Congressional GOP Are Scum!

[chequita guevara]

The Senate gave a big **** you to the American people yesterday. They defeated two minimum wage amendments, on the idea that it's better to make a little bit of money and not be able to support yourself than to make no money and not be able to support yourself. Sixty percent of those on minimum wage are single mothers, not the teenagers the GOP like to talk about. And guess what, when people make more money, they spur demand for new goods and services, which means that employers need more people, which means more people get hired.

Minimum wage is at an historical 50 year low, almost 1/3rd of the average wage, when it's generally around 50% the average wage.

But the real FU to the American people was the tightening of bankruptcy rules. In order to stop the 2% - 4% of bankruptcy abuses, the other 96% of us are going to find it much more difficult to declare bankruptcy. The credit car companies made 30 billion dollars of profit last year. They aren't hurting by a long shot. And the overwhelming reason people go bankrupt is not because they are irresponsible with their credit cards, but because they got sick or lost their job.

We're gonna have to suffer from at least two years of hard core reaming.

[Admiral]

Oh, rather. Also notice how the Republicans (and a few Democrats) are voting down ammendments to the personal bankrupcy bill, allowing the rich to continue to have a loophole, and not allowing Veterans, or those with medical emergencies, mitigating factors.

[DanS]

How many people get paid minimum wage, anyway? And how many aren't just starting out in the work force? And how many of these are in full time jobs?

[Thucydides]

Originally posted by DanS
How many people get paid minimum wage, anyway? And how many aren't just starting out in the work force?

from the department of labour

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2002.htm

it's about 570,000 that are being paid the federal minumum wage. That's probably misleading though because quite a few states have minimum wages aboves the federal minimum wage. I'll try to find an age breakdown, but it appears that only 1/7 of the min. wage earners are the sole members of their household, so their wage does appear to impact other people regardless.

[Whaleboy]

DanS, your point?

[DanS]

OK, take a look at the tables attached to that report...

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2002tbls.htm

Of the 2.2 million people at or below minimum wage, 851,000 are full-time workers. Of those full-time workers, a good portion are 24 years old or younger (i.e., just starting out in the workforce).

[Thucydides]

from the tables they provided, I calculated 78% of the minimum wage earners are over 25, which I think would qualify as not just starting out in the workforce (unless you just received Masters or took time to receive bachelors, which would make it less likely that you would be getting minimum wage anyway)

[DanS]

from the tables they provided, I calculated 78% of the minimum wage earners are over 25

Recheck your math. A majority are under 25.

[Thucydides]

oops, was looking at the wrong column. It's about half, which gels with what they say on the first page anyway.

[chequita guevara]

It doesn't ****ing matter how old or young they are. If you're supporting a family, i.e., the 60% of min wage workers that are single mothers, you need more the $5.15 an hour.

[GePap]

Yes, amazingly, a 24 year old can actually HAVE CHILDREN. I know this might come as shock to DanS, but its one of those basic bioligical realities. Do we need to explain the birds and the bees, DanS?

[Odin]

Originally posted by DanS
How many people get paid minimum wage, anyway? And how many aren't just starting out in the work force? And how many of these are in full time jobs?

It doesn't matter, everybody over the age of 18 should have the right to get paid enough to feed themselves and thier families without having to go to multiple full-time jobs.

I don't think the Dems really thought the wage ammendment would pass, I think it's purpose was to use as a political weapon so the Dems could bash the Repubs in the 2006 elections and get back the Senate.

[DanS]

It matters a lot whether these folks are just starting out in the work force.

They have to start their careers somewhere and raising the minimum wage would mean that some of them would not get that job to start their career in the first place.

[GePap]

Krugmans take: I had not heard the BUffet quote before- damn dirty commy, that Buffet.

The Debt-Peonage Society
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 8, 2005

Today the Senate is expected to vote to limit debate on a bill that toughens the existing bankruptcy law, probably ensuring the bill's passage. A solid bloc of Republican senators, assisted by some Democrats, has already voted down a series of amendments that would either have closed loopholes for the rich or provided protection for some poor and middle-class families.

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

The credit card companies say this is needed because people have been abusing the bankruptcy law, borrowing irresponsibly and walking away from debts. The facts say otherwise.

A vast majority of personal bankruptcies in the United States are the result of severe misfortune. One recent study found that more than half of bankruptcies are the result of medical emergencies. The rest are overwhelmingly the result either of job loss or of divorce.

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

One increasingly popular loophole is the creation of an "asset protection trust," which is worth doing only for the wealthy. Senator Charles Schumer introduced an amendment that would have limited the exemption on such trusts, but apparently it's O.K. to game the system if you're rich: 54 Republicans and 2 Democrats voted against the Schumer amendment.

Other amendments were aimed at protecting families and individuals who have clearly been forced into bankruptcy by events, or who would face extreme hardship in repaying debts. Ted Kennedy introduced an exemption for cases of medical bankruptcy. Russ Feingold introduced an amendment protecting the homes of the elderly. Dick Durbin asked for protection for armed services members and veterans. All were rejected.

None of this should come as a surprise: it's all part of the pattern.

As Mr. Hacker and others have documented, over the past three decades the lives of ordinary Americans have become steadily less secure, and their chances of plunging from the middle class into acute poverty ever larger. Job stability has declined; spells of unemployment, when they happen, last longer; fewer workers receive health insurance from their employers; fewer workers have guaranteed pensions.

Some of these changes are the result of a changing economy. But the underlying economic trends have been reinforced by an ideologically driven effort to strip away the protections the government used to provide. For example, long-term unemployment has become much more common, but unemployment benefits expire sooner. Health insurance coverage is declining, but new initiatives like health savings accounts (introduced in the 2003 Medicare bill), rather than discouraging that trend, further undermine the incentives of employers to provide coverage.

Above all, of course, at a time when ever-fewer workers can count on pensions from their employers, the current administration wants to phase out Social Security.

The bankruptcy bill fits right into this picture. When everything else goes wrong, Americans can still get a measure of relief by filing for bankruptcy - and rising insecurity means that they are forced to do this more often than in the past. But Congress is now poised to make bankruptcy law harsher, too.

Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a "sharecroppers' society" than an "ownership society." But I think the right term is a "debt peonage" society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors. The bankruptcy bill won't get us back to those bad old days all by itself, but it's a significant step in that direction.

And any senator who votes for the bill should be ashamed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/opinion/08krugman.html?hp

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Odin
I don't think the Dems really thought the wage ammendment would pass, I think it's purpose was to use as a political weapon so the Dems could bash the Repubs in the 2006 elections and get back the Senate.

It only lost by a few votes. Four GOPers crossed the aisle to vote with the Dems.