$10,700
$10,700 per year. That's how much somebody makes if he or she earns the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. That's $6,000 below the Federal poverty line for a family of three. And that's before payroll deductions. So figure take-home pay at about eight thousand per year. $150 a week. For a 40 hour week. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?
Thanks to the Republicans --who awarded the top 1% of the population nearly a trillion bucks in tax breaks over the last five years-- $10,700 per year is exactly the amount that minimum wage workers will continue to make. Â
For the ninth time since 1997, Congressional Republicans on Wednesday voted down a proposal to raise the minimum wage. The vote was 52-46 in favor, eight votes shy of the 60 needed to pass. Eight Republican senators voted for the raise; four of them are up for re-election.
The others, apparently, couldn't give a flip.  Of course, these Republican misers are the same folks who have voted to raise their own salaries and benefits on a consistent basis. While minimum wage service workers have their pay frozen, fat and lazy U.S. Senators get an automatic cost of living increase every year. Is there anyone out there stupid enough to even try to justify this disparity? U.S. Senators will now make about $170,000 per year, about a $30,000 (or if your prefer, a 20%) increase since the last time the minmum wage was raised.
Adjusted for inflation, the purchasing power of the minimum wage is now at its lowest point since 1955. I repeat, minimum wage workers now have less buying power than they did 51 years ago. Again, adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage hit its post-war peak in 1968 when it was equivalent to $7.71 in current terms.
I know this is true because in 1968 I got my first job working as a clerk at the local college post office and was paid minimum wage. It was about $1.60 an hour if I remember correctly. And it was enough to pay the rent on a small 1 bdr. apt and -- with some food stamps-- get me through a lean month (The next year I remember getting a very tedious non-union assembly line job in a light manufacturing plant and thinking I was living high on the hog at an astronomic $2.25 an hour).
Nowadays, the same minimum wage wouldn't rent you the garage on a So Calif apartment. And food stamps? What happened to them? They're still around, I hear, at limited levels. And they come in exchange for the recipient's finger-prints and a social worker's flashlight stuck up your rear end. (The average food stamp benefit allotted to a qualifying California family is about $70 a month per person, or about $2 worth of food per day -- another embarrassment).
There are, of course, no valid economic arguments to be made against a minimum wage increase. The period during which it was raised consistently -- from the end of WWII through the 1970's-- was an era of fabulous national economic growth and prosperity. Indeed, the last time it was raised, in 1997, we were in the midst of a feverish economic expansion, low inflation, and soaring productivity.
There's only one reason the minimum wage remains in the basement. Not because it is good for America. Only because it is really, really good for wealthy employers. Anyone who thinks it fair as is ought to give a try living on it for a month or two -- if you can make it that long.
Meanwhile, there's this story: Â GOP House Speaker Denny Hastert defending the $2 million profit he earned last year on the sale of a land parcel that just happened to be nearby a highway project he just happened to help finance with earmarked federal funds. Earmarking? I'm a city boy; but isn't that something you do with hogs?
June 21st, 2006 at 11:37 pm
“There are, of course, no valid economic arguments to be made against a minimum wage increase.”
True! But that won’t stop some here from trying to make them. They will be the same people who oppose union organizing and who accuse liberals and leftists of engaging in class warfare.
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:31 am
Well as I’m sure you know there is one potentially sensible argument against raising the minimum wage, and that is if the beneficial effects of a higher wage are outweighed by a loss of employment among low wage earners. That’s an empirical question, and if that turns out to be the case, then if you care about the welfare of the badly off then you ought to be against raising the minimum wage despite how unbelievably low it is (and regardless of politician’s greed). I hope you can agree with this statement (with its conditional “if this is the case”) even if you think it is not the case.
Personally, I find it rather hard to believe that the beneifical effects of a higher wage would be outweighed by a loss of employment - my uninformed instinct is demand for low-cost labour is not sufficiently sensitive to wage rates, that an awful lot of people would be made an awful lot better off by a higher minimum wage, and some “discouraged” workers might even be drawn into the workforce, filling low wage vacancies and offseting the effect of lower demand on overall employment levels.
The only thing that stops me being sure that the minimum wage ought to be raised is that a lot of economists who study the labour market - and for what it’s worth I think some of these guys genuinely are interested in the welfare of the badly off, not the interests of the rich - don’t think it ought to be raised. I’m sure you can find these studies if you are inclined, but Jane Galt has been writing about it recently.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:58 am
I’m morally against any minimum wage law (enforced by gov’t power), because it is against the freedom of an employer to offer an opportunity to agree to a potential worker. Such laws are morally against freedom of choice.
The economic effects are more complex, as Luis said nicely– but the mostly correct balance forgets an important issue, the total number of jobs “offered”. Just follow a thought experiment — raise the wage to $10/hr, then to $20/hr, then to $30/hr. Obviously, at some point most people will be “working” off the books, to avoid the law, the number of legal jobs will be far lower.
This already happens with the illegals. I recall the LAT interviewing many, all of whom seemed to have higher than minimum wage jobs.
Marc, why not do some real reporting and find out how many American citizens actually have min. wage jobs?
Thanks for your challenge: “Anyone who thinks it fair as is ought to give a try living on it for a month or two” — I now call you a poverty-chicken.
If you want to increase the minimum wage, why not hire somebody? If increasing the wage of somebody isn’t important enough for YOU to do, why are you so hot to use gov’t to make others do so?
“Fair” is not the same as “comfy”. And the min. wage is not comfy, nor is being born poor in Mexico, or Slovakia. Life is not fair, but this doesn’t mean it’s good to use gov’t force against people making peaceful, honest agreements you don’t like.
Read Charles Murray’s book Losing Ground, about the need for a First Step. Even your own personal story had you use a temporary min. wage job, to establish work habits and some consumption and some desire to consume more, meaning a willingness to do other work for more cash.
Shouldn’t it be the case that if YOU are unwilling to hire somebody, you shouldn’t be complaining that somebody else does? In fact, if $5.15/hr is too much for you to pay, how low would the wage have to go before you DID hire somebody?
[Some of such work I need to do now, too.]
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:40 am
“Earmarking? I’m a city boy; but isn’t that something you do with hogs?”
At one time Marc. Now it is something the hogs do to us.
I apologize for the behavior of my conservative hogs in Washington, looking out for the interest of those who slop their trough over those who they force to pay their self-imposed automatic pay increases. Typical but still disgusting and shocking behavior by the ‘peoples’ representatives……right
As far as the marking our ears for tax slaughter, it is a power ritual performed on us by all hogs in Washington paying homage to the sloppers who give it to them.
Sorry, but I have lost all respect. Pardon me for being cynical( I like to think it’s being realistic) but not only does earmarking provide power to reward contributors, but it is a way to provide powerful incentives to the people to vote for incumbency(seniority) in order to get more earmarking benefits to their state over others. For these reasons, earmarking reform will get lip service in times of corruption exposure, but will not be ever changed.
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:01 am
As a fellow conservative, you confuse me sometimes Dad.
If most workers are making more than minimum wage anyway, what the hell then is the big deal and resistance to increasing it ( out of just pure respect for those willing to work for it if nothing else) by what seems to be ideological, principle over practical, concrete cranium conservatives. The first ones btw to squeal like hell when the extremists on the other side behave the same f_ing way.
It is mental blindness I tell you, and It appears to be permanent affliction for the poor victim as well as all those they victimize around them.
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:16 am
Hmm, Liberty Dad is morally against the minimum wage, because he is so moral, but not morally against the exploitation of workers.
As for the minimum wage vs creating jobs issue, that would be a valid argument only if you agree that employers should be bribed into hiring workers by being given a freer hand to exploit them, and if you think that nothing else should be done to create well paying jobs at the same time. Eg, the $320 billion wasted on Iraq, if invested wisely in the public good, would create a hell of a lot of jobs not to mention job training. Here are some other things it might buy:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060615_300_billion_suggestions/
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:23 am
btw, Jim Russell, I would be tempted to say that Liberty Dad’s views are the logical extension of conservatism taken to the extreme, but your post tells me that there are compassionate conservatives and so I will hold that thought.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:33 am
…hype, hysteria, and inaccuracies by people on the left who probably never took a course in economics and wouldn’t have passed one, anyway.
If there are “no valid economic arguments,” then go to this site and tell me why many of these people who have such arguments are wrong. You can even use the rebuttals from left-wing nuts who are found on the same link, but you would have to defend them rather than simply repeat or link to them…which is sooooo lazy and an excuse not to think logically about problems and solutions. You know who you are.
Then, give me your qualifications as an economist. Hah!
