been used for decades to justify all manner of special subsidies for small business. But as economist Veronique de Rugy of the American Enterprise Institute reported in a paper last year, new jobs have been created by both large and small businesses in roughly the same proportion.

In truth, the bulk of new jobs have always been created by a relatively small number of new firms that grow fast and get quite big -- think of companies like Southwest Airlines, Google, CarMax. Most have little in common with the small-business lobby in Washington or fast-food restaurant chains or the members of the Kiwanis Club in Helena, Mont. As a rule, companies like these couldn't care less about the minimum wage or special tax breaks to offset it.

No surprise that the Senate Republicans are quick to sit up and bark for the Small Business lobbyists these days, but let's look at how those small business owners are at shouldering tax responsibility. Pearlstein adds:

It's also worth noting that, according to the Internal Revenue Service, small-business owners, sole proprietors and the self-employed are, as a group, the biggest tax cheats in America, responsible for $153 billion of the estimated $345 billion tax gap in 2001. What these folks deserve are more frequent visits from IRS auditors, not more tax breaks.

It is lobbyists who are trying to tie the minimum wage hike to tax breaks, and it is Republicans who are doing the lobbyists' bidding.. all in an effort to help the people that the IRS calls the biggest tax cheats in America.

Gee, I'm surprised....

The lie about Speaker Pelosi favoring companies headquartered in her district is also a bald-faced lie. Samoa was exempted from minimum wage back in 2003 -- by a Republican-controlled congress. The recent minimum wage did not exempt Samoa -- Samoa was already exempted.

Volume 68, Number 152, Page 46949-46951
====
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Wage and Hour Division
29 CFR Part 697

Industries in American Samoa; Wage Order

AGENCY: Wage and Hour Division, Employment Standards Administration, Labor.

ACTION: Final rule.
-----------
SUMMARY: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, minimum wage rates in American Samoa are set by a special industry committee appointed by the Secretary of Labor. This document puts into effect the minimum wage rates recommended for various industry categories by Industry Committee No. 25 (the Committee), which met in public and executive session in Pago Pago, American Samoa, during the week of June 16, 2003.

DATES: This rule shall become effective August 22, 2003.

Apparently plenty of Republicans thought exempting Samoa was a good idea in 2003 -- but looking at the whiners smearing lies about it now!

The good thing, for me at least, is that you lying guys keep repeating the same old lies. Cutting and pasting the proof that shows you are a lair is quite easy. Where's their links and proof that any of the crap they foist on Americans is anything but lies? Waiting....

I want to know how many people supporting a family actually earn only the "Minimum Wage".

In lots of areas, entry level jobs are paying higher than the minimum simply because the market dictates so.

Still, "Who" supports a family on the minimum wage and how many are there? I assume they are also getting food stamps, welfare and other assistance. Why not get educated, get to work on time, etc.

Lee is such a putz. Whine, whine, whine. Commie Pinko

"Commie Pinko"

so far, so good....

As an employer whose business is to care for folks with no or inadequate health insurance and financial support, I even feel pain when the minimum wage is raised. Raising the minimum wage has a ripple effect up the entire lower rungs of hourly wages. I have to scrimp even more with limited resources to pay my employees enough to keep them from leaving for other better paying jobs. And my patients with the least resources of our country will be the recipients of the passed on higher prices at the local discount stores where they buy their food and clothes they can't get at the Salvation Army. And yes, I now have employees doing more than one job to make up for the changes. Unfortunately this leads to more delays in rendering care - one person can only do so much at a time. Brilliant.

The lie about Speaker Pelosi favoring companies headquartered in her district is also a bald-faced lie. Samoa was exempted from minimum wage back in 2003 -- by a Republican-controlled congress. The recent minimum wage did not exempt Samoa -- Samoa was already exempted.

Ummmmm, Lee ......

I thought that you were heralding the beginning of a Democratic controlled Congress and the all-powerful Speaker Pelosi?

Where is the legislation - introduced by Speaker Pelosi - to overturn this particular decision and cover Samoan workers by minimum wage?

Certainly it must have been in her "1st 100 hours" agenda of things to get done given it's importance.

Anything passed by the 2003 Congress can be overturned by the 2007 one if it so chooses. If the Democrats believe it is important - and given their majority - it would seem to be an easy win.

One point though - based solely on the information in link you provided - I believe that you are referring to an administrative action which does NOT require an act of Congress - Republican or otherwise.

"Where is the legislation - introduced by Speaker Pelosi - to overturn this particular decision and cover Samoan workers by minimum wage?"

Why does it need to be overturned? Republicans in Congress agreed it was a swell idea in 2003 - What's changed?

What's changed is lying conservative fruitcakes now have a reason to make this an issue because these desperate fools are slipping further and further behind in the polls. What conservative hypocrites you are -- claiming above that holding business to the new minimum wage is onerous, and turning right around and suggesting that Samoa's exemption should be lifted.

Republicans agreed in 2003 that were sound reasons to exempt Samoa -- now you conservatives want to screw Samoan businesses and lift the exemption -- all because Pelosi is now speaker? Thats sounds government at work all right...

Conservative politics as usual. The Pelosi Derangement Syndrome is in full bloom!

"If the Democrats believe it is important - and given their majority - it would seem to be an easy win."

Democrats don't feel it is important, and neither do Republicans -- just conservative creepoids with PDS feel it is important, and they're idiots - so both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are ignoring their drooling bleatings.

The lie about Speaker Pelosi favoring companies headquartered in her district is also a bald-faced lie. Samoa was exempted from minimum wage back in 2003 -- by a Republican-controlled congress. The recent minimum wage did not exempt Samoa -- Samoa was already exempted.

Lee, your link has the minimum wage requirements for certain industries in Samoa. So when you say there is no minimum wage at all, then I have a feeling you didn't read your own link.

And I would agree that U.S. territories that do not have our cost of living should not be required to pay the same costs as we do.

However, the percentage increases should still apply across the board. Is Samoa exempted from matching the percentage increase or exempted all together?

OV, right on. The problem is Lee and his ilk cannot see the logic in your comment. The House Speaker is a powerful position. She could have overturned the dreaded republican decision of exemption but did not. The answer is in the why? This is Pelosi's first error. The plane is the second. Already she is breaking records. Oh, I forgot, the Sergeant of Arms has more power then Pelosi. So much power in fact that he is going to take it on his own initiative to tell Pelosi what kind of plane she can have. The lefties lack honest debating skills and logic. ww

Surprise indeed...