Oh, and if someone is trying to support a family of three on minimun wage, then the curent wage limits are not their problem, but their problem is in the mirror. But, liberals can’t take responsibility and love to blame someone else. Minimum wages are a starting wage, typically for entry level workers, and it’s hopeful that someone who has had time to download three kids has learned something to move ahead of that–or, learned to stop having kids whom they can’t afford.
I’m not going to say anything more on this. It’s just typical whining and political posturing by an irresponsible and uneducated left. You can’t convince stupid people once they have their minds made up to blame others and to loot the pocketbook of the economy for fleeting gains.
Get ready, Asia. We’re getting ready to send another round of jobs your way because of labor costs. That has a double benefit! People can think that they’re better off AND they get to balme Bush for jobs exported out of the U.S.
I have a great idea! Raise the minimum wage to $50 per hour and then we might not have to discuss this again for another ten or twenty years. But, I suspect that someone would say that it really takes $75 per hour to raise a family of twelve.
I’m out of here on this topic. You guys are beginning to like KOS.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:50 am
P.S. On a personal observation: My 16 year old son has a summer job making minimum wage at a local non-profit organization providing day camp to kids while they are out of school and for the benefit of their parents. With “the little” that they pay him and the other workers, parents can afford this care and know that their kids are in a fun, educational, and safe environment for the summer for something that they can afford. The parents are happy, their kids are better off, the organization can afford this service with the existing labor rate, and my son is thrilled to have a job to learn responsibility while serviing the communitiy at the same time.
This organization is not some greedy employer. It’s a charity. My kid wanted a job and was willing to take this entry level one at the only rate that they can pay. The community is better off and everyone wins. Some of this formula would change with higher minimum wages, and there might not have been a job for my son or services for the kids out of school.
Focus on the problems. Your “solutions” don’t solve them. There are places for entry level workers, and they are glad to take those jobs at those rates.
That’s all. I’m really out of here, even if I do think of something else.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:27 am
The belief that increasing the federal minimum wage will push up real wages is false. Average pay in America has been increasing steadily in recent years, despite the fact that the minimum wage has not changed since 1997. Real wages rise when productivity rises. Labor productivity has gained 26 percent since 1997, and real earnings for non-supervisory workers are up 7 percent. Non-wage benefits are up as well, especially returns to risk-taking entrepreneurs. The credit for these gains goes entirely to the workforce and American business, not to micromanagement from Washington, D.C.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:34 am
Luis Enrique - check out this post by Kevin Drum and its internal links. It’s a good commentary on the specific issue you raise that isn’t fueled by gaseous ideology or Ayn Randian dogmatics.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_06/009055.php
Woody - go to this site for further information that may have bearing on the origin of some of your views: http://tinyurl.com/mh2hn
Sorry but I didn’t have time to check all 6,400,000 articles you linked to. But it so happens I had already read the first one - which is something you should do if you have any interest in this issue other than running your very tiresome mouth with your increasingly retreaded ideological drivel and partisan insults about “uneducated liberals”. When you aren’t too fucking lazy to come up with a counter-argument to the very specific arguments and information I’ve provided on the minimum wage vs. job creation issue on earlier threads which were partly drawn from that article your random googling turned up (as well as the fact that the minimum wage has been rather dramatically declining in actual value) - and assuming you’re not wont to simply make shit up as you have in the past - why don’t you come back and prove to everybody how much smarter you are than the liberals you constantly rail against. Put up or shut up. As for the “uneducated left”, personally I’m not all that “left” compared to some here, but I admit to being relatively uneducated. It’s funny though how easily someone with little education can so easily counter the recycled talking points and flimsy appeals you rely on to keep afloat here.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:36 am
I’m out of here on this topic.
Yippee!
That’s all. I’m really out of here, even if I do think of something else.
Double Yippee!!
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:49 am
The problem with applying free market theory to wages is that the playing field is so far from level, i.e. the market isn’t free at one end, so it won’t work to make it free at the other.
Governments–for better and worse, case-by-case–subsidize all kinds of businesses from uranium mining to goat ranching, higher education and shrimp fishing.
The free market theorists Woody and his ilk take instructions from completely, conveniently, ignore that fact, pretending instead that if left alone, wages would reach an equilibrium price based on unfettered bidding in the labor market.
In many cases, the government also ends up picking up the tab for the health care of employees at these very same enterprises, because they pay a minimum wage too low to allow their employees to afford their own insurance and offer none as a benefit.
We live in a government-managed economy and probably always will.
So the question is, is this the most efficient way for the government to manage the economy?
I don’t think it is. I think the we’d be much better off if the government got out of all these businesses and stayed out–save for reasonable health, safety and environmental regulation.
Nevertheless, it makes no sense to impose free market discipline exclusively on the most vulnerable sector of the economy–the working poor.
You want free market wages, first strip away all the layers of corporate welfare, healthcare and education subsidies–then let business scramble like made for the tiny handful of workers who can replace those who have no choice but to drop out of the workforce when the get sick, because they have no health coverage. Let companies pay for teaching their cashiers to make change and so on, when that happens, and not before, we can begin to talk about letting the minimum wage determine its own level.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:10 am
” Such laws are morally against freedom of choice.”
Great Depressions are also immoral, but we have laws that regulate the economy to make sure that they don’t happen again. Or we could go back to the good’ol moral days of cyclical depressions and ‘natural’ ‘market led’ declines in wages.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:11 am
” With “the little†that they pay him and the other workers, parents can afford this care and know that their kids are in a fun, educational, and safe environment for the summer for something that they can afford.”
The majority of minimum wage earners aren’t like your son at all.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:16 am
Yeah, but Chadwick, who made the argument that you toss in here as a straw man ? I didn’t notice anyone making that aggregate argbument. The point is to increase the wages of specific workers at the bottom. Also, if you want to engage in the business of “lies, damned lies and statistics”, low-end wages have tended to decline in the same period you’re aggregating to prove…something. Makes me assume you’re running on some pre-fab ideology, not pragmatic political economy to obtain the best results for the most people. As Marc noted in an earlier comment, the “free-market uber alles” crowd have replaced the old communists with their single-minded “solution” to any and all questions. How about some evidence beyond the anecdotal that the minimum wage destroys entry-level jobs, which is the primary argument against minimum wage increases ? And I’d appreciate something other than the specious “Employment Policies Institute” study that was done to provide ammunition for the food-service industry’s Beltway lobbyists. (More on the “dueling studies” here: http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=4928)
(I “lied” in that comment above to Woody - the article I had read before was by the same guy, but it was a different piece debunking the “job killer” argument - linked in the Kevin Drum post.)
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:24 am
Liberty Dad -
Since when is moral behavior grounded solely in freedom of choice. Any morality worthy of the name begins when obligation to another impinges on that freedom.
If you (or your ideological comrade “Heroic Dreamer’) want to make these extreme libertarian arguments, you then forfeit the right to whine about the Democrats and the left eschewing traditional values. There’s nothing at all traditional (in the Judeo-Christian sense) about your argument against the minimum wage.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:27 am
Tom Grey - who lives in a state run by socialists and won’t let us know his feelings - cites the racist, pseudoscientist Charles Murray. This is unacceptable.
Raising the minimum wage is the least that any government can do. There should also be a guaranteed social wage and a real change to the not of inheritence and nonproductive wealth, to be taxed to create a more Norway/Finland type society. Of course raising the minimum wage is a good first step.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:31 am
More interesting data…
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/06/raise_the_minim.html
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:02 am
The minimum wage kills very few jobs, and the jobs it kills were lousy jobs anyway. It is almost impossible to maintain the old argument that minimum wages are bad for minimum-wage workers. It is a dog that cant hunt or bark.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:34 am
The MW outrage should be layed against the further outrage likely to pass the Congress today, the even more absurd repeal of the Estate Tax. The “death tax” , as it was dreamed up by well paid flacks of The Campbells Soup and Wallmart Familys on the premise that it’s repeal was going to save family farms(!).
It is, I must say, the most shameless buying of goverment by the rich in my lifetime. Again, the taxing of massive windfalls based on the luck of birth is, once the window dressing of these non existent farms is stripped away, is deamed by the right as “immoral.”
Which leaves you, Mr. Cooper, with a hell of a lot to answer for. These party lines votes, putting in place massive give aways to the rich, are taking place in a Washington where the two parties are supposed to be the same. The main stream media that has not accuratly informed the public on these issues was luaded by you for their comic book coverage of Monica Lewinsky and Garry Condit. We all had a good laugh as the groudwork was layed, didn’t we?
I would say the “Death Tax” repeal and stagnet MW are mearly the predictable actions of a Republican Party you told us was the same as the party voting against these measures. I would say you have aided the coopting of our goverment by reactionarys who serve only the privaleged and the powerful. What say you?
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:54 am
I vote for a minimum wage of $100,000 per year. Why should the poor be poor?
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:57 am
Reg, stop confusing us with little things like facts!
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:03 am
“where the two parties are supposed to be the same’
You know, this is a bullshit mischaracterization of the views of those who, like Marc and myself included, criticize the Democrats. In fact, it only demonstrates a brain incapable or unwilling to understand life’s complexities. Speaking for myself: The Democrats, because of their opportunism and refusal to take clear stands on anything, including now Iraq, pave the way for Republican election victories.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:47 am
“You know, this is a bullshit mischaracterization of the views of those who, like Marc and myself included, criticize the Democrats. ”
I have problems with the Dems, some serious, but believe that there’s a a difference worth acknowledging between the 2 parties. I’ve yet to hear Marc take that view and can remember no instance where he’s offered more than mild hold-your-nose praise for any Dem politician. I have no idea whether he supported Nader, but his general point of view seems in line with many who did. Their votes helped put Bush in power.
I think Wall’s point is perfectly valid and not necessarily simplistic; he may well agree with many of your criticisms of the Dems.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:59 am
Well, that Nader vote cuts both ways. I voted for Nader not because I loved him but because I couldn’t stand to vote for Bush or Gore and I felt I had to vote for someone. It might be a valid argument that Nader “votes helped put Bush in power,” because they were taken out of the Gore column, but you could also say that Nader votes helped give us a close and unsatisfactory election since some were taken out of the Bush column.
At the same time, I have to say that either way it worked it worked well from my point of view because it kept Gore out of power and I’ve come to loathe Gore more than I dislike Bush, which is saying something in this day and age.
Don’t know if getting Gore off center stage in 2000 means we dodged a bullet, but we certainly dodged a bore. Say what you will about the Bush years, at least they haven’t been boring.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:15 am
Those like evets who insist that we vote Democratic and for no other party need to find us a Democrat worth voting for. Who do you recommend, evets? Or could it be that Marc holds his nose for a good reason?
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:26 am
I second that. I’d vote Dem again in a nanosecond if they could find any, and I mean any, candidate who didn’t come on like something that wanted to tax me to death before getting me killed.
I miss the party. I really do.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:38 am
As to Marc’s article, my problem with it is that it is one of those items that seems to be making an argument from the head, but is actually making an argument that appeals to the heart. It waves the tattered shirt of poverty, it pleads the belly of the forelorn single mother, it tells me to be ashamed, be very ashamed. Then it sprinkles some numbers here and there to make it appear that there are real facts happening when I suspect there’s just a bit of doodling with a calculator.
I know well that some individuals are living all alone in some bare room with only a fly-specked lightbulb illuminating their last blackening banana on the widowsill overlooking the clacking gulls that whirr above the garbage dump next door and I try, I really try, to care. But all this endless nattering has, frankly, given me a hardwired case of compassion fatigue.
I also know well that there are groups of individuals pooling their resources and taking two or three jobs so that they can ship enough money south to buy a house, hacienda, or farm in five years.
Poverty may well have a lot to do with how “the system” is set up, but it may also have a lot to do with stupidity as well. Raising the wage? Okay. Bump it a buck, two bucks, whatever you like. Liberalism has never been at all shy about asking others to reach for *their* wallets. It may well be that by doing so we will be able to say that “the poor are no longer with us.” Then we can get started on the stupid.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:39 am
This is a simple economics thing… You say “There are, of course, no valid economic arguments to be made against a minimum wage increase.”
Bull.
Imagine a business owner that pays EEs $6 per hour (the going rate in the area for the job). If the owner is having a tough time getting good EEs, he’d probably raise the going rate, but that is another part of the discussion.
Let’s say govt. - in its role to “help out” - says that I’m paying too little and must raise my rate to $7 per hour.
Where do you think that extra buck is going to come from? It’s either going to come from the owner’s salary, a rise in prices, layoffs or most likely a combination of the three.
As an owner, I work hard for my money and want to keep my standard of living so I’ll chip in a very small percentage, I can only raise my prices so much or customers will start looking elsewhere so that will be a very small part of it.
Guess what? Instead of hiring 10 kids for the summer ice cream store business on the corner, I’m now only going to hire nine.
And that’s a valid economic argument.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:43 am
Im not going to dignify the debate around Nader with an extended comment. I will only say that if you have objections to democracy — a system in which people have the right to vote for candidates they choose– then perhaps you should sample a system in which the candidates are limited. Cuba would be a nice start. GIve it a try– there are no spoilers in the election for Peoples Assembly.
Mr. Wall’s apologias for the sorry Democrats are truly pathetic. But we won’t go down that road either. In 2000 there were 100 million more votes available to Mr. Gore — 100 million people who didnt vote and who he did not motivate to vote. The 90,000 people who voted for Nader in Florida did not vote for Gore because they did not want to vote for Gore and those were not Al Gore’s votes. They were Ralph Nader’s. Tough titties as they say. What a fucking, boring, pointless and moronic discussion.
And whoever said it above is correct: I dont like Democrats (or Republicans). So what?
It’s also patently false that I have said the two parties are identical. They share many aspects, and they are different in many aspects. The Democrats are “better” on many issues or most issues. This is true. So what? They are nevertheless one of the two pillars of a special interest political system that privileges the wealthy and the powerful over common people — including the soft-headed schmucks who believe the Dems are the party of the little people. Little people indeed.
I will remind those who habitate in the arse of Bill Clinton that Democrats ran the Congress for the near entirety of the post-war period. If you think America was a non-imperial paradise of equality, justice and compassion between 1945 and 1994 because the Dems had the governing majority then you really MUST be comfortable residing in Clinton’s lower colon. It’s where you belong.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:44 am
Michael -
I certainly had reservations about both Gore and Kerry, would like a different sort of Democratic party altogether and more importantly a different kind of social/ ideological climate (so that such a party would be possible). Even so, I didn’t hold my nose when voting for either of these two flawed candidates; felt each would be substantively better than Bush. If you could have found me a better alternative than the Savanarola-like Nader, someone who pointed in an alternative direction with a compelling and plausible future, maybe I’d have been tempted. Don’t forget, there’s a hold the nose test for messianic mavericks too.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:49 am
The more fundamental question we have to ask ourselves is this: Should the minimum wage be able to support a family of 4?
Personally, I say no. Not because I’m a heartless bastard but because 4 is an arbitrary number. If we say the minimum wage should be able to support a family of 4, someone will undoubtedly stand up and say, “Why not a family of 3 or 5?”
Instead, I believe the minimum wage should be indexed to the poverty line for a single person. By that measure, the minimum wage is about 4.8 cents too high, even after you take FICA in to account.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:58 am
Amazing that anyone would think people who work fulltime should live in poverty–truly, mindblowingly amazing.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:00 am
Many union contracts are tied to minimum wage. If you increase the wage this would mean an enforced increase in labor costs on more than just the lowest level of labor. These magnified increased costs are going to be felt an many other areas. Reduced employment in areas where demand for labor is somewhat more elastic than the need for menial labor. The other thing to remember is that very few people get minimum wage jobs and stay in them. They move on to better things either with another employer or with the same employer. Your example of trying to live on minimum wage in LA is bogus because CA already has a minimum wage that is higher than LA. Let each state set a minimum wage that is most appropriate to it’s costs of living??
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:11 am
“I’ve come to loathe Gore more than I dislike Bush, which is saying something in this day and age.
Don’t know if getting Gore off center stage in 2000 means we dodged a bullet, but we certainly dodged a bore. Say what you will about the Bush years, at least they haven’t been boring.”
Yeah, Vanderlaun, you’ve convinced me. Stupidity is a much bigger problem than poverty.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:33 am
Marc, since you specifically make an example of Callifornia:
“Nowadays, the same minimum wage wouldn’t rent you the garage on a So Calif apartment. And food stamps? What happened to them? They’re still around, I hear, at limited levels. And they come in exchange for the recipient’s finger-prints and a social worker’s flashlight stuck up your rear end. (The average food stamp benefit allotted to a qualifying California family is about $70 a month per person, or about $2 worth of food per day — another embarrassment).”
Please note the minimum wage in California is $6.75/hr not $5.15/hr. So much for that thought.
I also did a run through the California Food Stamps estimator, and for a family of 3 (single woman, two children — 8 and 6, $10,700 annual income, $400 cash on hand, no vehicle, $500/month apartment with $60/month utilities) and came up with $336 to $346 per month food stamps.