No surprise here that Jay & his Wizchoir, a subset of traditional conservtive economic thinkers, postulates that the new minimum wage will cost low-wage job loss and cause small businesses to close their doors.

This sort of thought is typically based on anecdotal citations, homespun theories of Economics tied to the classic concept of supply & demand, on a crude or simplistic basis.

However, surprise surprise, according to examinations of factors regarding MW by the Economic Policy Institute, the conventional wisdom is not so simplistically wise.

"As stressed in the Card and Krueger book cited above, these studies reveal employment elasticities that hover about zero, i.e., they solidly reject the conventional hypothesis that any increase in the minimum wage leads to job losses among affected workers."

The EPI analysis also noted, "Recently, the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) released a study of the impact of higher minimum wages on small businesses4. Their analysis focuses on various outcomes for businesses with less than 50 employees, comparing these outcomes between states with minimum wages above the Federal level and those at the Federal level. If the theory that higher minimum wages hurt small businesses is correct, then we would expect there to be less growth in such enterprises in states with higher minimum wages. In fact, as shown in Figure 5, the opposite is the case.

• Between 1998 and 2001, the number of small business establishments grew twice as quickly in states with higher minimum wages (3.1% vs. 1.6%).
• Employment grew 1.5% more quickly in high minimum wage states.
• Annual and average payroll growth was also faster in higher minimum wage states"

For the complete report w/ graphs and tables, see here.

JUay's post, along w/ many of the comments, reflects the standard conservative knee-jerk response w/ outmoded arguments to justify subsistent wages.

Keep the masses' wages low, keep CEO pay astronomically high and keep the rest for the poor suffering shareholders, without whom, none of this would be possible!

No surprise here about this brand of Conservatism!

It's funny how people deny something as common-sense as cutting job numbers in response to increasing wages. When you make it more expensive to hire waitstaff (for example), the obvious move is to cut back on workers and increase the number of tables they have to work at any given time. It's often cheaper to pay one talented guy a bunch of overtime on a higher minimum than to pay two guys - which means that, while one worker may be making more money (at 60 hours a week), one guy is now out looking for work - in a market flooded with marginal workers with few prospects.

I've seen that in my business, too (trade shows and corporate meetings). It's gotten more expensive to hire good techs, so the companies have a strong tendency to hire fewer trained workers and stick them with more to do (which can sometimes bite them in the ass, since they end up having to pay overtime to get those jobs done).

Just to set the record straight, American Samoa IS actually covered by the recent minimum wage hike.

Wild Willie

"This is Pelosi's first error. The plane is the second"i>

No surprise here...the hit and run conservative "truth-telling? media," in this case the Washington Chymes and Fox Noise, along w/ the extreme right wingnut blogosphere, have established as fact, the Pelosi plane fiction.

Truth does not matter, nor is falsehood ever corrected, so long as it perpetuates LIES.

How ironic, given Jay's post yesterday, An Astonishing Series of Coincidences.

PUKE regurgitated:

between 1998 and 2001, the number of small business establishments grew twice as quickly in states with higher minimum wages (3.1% vs. 1.6%).
• Employment grew 1.5% more quickly in high minimum wage states.

There are a couple of possible scenarios here.

1) there were other factors that influenced job growth in those states whereby the loss of jobs due to min. wage increases was overtaken by job creation due to other factors.

2) min. wage increases promote job creation.

Only a fool would argue that #2 was the more likely scenario of the two.

From: Joe Yangtree's link........

American Samoa became the last remaining territory to be covered by the wage hike after Republicans accused Pelosi of a double standard by excluding employers there from having to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, the Washington Post reported Saturday

So Lee was posting propaganda in defense of Pelosi.

He claimed Republicans exempted Samoa all together from minimum wage back in 2003. Then his link did have a minimum wage, just not as high a dollar level. And Pelosi wanted to exempt them all together because it was apparent she was showing favoritism to an industry that was headquartered in her district.

At least you tried Lee.............

Mike...you ignorant slut...

Your objection fails to support the typical rightie cant that, from sometime in late 1999 and into the Bush innaugral, the Clinton recession had begun to take hold in the US, creating Bush's inheritance of a faltering economy. Amaxing that there was any expansion at all over that time period.

Have another doofus point to make?

Samoa would lose lots of jobs if they raised the MW to anywhere near that of the mainland. I don't blame Pelosi for wanting to keep those jobs.

Most people know that in a normal environment, if one raises prices against the competition you will lose sales on the margin.

Same with employment. Despite the contentions above, a raise in the MW always means some shift on the margin, and net lower employment for a while.

But this is not the reason they raise the MW, the real reason is the escalation clauses in many union contracts, and thus they reward their major contributors.

It is too easy to refute. If $ 7.00 is so good for the economy, why not $ 50.00? If $ 50.00 would reduce jobs, then so must $ 7.00 if by a lesser number.

Also, if you raise business cost without raising productivity the US becomes less competitive and growth is lower (see: France).

The US union workers are like the workers in France who are plugged in to the political system and are rewarded by those they elect with better benefits and lower hours, for more pay. That is fine for that group, but the rest get screwed.

In France they do this socialist bit for everyone, which is why they have no growth, 11% unemployment, no jobs for the young and burning cars every night. The US went for economic growth while France mandated 32-hour workweeks, no overtime and eight weeks paid vacation as a means to more employment.

Duh! The verdict is in, and socialism doesn't work, never did. In the past 30 years the US economy has added 40 million plus new jobs, 50 times more than France. In the last several years the growth alone in the US has been greater than the entire Chinese economy, which is how the deficit came down so fast.

If you raise taxes and business cost, you get more socialism (yes, income redistribution, Puke) but lower growth too. The reverse is true if you lower taxes and reduce business cost.

"A rising tide raises all boats" - JFK

If we listen to the current Dem's, we will raise MW, give free health care, raise taxes, confiscate oil company profits, and sue the rest.

France we will be.

Jumpinjoe

"And Pelosi wanted to exempt them all together because it was apparent she was showing favoritism to an industry that was headquartered in her district"

Yes, a couple of weeks ago, the whole RWB, along w/ Limpiggy & Shittity created that cant emboldened above, without the thinnest shred of proof, apart from coincidence.

Bottom line, even if it were due to the yet unproven "favortism" that you allege, she made quick work of correcting it, proving that any lobbying that might have occured was speedily reversed.

Got any similar examles froim the good ole days of Delay, Abramoff, the K Street Project and your toadying Republic Party? Like Congressman John Boner passing out Tobacco Lobby checks on the House floor?

Liberal policies have bad consequences? Say it ain't so!

BTW, I hear that Pelosi's poll numbers ain't so great, and that poll was PRE the Pelosi-the-diva-plane SCANDAL!

Whoooo hoooo!

robert the original

"It is too easy to refute. If $ 7.00 is so good for the economy, why not $ 50.00? If $ 50.00 would reduce jobs, then so must $ 7.00 if by a lesser number"

Sorry robert, you're not original at all.

You sound like one of Limpiggy's Pavlovian puppies yelping the old Limpiggy line at the sound of the ringing bell.

That is the most asinine argument conceivable, but I am sure you have grown accustomed to your daily ration of Limpiggy kibbles.

Change "robert the original" to "bow wow," or better yet, Fideaux, for snob appeal.

That is the most asinine argument conceivable, but I am sure you have grown accustomed to your daily ration of Limpiggy kibbles.

Indeed, your "Limpiggy kibbles" one is far superior.

Driscilla, the Ugly Stepsister

"and that poll was PRE the Pelosi-the-diva-plane SCANDAL"

It's apparent that the wingnuts around here have made the above fairy tale stick in spite of the fact that it is a lie.

You've made it stick through lying repetition far better than you'll ever get your cloven foot jammed into that slipper.

Yes, a couple of weeks ago, the whole RWB, along w/ Limpiggy & Shittity created that cant emboldened above, without the thinnest shred of proof, apart from coincidence

Yep, pure coincidence, I knew there was a logical explanation.

Boy, oh, boy....my cynicism sure can get the best of me. I'm sure glad Pelosi fixed that little problem before people were dumb enough to think it was more than coincidence that a major firm in her district got some sort of favoritism.

Anyway, thanks for that clarification.

My son works for Fry's Electronics, as a salesman in the computer department. He's eighteen years old, and it's his first job. They get minimum wage plus the same in commissions... and are expected to fulfill the commissions amount, or they go in the red. Well, when the minimum wage changed, Fry's dropped the commission percentage on many items, so they have to fulfill a higher amount each week, with less percentage on each sale. He's going to be forced to quit soon. And he's certainly not the only one. Sure, he is making more money... but they've stacked the deck against him and his peers. Too many salesmen on the floor, lower percentages on each item, and several weeks with most laptops not available (post-Christmas and pre-Vista) have so many of them in the red, and they will never be able to get out again. And they will lose a good, smart, honest, hardworking young man... only to replace him with another kid who will end up owing the company money. No wonder their turnover is so high.

The minimum wage hike has so many unforeseen effects, the ripples flow outward and hurt so many people. Blasted politicians and shallow thinkers.

Joanie

aRepukelican:

Mike...you ignorant slut...
Your objection fails to support the typical rightie cant that, from sometime in late 1999 and into the Bush innaugral, the Clinton recession had begun to take hold in the US, creating Bush's inheritance of a faltering economy. Amaxing that there was any expansion at all over that time period.
Have another doofus point to make?

ROFL! Could you possibly show yourself to be more ignorant ?

Your reply has nothing to do with what I posted.

Oh and, by the way, ad hominem is certainly a debate tactic (seems that's your 'go to' method), but it's fallacious and illustrates the ignorance of the person employing it.

Lee, I'd be interested in links to substantiate your accusation that small businesses comprise the biggest group of "tax cheats."

Also, I posted a response to your last comment regarding the 30 yr old editorial. Read it and weep.

puke, check out the Harris poll. Nancy ain't doing so hot, and that was pre SCANDAL. bwahahahah....

This post has hit a nerve with our moonbats. Liberal policies have bad consequences. And Joanie, how DARE you post an actual story about those consequences.

Libs would rather stay in the "intentions" mode. Theory, baby, theory. Not actual consequences. lol.

Mike

You wrote above, "1) there were other factors that influenced job growth in those states whereby the loss of jobs due to min. wage increases was overtaken by job creation due to other factors."

You ruled out your #2 alternative.

My comment was to the quote above. If there might have been other factors overcoming the job loss due to a higher MW certainly one was not the so-called Clinton recession which likely would have reversed any other factor leading to an offset.

The point: acoording to your suggestion that MW increases lead to job loss and, given an evolving recession during the lastter half of that 3 year time period, there should have been a loss of jobs, not a gain, given two supposed downside factors.

Driscilla aka Jo

Try shoving your over-sized cloven foot into this Harris poll slipper to which you directed me:

RATINGS OF REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS
Currently 2/07 26% positive 69% negative
11/06 24% 72%
RATINGS OF DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS
Currently 2/07 41% positive 52% negative
11/06 36% 57%

I'll take those numbers

Bwahahahahahaha

re: PUKE

Your last post was completely tangential.

The quote you cited posited that the data (that there was a higher rate of job creation in states with higher min. wage RELATIVE to other states with lower min. wage) could be interpreted to mean that min. wage had no affect on job creation. Note that the data is state-to-state so it's more or less normalized w.r.t changes in national economic conditions.

In other words, it doesn't matter whether there was a Clinton recession or not.

sooey sooey, Thanks for posting that poll...

Pelosi 38% Positive
Reid 23% Positive

What's funny is you never see the MSM report these numbers. I thought after that big Democrat landslide the country was in love with the new leadership.

I learn more and more everyday here in the comment section.

Pardon me while I go gloat.

Jumpinjoe, I'll join you in the gloat boat.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahhaha

Good times, good times :)

Jumpinjoe, I'll join you in the gloat boat

Since most of my work is done for the day, this gives me an excuse to tap that 12-pack in the frig before 5 o'clock.

38 and 23 percent....whooooo hooooo....I love it.

"What's funny is you never see the MSM report these numbers. I thought after that big Democrat landslide the country was in love with the new leadership."

What's funny - or not -- is that Pelosi's numbers are increasing at the same time the yammering jackalopes are blasting her more than ever. It's now called the Byrd/Dixie Chicks phenomena.

Hmm, why don't you guys do a comparison -- How do Pelosi's numbers compare to Speaker Hastert, the butt-nudging outgoing Republican speaker?