Please try harder to make your case.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:43 am
Vanderleun -
“Then we can get started on the stupid.”
How about you first. (Couldn’t resist).
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:54 am
Marc -
That’s a pretty long non-”extended comment”.
Last time we all got into one of these imbroglios you told us to piss up a rope, this time to take up residence in Clinton’s colon. This is getting too enervating. BTW - who ever suggested that 1945-1994 was a political utopia or that 3rd party candidates should be disallowed. What’s with the straw men? We’re just debating how much less than utopia we’re willing to settle for.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:58 am
“Instead of hiring 10 kids for the summer ice cream store business on the corner, I’m now only going to hire nine.”
And do what, operate for fewer hours? So you gererate less revenue with the same labor costs? that sounds like a winning strategy.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:59 am
The only competition for minimum wage jobs is from illegals, where no standards apply on its face. Two dollars higher will not influence either end of the equation. I got food stamps in the past, and for an individual it came to $117, sans any sort of income. The ceiling is extremely low as it is with college federal aid. So low it takes poverty to a whole new low water mark.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Marc -Why is it so hard to say “Yeah, it was silly to support Nader in 2000, given the way things have turned out.” It makes a lot more sense than your torturing “who’s votes were who’s” in Florida.
The difference between the two parties is this: In the Democratic Party there is a constant struggle between our better human impulses, “Good” (or “compassion, competence, pragmatism” for the secular-minded), and our baser impulses, “Evil” (or “corruption, expediency over principle and simply bowing to power”). “Evil” - as any political science major, not to mention random observer, can tell you - generally wins. In the Republican Party the agenda is simpler - corporate power is the greatest good, their lobbyists deserve to write law, competence and experience shouldn’t trump cronyism and the the substance of patriotism and religion are best reduced to rhetoric and marketing tools to shield money and power. Of course there are contradictions in the GOP, as there are for Democrats. Nativism vs. empire, fundamentalist social conservatism vs. the “creative destruction” of unfettered capital, etc. But it’s usually a tension between the worst of both worlds. If Satan does, as we are often told, have any vested interest in the politics of the United States, it is expressed unalloyed through the instrument of the contemporary GOP. The Democratics can at best be relied on for a half-hearted Plan B. In the Democratic Party it’s possible to find both the best and the worst - and not too paradoxically for any student of humanity, sometimes in the same politician.
But, in truth, the road to hell is more often paved by the hubristic, the unreflective, the selfish, the delusional, the deceitful and the scheming than by terribly flawed and compromised folks with generally good intentions. Which is why over the last five years we’ve certainly seen some of the most disastrous and incompetent “leadership” in American history.
(evets, Wall or RLCicero - would you please pass the flashlight. It’s hard to see down here. Damn, will somebody please tell Bubba to lay off the Big Macs. Last time he Supersized, we nearly lost Atrios and Kos. Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum are lucky they got promoted to Pimple On His Ass.)
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Gore was actually running more hawkish than Bush in 2000. This is why many on the left, not knowing 911 was coming up, figured a Bush presidency would be actually less imperialistic than Gore. I also believe that Gore would have done the same things as Bush - perhaps without torture - but with far less liberal opposition. He probably would be in Iran by now. I like the new Gore persona, but not the DLC Gore of 2000….and I doubt that the new persona is completely sincere.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:19 pm
reg-
classy riposte, especially given the conditions down here.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Here’s what I can’t simply believe: That Americans would be opposed to paying thier fellow Americans more money.
All the arguments against raising the minimum wage reeks of bias against class. Instead, the cons are willing to let the people who have to work minumum wage jobs (whether they never graduated from high school or college, or they’re handicaped, or whatever), and be broke.
So broke that they’re considered impoverished by the federal government.
Also, you raise minimum wage, and the wages in the middle there, the $10, $11 an hour workers, also will get a boost.
When I started an an entry level newspaper reporter only five years ago, my starting salary was $6.50 an hour. In case you guys don’t know, that blows. Most of my co-workers couldn’t even afford an apartment and had to move back home (forget about saving for a house).
I know so many other people with college degrees who are scrapping by now. I got a job at the big daily papaer about half a year later, and when the managing editor found out how much I made, he told me they would do a lot better than that. Then he said:
“How’s $18,000 a year sound?”
I regret not telling him excatlly how I thought it sounded.
Raise the minumum wage. It will help us all.
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:51 pm
As I pointed out before today’s Federal MW will not cover the rent anywhere in America for a full-time worker, let alone food or other necessitites.
There is sim ply too much data to show no correlation with a rise in the minimum wage and decreased employment. In fact those states with a higher MW have shown more robust employment gains than those stuck at the Federal Minimum.
Liberty Daddy do you also object to worker saftey and child labor laws. Those also violate the right of peoples to freely offer their labor. And that sure was the position of the Supremes prior to 1935. Fear not though - with Scalito, and other Federalist Society types we’ll soon be returning to those halcyion days so I’m sure you’ll be very happy.
Of course Marc, its all Al Gore’s fault. How could I be so blind!
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:52 pm
“many on the left, not knowing 911 was coming up, figured a Bush presidency would be actually less imperialistic than Gore”
Which is why “many on the left” shouldn’t be trusted with much more than the key to the rest room. Anyone should have been able to see the handwriting on the wall as regards the worldview of a “Prez W” administration when Dick Cheney chose himself as Bush’s Veep. Two crony capitalists tied directly to the oil industry would be “less imperialistic” than Al Gore ? Give me a break.
I’ll admit even I was surprised at the level of deceit, delusion and remarkable incompetence, even given their frame of reference, post-911. I’ve also been struck by the willful lack of interest in al Qaeda when they took over. Clarke’s book may wll be self-serving - what ex-insider’s book isn’t ? - but it’s clear from his revelations and other’s who’ve escaped from the bowels of BushCo Lalaland that if there was any chance of preventing a 9/11, the Bushies really weren’t much interested. They proved that they didn’t much give a shit about bin Laden once again when they waged a half-hearted mission against him at Tora Bora and, of course, lied about it. (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek/)
Iraq was their Holy Grail…again, with predictable results.
But, all that aside, the suggestion that “Gore would be in Iran by now” is just loopy. Did you read the speeches he gave PRIOR to the Iraq war ?
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
If some lame-ass business man can not handle a rise in the minimum wage, the wimpy punk shouldn’t be in business in the first place.
So many of you right-wingers love to coddle and brown-nose any loser who claims to be an “entrepreneurâ€, it is quite pitiful.
If these brave men of business are so irresponsible with their businesses that a minimum wage we’ll make them go broke, then those losers need to lose.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:24 pm
“Which is why “many on the left†shouldn’t be trusted with much more than the key to the rest room.”
I think Cummings is right about this, or at least could be. Gore would have faced big pressure, especially if 911 occurred under his watch, to invade Iraq and Iran just to “Prove” he could be tough in his response as a Democrat. I think it’s safe to predict that Clinton will invade Iran if elected just to prove she is tough as a Democrat *and* a woman. Her current rhetoric indicates as much.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:28 pm
“If some lame-ass business man can not handle a rise in the minimum wage, the wimpy punk shouldn’t be in business in the first place.”
Yeah, phew…that was a close one. There could have been a black list of buisness men who scam workers wouldn’t take on. Imagine the implications of that?
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Mr. Cooper, thanks for the reply. You leave MANY roads untraveled, and this afternoon, as the right breaks off another big chunk of America to feed to the uber weathy, that has made all the diference.
Your equasion is simply fundementaly faulty: There are diferences is the parties. Yet they amount to no significant diference. So, it is better better to beat up on the Dems, who offer these diferences that are all the more deplorable for being no diferences. I submit at some point this becomes neither paradox or controdiction, rather gobbly gok.
It was really only silly to support Nadar the last six weeks or so of the 2000 campaign, when he should have withdrawn after cutting a deal for a piece of the action (influence) in the new administration.
It’s the point most of our better political jounalists ( Conason, Alterman, Boehlert, Sumersby) have been proving for years: the mainstream media, far from liberal, keeps the finger on the scale for the right, while a silly chorus of pundits is always there to maintain the opposite is true; or that whatever faliure occurs is “bi-partisan.”
Consider: the far right hates the media (or pretends to, maybe) and distrusts them. The far left hates the media, but swallows whole whatever horse hockey is peddled to weaken candidates that MIGHT just do them some good. Or, as things stand now, might prevent futher damage to the country.
Frankly, I would have loved to see Clinton/ Gore facing eight years of tough questioning from the left on Missle defence, Welfare, The U.N., the shrinking middle class and lots more. Instead the progressives mearly chortled along with Starr, Coulter, and the rest of the freak show. When the far left was claiming the candidates were the same in 2000, they were parroting a script written by the mainstream media; and Gore would have to attone for public’s refusal to buy the Impeachment Show.
By the end of it; as Katha Pollit deserves credit for pointing out, they where passing around the “Gore says he invented the internet” nonsense over at Counterpunch.
What’s happened is you don’t mearly dismiss Clinton anymore, you want to vilafy those who would ask for SOME semblance of sanity in all this, as living up Bill Clinton’s ass, or what have you. In the end, I admit, I was nieve too. I couldn’t believe that even a zero like Bush could confront the epic questions of his time and emerged as advertised, a zero squared. I couldn’t believe he would want to do the things he’s done, or that we would allow his demented “conservative” party to do them. The massive political explotation of 9-11 by the right would have seemed unthinkable. But it all happened.
I humbly suggest it is all of us who have been shoved up history’s rump, by a band of obvious nonentities from the Jerry Ford years. Who really made it happen? The Dems simply stand in line now clearly behind the profession in which you toil. Many bad votes, but enough good ones to stand much further down he blame troth than The Fifth Estate. To speak frankly, I’m a lot less charged up about the Dems these days. The old “there’s nothing wrong with Washington that a good election won’t cure” really seems like so much chippery spunk. I hate spunk. The baby went sailing out with the bathwater, and what we have here is a dead baby.
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:40 pm
On the one hand, everything Marc says.
On the other hand, a part of me feels talking about the minimum wage in the context of a society where middle class people (let alone the poor) are going broke trying to afford housing, education, and health care is vaguely absurd, and smacks of liberals trying to assuage their guilt and feel as though they’ve done something noble for the most struggling people in America.
You could *double* the minimum wage and in many places (metro areas of blue states especially) it still wouldn’t be enough to afford the basics. Unless you’re going to see to it that housing starts dramatically increase (especially in blue states), and that a portion of that new housing is for low income individuals and families, guarantee health care for all Americans, return to more progressive taxation, significantly expand and improve access to public transit (as well as make fees and fines more progressive as they are in Europe) and dramatically expand grants for higher education increasing the minimum wage is little more than window dressing.
I guess it’s better than nothing, but if Democrats think this is some kind of wedge issue that is going to bring out the Democratic vote in November they’re clueless. The poor don’t vote, and the white, middle class liberal base isn’t overly concerned about their plight these days (they’re also apparently not overly concerned about their own economic plight, but that’s something else).
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Reg.. I wont say it because it isnt true. Al Gore lost the 2000 election by 100 million uncast votes. Maybe it was Joe Lieberman as his running mate? Remember that little detail? Maybe that didn’t inspire quite enough voters? Blame the Naderites if it makes you feel better. But I have this silly, old fashioned view. it goes something like this: the people responsible for losing elections are …um…the losing candidates.
I can tell you with complete serenity that I have NO idea whatsoever what Al Gore would have or not have done after the attack of 9/11.
It was Gore who was among the Dems who supported the contras. It was Gore who was amng the 10 or 11 Democrat senators who voted to authorize Gulf War One. And Lieberman’s views on the situation, we already know. I think it preposertous to claim you know how these guys would have acted in office. Impossible to know.
And how about those two guys making headlines today calling for a pre-emptive U.S. attack on North Korea? Aren’t they what you call Clinton Administration Defense officials?
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:36 pm
“Blame the Naderites if it makes you feel better.”
The issue isn’t who to blame. It’s whether voting for Nader did any good. We all agree that Al Gore could have been a much better candidate. I’m no Joe Lieberman fan but suspect he lost Gore very few votes, maybe even gained him a few. Did Nader voters actually abandon Gore over Lieberman, who at that point seemed more centrist then he does now? Did anyone stay home from the polls because of Lieberman? Doesn’t sound right.
The 1st and 2nd Iraq wars are two different animals. Voting for the 1st doesn’t predict launching the 2nd (which took a far deeper, nearly millinerian commitment to neo-conservative policy principles than even a younger Al Gore ever showed.)
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:57 pm
The whole min. wage debate is more about symbolism than anything.
From a strictly economic point of view, of course, raising the min. wage by fiat above the market rate will cause some unemployment. However, at the increments people are talking about, the effect is, I suspect, minimal.
A lot of min. wage workers are not the poor and oppressed, but the young and old doing part-time work, or marking time until they can become ex-Pacifica newscasters, bloggers and what-not.
So, although the economics, strictly speaking, are against it, raise the min. wage a bit, pat yourself on the back and think you have done something meaningful. You haven’t, but your good intentions will make good pavement.
June 22nd, 2006 at 4:59 pm
A country who barely accepted Gore had no chance of going to Nader, so those votes are symbolic and not part of the reality based community. Hell, even the Buchanan misvotes was enough to turn the election on its head. It was a perfect storm of crap, and the gift that just keeps on giving.
We can’t know what people will do in office, but we can have leading indicators. I doubt Gore would have said, “Oh Goody, time for Saddam.” The taliban would have been toast though as it should be. Environmental policy as we can see, would be world’s of difference.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Cummings says: “Gore was actually running more hawkish than Bush in 2000. This is why many on the left, not knowing 911 was coming up, figured a Bush presidency would be actually less imperialistic than Gore.”
I’ve never heard nonsense like this. Gore was not a favorite of the left, or even of many liberals, darling of the DLC that he is, but I can assure you that no one thought he would be worse than Bush in any department. Where do you get this stuff?
On the minimum wage…Woody, who is predictable here? I can almost stop reading your posts with the warmed over boilerplate you offer every time. The free-choice utopia of you and Tom Grey doesn’t exist. The whole game is rigged in favor of the rich and the powerful. The subsidies, tax-breaks, earmarks, grants and on and on, are all market distorting elements in favor of business (as is the deflated min wage) and wealth, but I don’t hear you squealing about that. Those priorities are shameful.
Of course, the minimum wage is just part of a much larger debate about outsourced jobs, the loss of manufacturing, intelligent application of subisidies, wage-based (rather than consumption-based) taxes which all deserve attention.
There was a time when poverty was considered a dismal blight on the virtue of such a wealthy nation, and something that could and should be nearly eliminated, but we seem to have gone back to some Victorian conception that blames poverty on the moral weakness and turpitude of the poor. I’m sure you would agree, Woody, would you not?
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Ditto reg on the “loopy” line. That’s just out to lunch. I had no doubt what W would do if he got in.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:08 pm
“So, although the economics, strictly speaking, are against it, raise the min. wage a bit, pat yourself on the back and think you have done something meaningful. You haven’t, but your good intentions will make good pavement.”
Voting to raise the MW may also change the political environment a little, redefining slightly what’s valued; the symbolic statement could then lead (eventually) to something more substantive. The symbolism has worth.
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I actually know of many people who figured a Bush win would be less bad than a Gore win, thus removing any “oh we may be spoiling this” thoughts from their votes for Nader…(and Gore won the election, so people should stop bitching at Nader.) Bush was better on Palestine, vowed a “humble foreign policy,” while Gore was into “nation building.” You tell me who sounded less imperialist? Also, Marty Peretz, hater of all things left and anti-Arab bigot endorsed Gore for 2008, logically pointing out that he outflanks Bush on the right in regards to Iran and North Korea, as Marc points out.
Donahue/Sheehan 08, anyone
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:01 pm
(hit send by accident…)
Gore opportunistically knew which way the wind was blowing before the Iraq war - he spoke eloquently - and his opposition, like much of the liberal Dem establishment - and Wall Street (as opposed to the oil/military sector) opposed the war not for moral or anti-imperialist reasons, but because - like Fukuyama openly says, it was not in American Imperialism’s interests…or how Gore puts it “America’s influence in the world.”
Many of the same Dem establishment types who opposed Iraq are for an Iran war. I don’t doubt that Gore would have been completely different had he not been radicalized temporarily by having a presidency stolen from him. He would have, with Holy Joe by his side, embarked America on the same wars. The only difference there would possibly be, maybe, is less torture - though even that I’m not sure.
Most American wars have been started by establishment liberals.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Marc - that’s just dumb - or, more likely, disingenuous. I don’t “know” what Gore would have done either. But if you look back and don’t give a shit that Bush was elected over Gore and assume Gore whould have gotten us into as big or, ‘a la JCummings, an even bigger mess post-911 - given what you know now - you really deserve the John Kerry 20-200 Voting Record Hindsight Prize. At least Kerry’s finally got cured.