LOL! This will be a riot. Can't wait for you guys to post Hastert's outgoing approval ratings -- if you can find them.

Allowing the government to tell us what we have to pay an employee is a little too totalitarian for my tastes.

What's funny - or not -- is that Pelosi's numbers are increasing at the same time the yammering jackalopes are blasting her more than ever

Really? Pelosi was polling lower than 38% coming out of the gate?

Lee ...

I realize that your earlier link has been proven both out-of-date and incorrect, but I just have to comment on this ...

Democrats don't feel it is important, ...

Wow .. I thought that the Democrats thought that increasing the minimum wage was important for the welfare of all at-risk populations.

Who knew they meant everyone BUT American Samoans.

Do American Samoans know the Democrats don't feel that they are important?

No links, lee??

Hmmm, yes three people will have to find other jobs, at one place. However, the others will be making more. This slam at high school students. What is wrong with people in HS buying what they want and need instead of being dependent on their parents?
This kids make more..and put it directly back into the local economy..
They are not going to quit buying pizza because the price goes up 50 cents...or go to a movie..
..and yes maybe they want a car which can cost a lot..yes maybe after high school they want to move out like many of us did...

When our kids were in HS we provided the basics plus some. We told them, if you want more, get a job and buy it yourself. They did, it is called self-reliance.

Puke,

Your response to me lacked an argument, you might have noticed, other than that mine was not original. Somehow you claim, that makes me asinine and a disciple of Pavlov.

While I admit my argument is not original, it is nonetheless sound and not likely to be refuted by your reference to barking. That's the best you got Puke - the Alpo defense of Karl Marx?

While I'm at it, let me straighten you out on something.

Pavlov and B.F. Skinner of the now largely discredited behaviorist school were the particular favorites of the 1960's radical feminists, like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, you should know. B.F. Skinner reigned then and it was common to suggest that women were identical to men, except for the environmental conditioning caused by "the patriarchal social structure". They would suggest such nonsense mind you, that if you gave little girls guns and little boys dolls, that the gender roles would be reversed.

Any mother could refute that in ten seconds of course, but it took science and the feminists many years, and some still have not yet made the jump.

But it is a curious argument to use against me Puke, even assuming that you have no other argument about MW and that clearly you have no understanding of the behaviorists, or economics.

For even Karl Marx would claim the MW as part of his socialist system, Puke, and even he would be forced to admit today that any country that has tried it has gone straight to the dogs.

Woof!

.a little more
What did you pay for a shirt or jeans when you were in HS?
What did you pay to go to a concert?
What did you pay for a movie?
What did you pay for a car?
What did you pay for gas?

After HS
What was your college tuition?
How much did your books cost?
What was the interest on your loan?
What did you pay for your share of the rent at your first apartment?
What did a six pack of beer cost?
What did a drink at a club cost?

How much does all this stuff buy now? Why should this group of young people have to have significantly less having the same kinds of jobs we had at that time in our lives?

nogo,

What the f are you talking about? Are you actually suggesting that we need a MW hike because the money that high school kids receive doing odd minimum wage jobs doesn't go as far as it did when you were a kid? Are you serious, is that what sensible policy is to you?

Let the market dictate the wage for every job, keep the gov't out of it altogether. It's not like the cost of everything you cite above is regulated by the gov't, or should we raise and lower the minimum wage based on the fluctuation of movie ticket prices or a six pack of beer?

It is too easy to refute. If $ 7.00 is so good for the economy, why not $ 50.00? If $ 50.00 would reduce jobs, then so must $ 7.00 if by a lesser number.

Hey robert... if a 10% tax cut is so good for the economy, why not 50%? If 10% puts more buying power into the hands of the middle class, then so must 50% by a greater number. Hmmm?

Hey robert... if a 10% tax cut is so good for the economy, why not 50%? If 10% puts more buying power into the hands of the middle class, then so must 50% by a greater number. Hmmm?

I'd support it happily.
-=Mike

Brian,

I couldn't have said it any better. Bravo.

Has anyone found the section of the Constitution that allows Congress to tell businesses what they can pay their employees? I've looked through my copy and can't find it. Of course, I don't have the version with a penumbra of an emanation that allows for the slaughtering of children. Maybe it is in there.

Skinner, don't mention the abrogation of the right to contract one's service.

We should ALSO ignore the whole "illegal immigrants will do the jobs Americans won't do" thing because that is a tacit approval for what is little more than slave labor.
-=Mike

Where is the legislation - introduced by Speaker Pelosi - to overturn this particular decision and cover Samoan workers by minimum wage?

As previously pointed out, it's here

What say you now, OhioVoter? To quote Jo, "bwahahaha!"

But alas, we'll shortly probably be hearing stories about how the Democrats completely decimated the Samoan economy by enforcing the mainland minimum wage. Never mind the fact that it happened only because Republicans forced the issue with their kerfuffle.

But to put the lie to bed, once and for all:

Moreover, the exclusion itself is far older than the Pelosi Speakership. The Federal Minimum Wage, first proposed in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was late in coming to American Samoa. Only with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Amendments in 1956, a full eighteen years later, would American Samoa experience any Federally mandated minimums in its wage market. Even in this case the Amendments did not subject American Samoa to a uniform national wage but rather required the bi-annual meeting of an industry committee "for the purpose of reviewing minimum wage rates that are less than the statutory minimum rate for the mainland." Amendments offered in 1966 and 1974 broadened the system to apply to more workers on American Samoa but did not impose a single flat minimum wage.

The 1977 Amendments began the phase-out for the committee system in other American protectorates like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, gradually bringing those regions up to speed with the rest of the country. American Samoa remained, as of the 1977 legislation, the only US protectorate not directly affected by the Federal Minimum Wage.

MikeSC,

You are correct and Brian seems to have walked into one here.

Reagan reduced taxes in the top rate from about 70% to about 28%, changing investments from tax shelters to real business. It was not 50% overall, but it was more than 50% on the margin where all economic incentive lives. He also lowered taxes in other ways.

Before Reagan we had double digit interest rates and unemployment with low growth and high inflation. Since Reagan we have had the best 25 years in our history with the two longest booms and working on a third.