Also, I don’t really have much problem with Gore’s vote on Gulf War 1. My biggest problem with that war was that Bush gave Saddam mixed signals about our response prior to the war, probably didn’t pursue every diplomatic option and then didn’t give air cover to a Shiite uprising that would have mostl likely meant Saddam would get his head chopped. Given Iraq’s history, a civil war was probably inevitable sooner or later. Better to have gotten it over with sooner without our troops in the middle. I would have opposed a U.S. counter-invasion/occupation, but not active assistance to Kurdish and Shiah moves to topple Saddam. Even though it would have inevitably benefitted Iran and been bloody, it probably would have generated greater long-term regional stability than is likely in the foreseeable future, at little or no expense to us regionally or internationally, and saved the Iraqis from a decade of brutal sanctions that ground them down relentlessly without Saddam losing even a night’s sleep.
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:33 pm
“I actually know of many people who figured a Bush win would be less bad than a Gore win”
So do I. They’re know as Republicans. And if the sentiment is shared by your leftist friends, please don’t loan them the bathroom key. I trust you and Marc…but I’m not at all sure about the rest of your circle.
As for Marty Peretz endorsing Gore, they’ve been friends since Gore was his student at Harvard. I happen to think Peretz is a total moron politically, a diletante who’s blinded by his extreme Zionism and who would be left muttering to himself between classes and appointments with students wondering why another one of his op-eds had been returned unpublished, if he hadn’t married a series of rich women who let him spend their millions to oversee the decline of The New Republic, both in prestige and readership, but I was glad to see his endoresement of Gore. I think Gore can bring together the broadest cross-section of Dems and clearly is the man most qualified to be President among the Democrtic candidates. I like Al Gore. I respect Al Gore. I supported Bradley in the 2000 primaries (I’ve admired Bill Bradley since I was in high school and he was the state basketball hero - and all-around terrific guy - back in Missouri) but in retrospect, I believe Gore would have made the better President. And compared to Bush, it’s not really worth discussing. You ally yourself pretty much with the hardcore residual wingnuts with that argument. Oh, and the Christopher Hitchens/Roger L. Simon crowd. (Wait a minute. What’s the difference ? And yeah, I know I’m elevating Simon to less low depths than he deserves by pairing him with the hair-brained but erudite Besotted One.)
June 22nd, 2006 at 6:38 pm
“Gore opportunistically knew which way the wind was blowing before the Iraq war”
Then why did so many other Dems not “opportunistically know which way the wind was blowing before the Iraq war” ??? You can’t accuse Gore of pre-war opportunism for opposing Bush and turn around and accuse Hillary or Kerry of opportunism for giving Bush carte blanche. Get your stories straight.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:02 pm
“Most American wars have been started by establishment liberals.”
Yeah, ever since that sonofabitch Roosevelt tricked us into attacking Japan and Germany and Truman started that war with North Korea. The Far Left/Far Right Conspiracy Coalition is in good form here. I damned near went to jail because of Vietnam and was soured on the Democratic party because of their culpability for that war for years, much like you and Marc remain today, but wild generalizations like the above quote are barely coherent, much less anlytically sound when measured against history. That’s another classic GOP talking point from back in the day, which has morphed into a crackpot “we’re just like Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy” neo-Con rationale for unbridled empire and a 1st Strike mentality that anyone with a modicum of historical sophistication (or, like the recently deceased George Kennan, direct experience as an “establishment liberal”) knows is pure horseshit.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Roosevelt did use slippery reasoning on Japan. I was for WW2,but not for how American went about it, as opposed to my own country. One can’t deny that Roosevelt didn’t go far enough, didn’t start early enough, didn’t allow Jewish immigration, didn’t bomb the tracks to Auschwitz, and Truman backed far-right Nazis in Europe, hired straight out the Gehlen org. Nazis, and worked with Japanese collaborators in Korea. Taft would have been better, far as I reckon. Wallace even better.
Opportunism: what every politician has, even ones I admire.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:18 pm
That’s Henry, not George.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:04 pm
On the fundamentals, the guys like George Kennan who defined containment were right and the guys like Wallace who thought Stalin essentially benign were wrong. The Cold War was, of course, fraught with over-reaction and hubristic mistakes. But Rienhold Niebuhr had it mostly right in evaluating Wallace and the nature of Stalinism and the Popular Front crowd (despite some excellent service in the frontlines of domestic social justice) were naive apologists, when the weren’t outright propagandists, for one of the two worst tyrannies of the 20th Century. The record of folks like Lillian Hellman as apologists for Stalin is, in most cases, worse than Lindberg’s vis-a-vis the Nazis. A lot of well-intentioned folks supported Wallace, but I don’t buy that Truman singlehandedly started the Cold War and there was no justification for attempting to contain Stalin. That said, a lot of bad intentions and counter-productive imperial policies were subsequently cloaked in the rhetoric of containing communism. Of course, when you and your friends are in charge, I’m sure there’ll be something approaching perfection and the lion will lie down with the lamb. (Or is that the Second Coming ? Where is Virgil Johnson when we need him ?)
And anyone who considers themselves “progressive” and would support the father of the Taft-Hartley Act over Truman, who vetoed it (at least attempted to) and called it a “slave labor” bill, is IMHO lost in the wilderness.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:06 pm
“Henry not George”
It’s funny…because the first time I read that I assumed you meant George - and since you’d been telling me that GWB was less dangerous than Al Gore, I didn’t blink. I had to reel back to ‘48 on the basis of the Taft reference.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Here’s a smart, mature article on the question of Wallace and the Popular Front left vs. “establishment” liberal fissures in ‘48. One of the most balanced I’ve seen.
http://www.prospect.org/web/printfriendly-view.ww?id=9103
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:15 pm
Nice work Reg. For that matter, why didn’t Churchill bomb Auschwitz? Geez…. If Bush accompliched anything, one would hope the great “liberal wars” theory might take a powder, or at least, a rethink? Ever hear what Goldwater’s plans for Vietnam were, by the way? I love Woody Guthrie, but when Dylan sang “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt” at his wake/tribute concert, he had to leave out the hopefully inacurate verse about Franklin really digging Stalin.
It’s true, there is no way of knowing what Gore would have done with 9-11 (given the new right’s concept of the loyal opposistion, he might well have been drumed out of office) but it is at least fair to speculate there might well have been no 9-11 had he been elected. Clearly, the stress on terrorism had been shelved because A) Clinton’s White House had been interested in it, and B) it was time to get SDI up and running.
But no, this invasion was nothing if not dumb, and that is the simply the most striking diference between Gore and Cheney, er, I mean Bush. I would say, on balance, Gore’s support of Gulf war one should not be taken as a mark against him, and that effort seems at the very least as justifyable as the ivansion of Afghanastan. Maybe more so, in that the latter may turn out to be as bungled as Iraq.
As for sticking Gore for his own loss (sic, please, sic) , well, some of his mistakes are at least as considerable as the Nadar votes he lost, and the ultimately disasterously SLANTED news coverage nessesary to elect a hopeless fool over an accomplished candidate. As for backing the Contras, well, guess he was wrong there, his voting record is pretty standard for a southern Democrat. You have to wonder, with all those disinchanted voters waiting to buck the conventional, why Nadar only got about enough to put Bush over the top. Postwar history’s great opportunity to vote a far left peace candidate after a grueling, horrific war: that big vote getter George McGovern.
I guess we should admit 9-11 didn’t change anybody much, we are still left with our dogmas. Even up here in Bill Clinton’s patute, there is a enough light to see the diference between big surplus and massive debt., gay marriage and beastiality, reproductive rights and faith based abortion bans, sensable estate penalties for the ungodly rich and “death taxes”, basic decency towards people looking for a chance in life and “Amnesty giveaways”, etc, etc.
Mr. Cooper MIGHT have been correct when he said nothing much would change if Kerry had won. Until we stop browbeating and insulting the decent people we do elect to office, the jerks will hold sway. The estate tax, the con of cons, passed the republican congress today. They will not stop this, and until they are told to leave.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:16 pm
Marc writes: “ If you think America was a non-imperial paradise of equality, justice and compassion between 1945 and 1994 because the Dems had the governing majority then you really MUST be comfortable residing in Clinton’s lower colon. It’s where you belong.”
There’s enough straw in that man to make a shipping container of laxatives. But lets not speak in metamucilfors….cough….
Here’s the deal: People liked and still like Clinton BY COMPARISON WITH BUSH/REAGAN/CARTER AND SO ON. Would Jerry Brown have made a better president? Probably. Ralph Nader, likely. Michael Kinsley, definitely.
I backed Brown in the primary, but that’s moot. Clinton moved the country in a liberal/progressive direction, even though he failed to achieve some key goals and steered–or was moved–in the opposite direction on some fronts (welfare, for one.)
Instead of flinging burning straw men on the question of Clinton and the liberal agenda, Marc should be acknowledging what was achieved and asking why the success was so incomplete.
When he does that, he’ll see that the kind of reflexive, shrill, unbalanced criticism from liberals against Clinton were part of the problem. The lack of loyalty on the part of his key constituency HELPED force Clinton into more compromises with the right wing of his own party and the Democrats.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:55 pm
I meant: “the right wing of his own party and the Republicans.”
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:32 pm
I assume the Brits also had intelligence about Auschwitz - the allies may have beat Hitler but did squat to actually save his victims.
To redbait Woody Guthrie is disgusting. Stalin’s excesses weren’t that well known til Kruschev’s secret speech. Especially since the Stalnist tactics about “loyalty’ to Clinton’s progressive achievements displayted above.
Hey, Stalin had plenty of progressive achievements…probably more than Clinton, in the grand scheme of things. But he was Stalin….who destroyed Marxist-Leninism by creating a Tsarist party in all but name just like Clinton created a Republican party in all but name.
The Liberal party in Canada had plenty of prog. achievements…I recognize them but never voted for them…No one calls people like me who vote NDP spoilers…its recognized that liberals and the left need different parties, which often compliment each other.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:55 pm
“To redbait Woody Guthrie is disgusting. Stalin’s excesses weren’t that well known til Kruschev’s secret speech. Especially since the Stalnist tactics about “loyalty’ to Clinton’s progressive achievements displayted above.
Hey, Stalin had plenty of progressive achievements”
JC - you’re off your fucking rocker. “excesses”? “progressive achievements” - you remind me of the nutcases like Irwin Silber and Marty Nicolaus who tried to resurrect Stalinism at the National Guardian thirty-odd years ago. (And some of them were very odd.) Have you ever heard of John Dewey, who documented the show trials of the ‘30a - or for that matter, Leon Trotsky ? The notion that what Stalin engaged in were “excesses” or that they weren’t well documented before Kruschev’s speech is just plain nuts - at best. Paul Robeson, for one, well knew of the anti-Semitic show trials in the late forties because friends of his were murdered and he didn’t have the balls - shockingly, given his record of standing for civil rights in the U.S. - to openly protest. Oh, and by the way, Woody Guthrie, among a whole bunch of other wonderful and not-so-wonderful things, was a “red” - proudly so. And yes, unfortunately IMHO, of the Stalinist variety. So what? Do you always get your panties twisted by reference to simple truths about the history of the left and various leftists ? Must be a drag. (T.S. Eliot was a monarchist and papist, but it doesn’t detract from the brilliance of The Wasteland.)
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
“Stalin….who destroyed Marxist-Leninism”
If your really want to be accurate on this point, Stalin created “Marxism-Leninism”. The term was never used by Lenin. Just as “Marxism” was never used - except to reject it - by Marx. “Marxism-Leniniism” is the standard rubric under which a totally perverse Stalinist ideology was conceived and propogated. An enfeebled Trotskyist variant was the exception to this rule - at least until the wonders of “Maoism” burst forth - but does anyone really want to go there ?
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Incidentally, it was absolutely no secret that Stalin had excecuted or assassinated (Trotsky) every member of Lenin’s Politbureau except himself.
Definitely an “excess”.
So much for “actually existing” Marxism-Leninism.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Woody, my good friend - I hope my distancing myself from Comrade Stalin isn’t creating cognitive dissonance for you. I know how fragile you are and I don’t want to introduce too much complexity into your “weltanschaung”.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:56 pm
[...] $10,700 $10,700 per year. That’s how much somebody makes if he or she earns the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. That’s $6,000 below the Federal poverty line for a family of three. And that’s before payroll deductions. So figure take-home pay at about eight thousand per year. $150 a week. For a 40 hour week. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it? [...]
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:26 am
“not morally against the exploitation of workers.”
I think we have different ideas on what is “exploitation”. Min. Wage does NOT allow a US middle class life, but it does provide enough for food, clothing, and low quality shelter. Time to get a better job.
“The free-choice utopia of you and Tom Grey doesn’t exist. ”
Of course not; the issue is change — towards a better, lower-unemployment society, or higher-unemployment society. MW increase will increase unemployment, a small but real amount.
Look at unemployment rates in Europe, like France & Germany, and tell me that’s what you want for America, and you think it’s better. Bah.
“The whole game is rigged in favor of the rich and the powerful. The subsidies, tax-breaks, earmarks, grants and on and on, are all market distorting elements in favor of business (as is the deflated min wage) and wealth, but I don’t hear you squealing about that. ”
You’re not listening well — I’m constantly complaining about how Dems support Big Gov’t to “help” its friends, which always turn out to be one set of rich & powerful or another. Even if they say the program is for the poor, the details are usually for the middle class and the tiny details for some rich gov’t collaborators, er, contributors.
I’m constantly complaining here how Dems never complain about any gov’t spending — but most gov’t spending goes to help the middle class & the rich!
“Those priorities are shameful.” Big gov’t in democracy has these shameful priorities — that seems the historical rule.
Why not a “voluntary draft” into National Service for all (who think their min. wage is too low)?
See more min wage on Q&O:
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=4101
June 23rd, 2006 at 5:34 am
Thank you Reg, JC, I would suggest the act of BEATING Hilter itself, an effort which took quite a few lives, might qualify as “squat” when it came to helping his victims.
Last thing I promise: Back in the Clinton years, Marc Cooper’s constant refrain on his radio show was “It seems like whenever this stuff is brought up about Clinton, Democrats will say “it’s all about sex.” I used to wonder what the hell he was talking about. That might have been the impression one got from talk radio or cable news, but by then plenty of decent jornalism was around exposing the folly of the Whitewater Right and the suspiciously amenable Press they were getting. A memorible Nation peice pointed out how the tragicly dim Howell Raines had thrown everything the Times Editorial Page had ever said about fair play and civil liberties out the window in it’s endorsement of The Clinton Hunt. I never heard any of that significantly countered by Marc Cooper or anybody else.
And so it goes. When Eric Alterman writes that no honest person believes the media was not in Bush’s camp in 2000, the best they can do is mutter “pathetic” and slink away. It’s not something you could mistake for an response.
By now there is a pretty impressive library of such pathetic stuff (the writers I’ve mentioned and more) that still can’t quite pry a response. I will ignore such embarrassments as Mr. Cooper’s attack on David Brock.
As far as missing the “complexites” of critiquing( or, as it seems it must always be, hating) both parties; well, you live with your contradictions, I live with mine. I DO remember something about “not a dimes worth of difference” between the partys coming from a certain candidate; a theme echoed by pudits like Frank Rich who now bemoan the Presidency they helped bring about.
Woody, so Gore “knew which way the wind was blowing on Iraq?” You mean he KNEW after three years we would be down 300 Billion, and twenty five hundred lives? He KNEW that, just as Micheal Moore claimed, thousands of those kite flying kids would be blown to bits no matter how Hitchens rattled on about the virtues of Achmed Chalibi? Again, Mr. Dylan is called into question, as that makes Mr. Gore a weatherman would defiantly could have used!
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:17 am
You missed my point, if you thought I was defending Stalin, I wasn’t. I was pointing out that Stalin had many progressive achievements, like Clinton, and both destroyed their respective parties because their misdeeds outweighted their progressive achievements…..Stalin destroyted the Soviet Union. I was a Trot for years, now I’m more unaffiliated. I’m well well well aware of all of that. Again my point - Clinton, destroyted Dems, Stalin, destroyted Thrid International.
Silber was more into Mao than Stalin.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:18 am
“Yeah, ever since that sonofabitch Roosevelt tricked us into attacking Japan and Germany and Truman started that war with North Korea. The Far Left/Far Right Conspiracy Coalition is in good form here.”
Reg, you’re saying Izzy Stone or Bruce Cumings are conspiracy theorists? I kinda doubt it.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:44 am
Don Surber
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2006/06/minimum-thought.html gives some facts that Marc didn’t bother finding out:
“Not included in the calculus of poverty are such federally funded programs as subsidized rent, food stamps, health insurance and other initiatives that can double the value of that $5.15 an hour, including tax credits of up to $1,000 per child. In West Virginia, poor people get $200 per year per child in clothing allowances.
Only 1% of the nation receives minimum wage, most of them part-timers. 3% make $160,000 a year or more, the salary of senators.”