The less socialism, the better the economy.

ah Robert it is a person like you that give men the stereotype of men being stupid.My wife was a full-tile feminist when I married her in 1974.
She was a feminist when she gave birth to our two children. She was a feminist as we raised our two children.
Our married daughter who is married and an RN would be a feminist by your standards if you talked with her .Your claim that mothers cannot be "feminists" just shows two things..one you are a man..two, you do not have a woman who has confidence in herself as an equal to respect, capability, and potential as any man...of course with the understnding that no woman needs you in order to give birth(artificial insemination )...but you need a woman to have someone else carry your DNA...

How, about during Reagan, Robert???

At one point, six straight months, if I recall correctly, of the unemployment rate above ten (that's right, TEN) percent!!!

And how did Reagan fund the government during all his alleged economic success? Through deficit-spending no doubt! (You conservatives are just sooooooooooo fiscally responsible, but I hate having to pay interest on the deficit you cause!). Reagan easily set the new record for the federal deficit, a record that would not be broken until the Bushies came to power.

Great! Then 0% taxes for all!

By the way, how many in the middle class had their taxes reduced from 70% to 28%?

"Keep the government out of it" ..yeah That was the thinking of the traitors who formed the Confederate States...yeah that was the reasoning before Brown vs. The Board of Education...if we just had not passed those child labor laws we could compete with China and India...

Puke and Brian,

We could sit here and you go bark, bark, bark, and I could go woof, woof woof, but we wouldn't get anywhere would we?

Let me try starting from your position and working backwards.

The argument socialists use for the MW is that MW workers cannot live on that wage, right? One cannot support a family on this low wage. Is that fair?

Okay, the answer then would be to craft a law that all jobs pay enough to support a family of four above the poverty line. Do you agree so far?

Right now that would mean a wage of about $ 10.00 per hour on a full-time basis. So far so good right? (Forget for now, that you have not allowed for jobs for single people, youth, or entry-level).

Of course there is a wide disparity in cost of living between NYC and say, Alabama. To be fair you might have to increase the wage to $ 12.00 per hour to include those in Northern and coastal areas.

(They would be in tall cotton in Alabama of course, and would we get more illegals? You betcha.)

So, you run a fast food store with a normal staff of 6, open 18 hours per day. You add $ 5.00 per hour and it costs $197,100.00 per year, plus benefits and extra SS taxes etc., so you add another 20%. It would cost this business about $ 240,000.00 so that all full-time jobs could support a family of four, above the poverty line. (Forget for now that most of the employees are part-time and/or youth).

Not all of these businesses could support this without reducing jobs and some would close. When they raise prices they will get fewer customers - we all get higher inflation.

So, you run a landscaping company, a lawn service, fertilizer spraying or another one of the seasonal companies. You are currently paying $ 10.00-13.00 per hour to get people because of the problem of no work in the winter. After the MW bump, you have to pay more too just to get people.

Eventually everyone else goes up also. Some businesses cannot stay in business, some exports are now too expensive, and so forth. The growth rate goes down.

Most agree that this is what would happen for a jump of $ 5.00 per hour in the minimum wage. Is it so unreasonable to say that the same thing would happen for a $ 2.00 increase in MW, just less so?

By the way, how many in the middle class had their taxes reduced from 70% to 28%?

What a silly question. How many in the middle class had their tax rate at 70% in the first place?

Herman,

You are correct, there was the '81-'82 recession under Reagan. Much of this was caused by the collapse of the commercial real estate market and the resulting trouble for the S&L's.

Under Carter people invested in tax shelters due to the high tax rates. Real estate investment trusts (REIT) were awash in money and the only thing they could do was build more office buildings. They would build a new one right next to the empty one they built last year.

When this market crashed, lots of things went bad, leading to the 500 billion bail out of the S&L's.

This is one of the things Reagan corrected by lowering tax rates. And yes, many in the middle class also had their rates lowered significantly and started investing again in real business.

The Reagan/Bush boom that resulted was then the longest in U.S. history and was so long and deep that the growth of revenue easily overcame the increase in deficit from the recession years.

The same thing is happening today, the deficit has been lowered by half in the last several years from growth, despite war spending, Katrina, 911, etc.

Nogo,

1960's radical feminists are hard to find these days (like hippies); they sort of went into hiding when Clinton was abusing women. But it is good to know they are not extinct.

Nobody said the feminists were wrong on everything, BTW, and I supported lots of it. But the behaviorist crap has been discredited. Most studies now show biological and brain function differences in the genders.

Where did you get that I said that mothers couldn't be feminists? I did say that most mothers notice a difference in their boys and girls more significant than their environmental conditioning.

And if you can't see that difference, you have more problems than I can address here.

nogo postal:

"Keep the government out of it" ..yeah That was the thinking of the traitors who formed the Confederate States...yeah that was the reasoning before Brown vs. The Board of Education...if we just had not passed those child labor laws we could compete with China and India...

Hurrah! Spoken like a true moron.

What a silly question. How many in the middle class had their tax rate at 70% in the first place?

Yes, exactly. Thank you for nailing my point.

"Lee, I'd be interested in links to substantiate your accusation that small businesses comprise the biggest group of "tax cheats."

Sorry, I missed this question earlier.

I already posted the link - it was in the Washington Post article I linked to earlier. Up there -- somewhere.

At one point, six straight months, if I recall correctly, of the unemployment rate above ten (that's right, TEN) percent!!!

An economy in total freefall, as it was when Reagan took office, takes time to fix.

Unless you wish to argue that the economy under Reagan was bad.

And how did Reagan fund the government during all his alleged economic success? Through deficit-spending no doubt! (You conservatives are just sooooooooooo fiscally responsible, but I hate having to pay interest on the deficit you cause!). Reagan easily set the new record for the federal deficit, a record that would not be broken until the Bushies came to power.

Reagan agreed to a tax hike in 1986 where the Dems promised to cut spending $3 for every $1 of tax increase.

Well, guess which side reneged on their part of the agreement?

And then reneged AGAIN in 1990?

By the way, how many in the middle class had their taxes reduced from 70% to 28%?

Carter has taxes on the middle class at 70%?

Wow.

Carter had the misery index for a reason.
-=Mike

Wasn't that the liberal's point to begin with?? Now they can blame Bush for that as well!!

you know, why don't we just cut everyopne's wages, and therefore everything will be that much cheaper? isn't that a good idea? or, we could bring back slavery, because then everything would be a lot cheaper. for instance, say i have a landscaping company where i pay $13 per hour, but then, inexplicably, when they raise the minimum wage, which i am already paying more than, i will have to increase the wages that i pay. instead, we could return slavery to the united states, and buy some people from any number of countries who i am sure we could coerce into selling us some extra people, and then we could reduce prices for all goods.

SS

You might have noticed that the guy who ended slavery was a Republican.

Freedom is what he wanted, including the freedom to make a deal with an employer, and he you.

And the government should stay out of it.

Mac wrote, "What job loss there is, is likely temporary on an overall basis."

Wrong. I actually employ a number of young people that were between the old minimum wage and the new one that was increased in our state by over 30%. My managers have been directed by me to no longer higher ANYONE without at least a year of experience. The economics do not allow me to train someone at the new minimum wage. As others have said, there can be a permanent loss of jobs. It hurts those that it is supposed to help.

It makes more sense to automate some of the jobs or processes. We can also cut expenses. We can eliminate benefits, like health insurance and vacation pay that I provide. We can also have customers do more work. How many people have an attendant pump their gasoline? How many people use self-checkout lines? How often do you go to a bank teller rather than an ATM?

Don't believe me, it's already hitting the news, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0210biz-teenwork0210.html

a republican in 1860 is not a republican in 2007. please, spare me. i am well aware of, and support, the concept of freedom of contract under the united states constittution. however, the idea that minimum wage workers are making a with their employers, or have any bargaining power with them, is a complete joke.

i understand that increasing the minimum wage will increase costs on specific businesses and sectors of the economy, but i am not sure that means it shoud never be raised. the logic of not having the govt have any say in this matter can be used to justify a lot of unpleasantness. should their be no minimum wage floor to protect people who will be clearly be exploited by the absence of one? we don;t have a minimum wage for no reason. let's not forget the history of rank exploitation of workers in previous eras of our histories.

i am not saying that all wages in every sector should be controlled by the govt, but in some instances it is an imperfect solution to a situation which is simply ripe for people being taken advantage of. if you don't care about that, then i suppose we will have to disagree to disagree. simply taking all discussion of this topic off the table doesnt seem that reasonable.

As previously pointed out, it's here

Ummmm, Brian - since you apparently didn't READ the link that you posted, it doesn't refer to legislattion at all - let alone any sponsored by Nancy Pelosi.

In fact, it pretty much confirms what I suspected earlier - that it was and administrative action and not the result of the 2003 Republican Congress as Lee has been claiming.

Your second link, of course, confirms that Lee was wrong.

But to put the lie to bed, once and for all:

Moreover, the exclusion itself is far older than the Pelosi Speakership. The Federal Minimum Wage, first proposed in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was late in coming to American Samoa......

The whole issue predated 2003.

Thanks for the confirmation.

But alas, we'll shortly probably be hearing stories about how the Democrats completely decimated the Samoan economy by enforcing the mainland minimum wage. Never mind the fact that it happened only because Republicans forced the issue with their kerfuffle.

So you agree that an arbitrary bump up in the minimum wage can have devastating effects on an economy - but ONLY if it is comprised of American Samoans?????

An odd response to say the least .....

Since 1860 Republicans have been fairly consistant on the subject of slavery and the freedom of business from government. They have changed on protectionism and isolationism, but on socialism never.

It was the Republicans who supported the 1964 Johnson Civil Rights stuff, you should know, over the objection of the southern Democrats who were the racists. But it is all too convenient for you to forget that now.

Workers are free to organize or to seek employment elsewhere. A key would be to motivate folks to get more skills and to become more in demand. This will not happen if government simply forces business to pay.

By your logic a business owner should expect a certain minimum profit guaranteed by the government, rather than some of them forced to close because of the government.

Ummmm, Brian - since you apparently didn't READ the link that you posted, it doesn't refer to legislattion at all - let alone any sponsored by Nancy Pelosi.

Ummm, yah, duh, that's the point! (By the way, you don't consider the "Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938" to be legislation?)

The whole issue predated 2003.
Thanks for the confirmation.

You're quite welcome. Since my whole point by posting that was to show that the empty kerfuffle was none of Pelosi's doing, as the rightie Wizbangers tried so hard to claim, your acknowledgement of that fact is quite satisfying.

Ummmm.... Jay,

Based on what you told us during your negotiations for the transfer with your employer, it's apparent that you're pretty much a minimum wage employee yourself.

You negotiated a what, $100.00 relocation fee to move a couple hours away? Blew up your car, and broke your particle board desk? You're going to spend the rest of 2007 trying to break even.

One of the nice things about a minimum wage, is it gives people that have better skills a chance to make a bit more money, such as yourself.

Rising tides lift all boats, as it were...

If it were not for a minimum wage, you'd be even at more of a disadvantage. Radio Shack or whoever is hiring you now at 9.00 bucks an hour would be hiring you at 5.00.....

If it were not for minimum wage laws, 40 hour work weeks, and a push to get insurance for workers, your situation (and mine), (and everyone else's) would be bleak indeed.

How about giving credit where credit is due?

PS: It's not Reagan... Think Roosevelt.....

Jay Tea writes;

This just in: raising the minimum wage COSTS JOBS!!!!!

Gee, who coulda seen THAT one coming?

Oh, yeah, I did. And so did a lot of others.

Jay, since you're a bit younger than I am (46), I can tell you this "miminum wage increace COSTS JOBS" mantra started with Ronald Reagan. Turns out it wasn't true back then 25 years ago, and it's not true now. My state is WAY above the minimum wage, and our economy is booming. We have a vibrant economy, great literacy, low unemployment, great job creation, etc.

Cost of labor is only one of a number of factors involved in the finished cost of goods, the the whole Reagan "miminum wage costs jobs" meme has been disproven with over 25 years of experience.

John, I posted my income a few years ago, and I don't mind repeating it, generally: I make in the mid-20K range. And I'm amazed that you are obsessed with me enough to recall the details of my move, but NOT the financial dealings: it was $3,000 in relocation.

But while I'm flattered you want to make this about me, did you notice that I actually linked to a story about jobs being cut because of the rise in minimum wage?

It was nice of everyone to point out all those studies and arguments, but concrete examples tend to trump theory. The plain and simple fact is that when the minimum wage rises, minimum wage jobs drop. And they don't simply become higher-paying jobs. As Oyster also reported, the work is simply spread among fewer workers.

J.