Those who are at MW now should be helping themselves by finding a better paying job. Of course, that idea is supporting individual responsibility, and Dems want everybody to be a non-responsible victim so as to make other folk feel guilty.
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:22 am
I dont know which statement is more hilarious or scabrous: BB’s notion that Clinton moved America in a liberal/progressive direction or JCummin’s assertion that Uncle Joe Stalin made some mistakes but nevertheless could claim some “progressive achievements.” But the jury is in: Given that Clinton only executed Ricky Ray Rector (and a few dozen others by extension of the Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996), Stalin has him topped by about 15 million… so the winner in this particular contest is Comrade Cummings!
Come on down Cummings and collect your prize: a gift set of the writings of Lysenko!
The murderous repression by Stalin was well-know internationally, certainly by 1929 when he began the great Turn in the countryside, “liquidating” the bourgeois peasants. If that wasn’t enough, as Reg points out, there was ample coverage of the show trials as they were taking place in 1936-37; the Dewey Commission; the public lectures of an elderly Emma Goldman; all of Trotsly’s well-published writings’; and of course, the murder of Trotsky by Stalin’s agents, all of this a full generation before Khruschchev’s tepid speech. In any case, I’d love to see a list of Stalin’s progressive achievements: don’t believe I have to date so Im particularly anxious.
BB, I thought you were some kind of radical?! I dint know you were one more Clinton ball washer! Shows you one should be more careful in his judgements. Your statement is of course ridiculous. Clinton a progressive liberal? Even if you could defend that statement, even if those were his intentions, by two years after his inauguration the GOP had taken control of the COngress… what liberal/progressive direction did the country take?
On this issue Im interested in two lists from you.
List A: Please list all of the liberal/progressive measures enacted between Jan 1993 and Jan 1995 when the Democrats controlled the White House and the majority in BOTH houses of congress. Take your time, there’s no time limit on this question.
List B: please list in order of their liberal/progressiveness the following measures approved, signed or enacted by by Bill Clinton:
– execution of a visibly mentally retarded black man
– trashing of Sistah Souljah
– strongarming his party to approve GHW Bush’s NAFTA
– Proposal of a national health plan essentially written by HMO’s (and wifey Hillary)
– Signing of the Iraqi National LIberation Act which codifies “regime change”
– Signing of the Helms-Burton Act which ties the hands of the U.S. in aiding a democratic transition in Cuba
– abandonment of the humanitarian mission in Somalia because 18 American deaths too high
– ignoring genocide in Rwanda because death of one American too high
– signing of the welfare reform act which abolished the New Deal’s federal safety net and, in passing, took food stamps away from LEGAL immigrants
– signing of the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act which used the OKCity bombings as an excuse to expand federal police power, strip death penalty appellants of habeus corpus, and extend capital punishment to 51 new categories of offenses.
– blockading urban border crossings and redirecting flow of migrants into the world’s hottest deserts, hoping that fatal weather would deter them.
– signing of the 1997 immigration reform act (again bogusly based on OKC bombings) which resulted in something like 50,000 summary deportations, the stripping of due process out of mmig hearings, and expanded power to deport LEGAL immigrants
– the 1998 Operation Desert Fox bombings of Iraq.
Take your time. And answer fully. Please use a #2 pencil.
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:11 am
I think everyone missed my point on Stalin. I’m well aware of everything listed above. I’m not a Stalinist at all. As a longtime member of Trot organizations and someone whose grandfather organized Anti-stalinist unions, I have known this all of my life and don’t need lessons from Marc Cooper about it.
I was just using thes arcastic notion of Stalin having progressive achievements t refute the notion that Clinton had prog achievements. Both did, but their misdeeds (Stalin obv. worse) outweighed their good deeds. For that matter I could have said Mao or Hitler. My real point, which is obscure is that good deeds don’t make up for worse deeds.
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:14 am
Some mainstream historians, not left at all, believe that without the rapid cruel industrialization of the Soviet Union, Hitler would have won the war….ponder…
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:34 pm
“I was just using thes arcastic notion of Stalin having progressive achievements t refute the notion that Clinton had prog achievements.”
Yeah, but looking at Cooper’s association of Chomsky with conspiracy theory, it’s no wonder he couldn’t read what you wrote correctly…
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I get the idea Commings wished Hitler had won. That is one lost boy. As for the continued Clinton bashing as opposed to general nut polishing, just because progressive policies don’t get all the way there is a fact of politics where some sort of compromise is inevitable, no matter what one wants. Roadless rule? Or heathy Forests? Whose idea is greener? Natonal debt? Or erasing national debt carried over from Reagan/Bush. These are inconvenient truths but truths nonetheless.
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:36 pm
You know Grey I don’t know what it is you do for a living, but my careers under Bush have taken quite a downturn. Just last week I signed on for a $3.50 an hour cut over last year at a different agency. Sure, I’m above $5.15, but that isn’t a sign things are looking up in my view.
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Yeah, I wish Hitler won. Go fuck yourself. I’m Jewish. Mark York, you’re a pathetic little troll.
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Marc… You forgot the Wen Ho Lee case, my personal favorite among creepy Clintonion moments.
(Also the Immigration Reform and whateveryouwanttocallit Act was ‘96. Sorry, sometimes my OCD side kicks in before I can stop it.)
June 23rd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Just to be clear, nothing Bill Clinton did (or failed to do, or lied about doing) comes within a country mile of the abuses, deceptions and increasing threats to the foundation of democracy being perpetrated by this administration.
Another happy case in point was news this morning that after last week shutting down ALL press access to Guantanamo, the administration has opened access back up……one network: Fox News.
But, hey, it’s all good. The US Congress is just FINE about the fact that the poor can’t possibly make enough with a full week’s work on minimum wage to feed themselves, much less their kids.
So let’s focus on Stalin and Bill Clinton.
June 23rd, 2006 at 6:39 pm
They FOX look more like Pravda every day. Yeah well whoever that is, but sympathy for the devil is what you seem to gravitate towards so maybe clarity is in order Mr. Jordie Cummings. Just what is it you want?
June 23rd, 2006 at 6:45 pm
“Hitler would have won the war”
The fact of the matter is he couldn’t have won it onced we decided it needed to be stopped.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Mr. Coop, & all:
Quite a lively little chat. Wish I had popped in sooner — but having read through the postings that started with minimum wage, then got on to Clinton v. Bush, Nader v. Gore, Gore v. Bush (rock, paper, scissors, anyone?) … on to Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Mao (Ringo, Paul?)… back to Clinton, mininum wage… I think all the ‘best’ arguments have been made. I just can’t compete with the brilliant minds here (to some of you this is a sincere compliment).
My two cents — er, actually $1.70 — is to remind anyone not too bored, that a minimum wage hike in Michigan was forced upon the the GOP controlled legislature this year due to a ruthless, record-paced signature campaign for a ballot initiatve that would have cost Republicans in November. Those of you opposed to an increase in the minimum wage can sling your disapproving arrows at me. A target I’ll glad make.
But,
It’s a wonderful feeling when one can organize people around a cause and change a law. It’s wonderful how one feels when democracy works — or at least when one’s side finally wins one. And glad to say this: got to win this one with the Unions and the Democratic Party of Michigan.
June 24th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Well, Mr. Cooper, since none of your, shall we say, asker friendly list mentions a single aspect (yes, perhaps you have more) of the 80 million dollar Starr/Ray/etc. investigation, (whose work you gave a thumbs up with your endorcement of Impeachment) at last we can perhaps agree it was not all about sex.
Your List A is quite damning, and I fully conceide mounting even a decent reply would require some digging. I wish you’d venture a collum on this, and challege the likes of Alterman, Franken, Conason etc. to reply to the very thing. You might have also mentioned Clinton’s disasterous appointment of Louis Freeh and his faliure to fire him. I will say this much: Hillary Clinton’s stab at health care reform, flawed and clumsy as it might have been, represented a real stab at progressive reform in this country, for which She has mostly received perplexing contempt from progressives.
As for the lily gilding list B: It gets too silly, you can keep them in that order. But I would like to respond to your highly situational revulsion at the death penalty.
It’s been awhile, since the case of this “visably mentally retarted black man” (oh brother), and I’m hesitant to work off the top of my head. Certainly, the political angles make this something less than Clinton’s finest hour. Perhaps he could have stayed the exacution, kissed his political career good bye, and perhaps that would have been the right thing to do.
Yet if we are to hold Clinton to such standards (Actually, you and I are included, as U.S. citizens, as partisapents in Rector’s exacution), I am rather amazed at the pass the