Let's see, my original comment said:

Where is the legislation - introduced by Speaker Pelosi - to overturn this particular decision and cover Samoan workers by minimum wage?

Brian responded with a link that had had absolutely nothing to do with legislation, let alone legilsation authorized by Nancy Pelosi and he says that it "answers the question" about where the legislation sponsored by Nancy Pelosi is.

I point out that and his response is:

"Ummm, yah, duh, that's the point!"

So now we have established that Brian isn't particularly quick on the draw. He certainly doesn't seem to know of the existence of administrative action as a source of law.

I suppose that he may think that Pelosi is the author of a 1938 piece of legislation - I certainly hope he isn't THAT dense.

You're quite welcome. Since my whole point by posting that was to show that the empty kerfuffle was none of Pelosi's doing, as the rightie Wizbangers tried so hard to claim, your acknowledgement of that fact is quite satisfying.

Actually, what the original article pointed out was Pelosi's INACTION on the subject. Nothing you have posted has changed that - in fact you confirmed that Pelosi did nothing about the situation - you proved nothing about the Wizbangers in general.

What you did was prove Lee lied with his posting claiming that the 2003 Republican Congress had anything whatsoever to do with the decision.

Jay Tea,

My appologies. I thought it was a 100 dollar relocation, and a 3K bump in salary. I did not intentionaly intend to misrepresent your situation.

So, yes, I wanted to make the story "about you" since you wrote the origional article and I'd like you to understand what you're aguing for with an example that's familiar. In my home state, you're making a bit over minimum wage.

The reason you're not making minimum wage now is because your industry wants to establish a career path for people like you to attract skilled labor, and reward them for their continious improvement. They want to attract the best and brightest, and they attempt to get that for the most economical rate possible.

If you are in an area where the minimum wage is, say 8.00 per hour, and you have a degree or some experience, you might start in a position at say 10.00. If you take that same job in an equivilent area where the minimum wage is 6.00 dollars per hour, with your experience, you might make only 7.75.

What you guys don't understand, or aren't acknowliging is that the purpose of the minimum wage, in addition to preventing the entry level worker from being taken advantage of, is that it provides the floor, or base on which everyone's else's compensation is calculated.

Here's an example... Fresh out of college, I was looking for jobs in my major, but was also willing to look at other opportunities. I went to a job fair. Interviewed with a shipping company who was looking for a dock manager, supervising union teamsters (truck drivers). Job was to manage paperwork, flow of freight on the dock, keep the truckers from taking unauthorized naps in the bathroom, punch out the occasional roughneck, and generaly enforce discipline. I'm getting along fine with the hiring guy, passing the simulations, etc and we get to salary. The number he gave me literaly blew me away... Something like starting at 35K, in the early 80's which was pretty damn good money back then. A hell of a lot more than I had expected (I had been working my way through school as a diswasher and a drone at Taco Bell).

The point... I asked him "why so much?" (I was after all a young guy of 21 and hadn't yet learned when they hand you the money you smile and shut up.) His response - "You'll be supervising union workers. You are management. As management, you will be paid more."

So, in my example, union scale established the FLOOR, and MY pay, even though it was professional, and individualy negotiated, was RELATIVE to that floor. This is one reason I get annoyed when people grouse about "those damn unions". If it were not for the "damn unions", the rest of us who are not union members would not enjoy the positions and freedoms we take for granted.

Rising tides lift all boats.

The plain and simple fact that "when the minimum wage rises, minimum wage jobs drop." is not in fact a fact at all.

In my state, we've had a minimum wage for over 45 years. The United States has had a minimum wage for almost 70 years. It's fun to act like the minimum wage is some new terrible thing, but it's been around for generations, and it's constantly crept upward, and the world hasn't stopped spinning. There are people that watch their grandchildren go off to minimum wage jobs, that remember when they first went off to their first minimum wage job...

The "minimum wage kills jobs" argument became popular under Ronald Reagan to the point of being accepted as fact. The problem is, it wasn't true then, and it hasn't been true in the interviening 20 years. The origional argument was that if the minimum wage was lowered, or done away with, businesses would be free to hire more workers.

This was a misrepresentation. Let's say you own a Taco Bell, and you have 10 workers behind the counter (an example I'm familiar with). So we drop minimum wage from 7 to 5 dollars per hour. As a business man, are you going to hire 4 more people to work behind the counter? Ummmm.... No.

You see, you hit the law of diminishing return. 14 people in a small space do not do the job more efficiently than 10. They bump into each other. The spend more time goofing off. You don't have enough customers for them to serve. It just doesn't make practical sense. Externaly, your customer base may have taken a cut in pay at their jobs, and have less disposable income to spend at your Taco Bell, and so even with your 14 cheap employees, both gross and net go down.

By the same token, if the minimum wage rises, are you going to lay off 2 of your 10 workers? Well, at some point, 8 men can only do the work of 8. You again hit the law of diminishing returns. You can only squeeze so much efficiency.

So a question... Minimum wage will go up a few cents, and for the last 20 years "conservatives" have kicked and screamed about "losing jobs". So we had a bad citrus freeze down south in California. All those limes you put in your salsa are going to double in price. And your orange soda is going to get way more expensive. Does anybody scream, "oh my god! the price of citrus is going up! I'm going to have to start laying off workers at my Taco Bell!!!"

Ummmm, no. It's because labor - cheap labor, and never the cost of raw material, is somehow viewed as THE bad thing by conservatives when labor wants even a penny more for it's work. This was a meme started during the Reagan days. It does everyone a disservice, especialy if you are at, or near minimum wage as you are, Jay, or have your compensation based on a minimum wage or a negotiated scale, as most of us are.

Jay, you are a very smart man. That is obvious. What I don't understand is WHY people like you are so willing to advocate for a political system that works against your best interests. What's so attractive about conservative ideology? Why do people in your position cheer when Rush says "Roosevelt is dead. His policies live on, but we are doing something about that." Why is that attractive?

You've got health issues. A smart guy like you should be making more than mid 20K's. Are you stuck because you don't want to risk a move and lose insurance? So, why fight democratic healthcare reform? If you had a severe problem and were unable to work, wouldn't you go bankrupt? Most people go bankrupt because of health reasons, not wild credit spending, like the meme. Why do conservatives cheer when bankruptsy laws are changed so if anything medical happened to them, they'd have no protection?

If you're making in the mid 20Ks, and you have an appartment, you've got to be spending perhaps half of your net income on housing. Add to that insurance, food, utilities... Can't be much left. Are you socking away what you need for retirement? If you have investments, it's been a great couple of years, but you don't have dividend income. Or probably much in the way of stocks that you've purchased. Don't you want to be able to depend on Social Security for your retirement? Why don't "conservatives" complain about the constant borrowing from the Social Security fund to make the budget numbers look more positive? There would not be a "Social Security crisis" in your lifetime if we were not removing surplus from the fund.

I don't get it... I just don't get it. Why does a smart guy like you, in your position, argue for a political ideology that works against your best interests in almost every way?

Could you please explain that to me?

OhioVoter, you are confused. There are two issues: that Pelosi requested legislation to overturn the exclusion of Samoa, and that Pelosi was not responsible for the exclusion of Samoa in the first place. I provided separate links to substantiate both of these points, but you are confusing them.

You said:

Where is the legislation - introduced by Speaker Pelosi - to overturn this particular decision and cover Samoan workers by minimum wage?

And you were provided links to reports that show just that, including this quote:

"I have asked the Education and Labor Committee, as they go forward with the legislation, to make sure that all of the territories have to comply with U.S. law on the minimum wage," Pelosi announced Friday.

Then you said:

Brian responded with a link that had had absolutely nothing to do with legislation, let alone legilsation authorized by Nancy Pelosi

Really? Because that quote I provided above sure looks like it's referencing "legislation authorized by Nancy Pelosi" to me!

Then you said:

I point out that and his response is: "Ummm, yah, duh, that's the point!"

No, by this point you were referring to my second link, which shows that Samoa was excluded from mainland minimum wage controls in 1938, before Pelosi was even born. When you observed that Pelosi had nothing to do with that legislation, that's when I said "Ummm, yah, duh, that's the point!"

So now we have established that OhioVoter isn't particularly capable of following two separate points of arguments at the time, each with separate links.

Then you wrote:

Actually, what the original article pointed out was Pelosi's INACTION on the subject.

Now, that's just a big ol'-fashioned hand-wave-over-your-ass-instead-of-admitting-you-were-wrong lie, right there. But, fortunately we can actually look at the original article, which makes no mention of inaction:

"Now we find out that she is exempting hometown companies from minimum wage. This is exactly the hypocrisy and double talk that we have come to expect from the Democrats."

That refers to the ACTION of "she is exempting", not INACTION.

you proved nothing about the Wizbangers in general.

Well, I proved a few things about you, in particular. But in the interests of being civil, I won't go into further specifics.

Oh, and...

What you did was prove Lee lied with his posting claiming that the 2003 Republican Congress had anything whatsoever to do with the decision.

No, Lee was correct (he provided a link to the DOL web site, for cryin' out loud) that the Samoan exemption was re-authorized by the 2003 Republicans. He was just wrong about the exemption originating there. Regardless, the point was to dispute the irresponsible and incorrect accusation from the right that Pelosi enacted the exemption to help StarKist Tuna. Either one of those facts accomplishes that goal quite handily.

Brian, Brian, Brian ....

You might want to invest in a class on PolSci101 at your local community college. It would save you making embarrassing posts like this one. There are apparently things about how the US political system works that you clearly missed when it was taught in 6th grade.

First, you link in this post took me to a post on Nancy Pelosi and the plane issue - not to the source that you claimed. That may be part of your problem - your earlier link may have been bad as this one is since it certainly didn't answer the question that you thought it answered So, your quote here is, so far, unsourced.

However, I have no problem commenting on it since it proves my point - that Nancy Pelosi did NOT sponsor legislation herself seeking to change the status quo (what most of us call "inaction"), but, only after her "inaction" was pointed out by the various media source, such as Wizbang, did she seek to lend her support to the actions of others.

Now, since you don't seem to know this - when a legislation is introduced into Congress, it goes through various committees and then is voted on by the house where it was first introduced. Then, it either goes to the other House for a vote and goes through the same process or, if both have passed similiar measure, the two bills are reconciled and new botes on the measure are taken.

No member of Congress can simply calls up someone and gets legislation passed. They can, however, ask that ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS be modified - as can any citizen at various points in the process Again, your quote seems to support my original theory.

No, by this point you were referring to my second link, which shows that Samoa was excluded from mainland minimum wage controls in 1938, before Pelosi was even born. When you observed that Pelosi had nothing to do with that legislation, that's when I said "Ummm, yah, duh, that's the point!"

LOL! How cute (and fairly sad) - you couldn't prove your point so you simply decided to tell me that I meant something different that what I said.

So now we have established that OhioVoter isn't particularly capable of following two separate points of arguments at the time, each with separate links.

Well, as I pointed out earlier, your links to unrelated issues may have had something to do with your inability to make your point clear LOL! LOL! Your lack of knowledge about how the US government works pretty much explains the rest.

No, Lee was correct (he provided a link to the DOL web site, for cryin' out loud) that the Samoan exemption was re-authorized by the 2003 Republicans. He was just wrong about the exemption originating there.

Again, your lack of knowledge of how the US governmental system works is hampering your ability to understand the situation.

The DOL website does not prove that the 2003 Republican Congress authorized anything. So far, there has NEVER been a link during this discussion that demonstrated that the US Congress eever authorized it.

The link to the DOL website (coupled with the piece you quoted in your other post) suggests that it was ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION - not legislation.

Now, let's give you an education on the English language - which you also seem to be having a problem with today.

OhioVoter: Actually, what the original article pointed out was Pelosi's INACTION on the subject.

Brian: Now, that's just a big ol'-fashioned hand-wave-over-your-ass-instead-of-admitting-you-were-wrong lie, right there. But, fortunately we can actually look at the original article, which makes no mention of inaction:

"Original Article: Now we find out that she is exempting hometown companies from minimum wage. This is exactly the hypocrisy and double talk that we have come to expect from the Democrats."

Now, your response here:

That refers to the ACTION of "she is exempting", not INACTION.

Ummm, Brian, according to the quote you posted in your ealier post, this exemption existed PRIOR to this year. Therefore, Pelosi COULDN'T have taken "action" to exempt them because - ACCORDING TO YOU - they were ALREADY exempted.

Therefore Pelosi took no action - commonly called "inaction" - to include them. (Well, she took no action to include them until after her inaction was pointed out at place like Wizbang pointed out her inaction. LOL!)