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Cheap holidays and last minute bargain holiday packages departing…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nuMAooG6SM

I know rlc, for one, has served. Have you? Since you’re gettin’ all ad hominish n’ all, inquiring minds want to know.

Webb was rude and showed no class or respect for the office of the President. But, predictably, the liberals fawned all over him for such disresepct, as most of them have no class themselves.

Maybe, Kerry could tell Webb’s son how to get three quick purple hearts and come home–unless Kerry thinks he’s stupid, too.

On the other hand, maybe Webb’s son is there because he wants to serve his country as called upon and is proud to serve–something that most of you cannot stomach to think about.

Well I guess that takes him out. An American Pol taking the Palestinian side? I guess if he runs this will be used against him and I can already see the ads from Alan Dershowitz and others condemning him as another Jimmy Carter!

For some reason I was unable to post yesterday, so I was not able to respond to this comment higher up in this thread from Fred Beloit. It seems that the list of the names of the dead function as a sort of mirror. What a person sees in it tells us a lot about who they are.

I never brought up nor did I make an issue of the EITC.

Mikhail Kuraev’s
Kapitan Dikshtein

http://www.sovlit.com/minis/

It is an adroitly ” fictional” account of the Kronstadt mutiny, plus an arc or Soviet-era life until the Khruschov era, which is itself allegorical of Gorbachevs’s time.

In the 1980s and 1990 — when i was in my 20s and some of my 30s– when i wasn’t protesting, organizing , or fomenting revolution while not selling out to corporations that allow me to post 27 times on Marc’s site each morning, i read a bit.

I don’t think those were wasted years, since typing still doesn’t do squat.

Also worth noting that Vivian’s link disputes her assertion regarding the number of 20 year olds earning minimum wage. Page 3 of her CEPR link says, “In the early 2000′s, for example, fewer than one-in-five minimum-wage workers was under the age of 20…” It is possible she flipped some numbers because the authors do note that 45.9% of minimum wage earners fell between the ages of 25 and 64.

I don’t think anyone is accusing you, Vivian, of insensitivity to our nation’s poor. Instead, we’re suggesting that you’re criticizing a measure that helps the badly off because it doesn’t only help the very worst off. To me, and some of the other commenters here, that doesn’t make much sense. See the EPI response below:

Is the EITC a more effective anti-poverty tool than the minimum wage?
The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) combined with the minimum wage helps to reduce poverty, but the EITC is not a replacement for a minimum wage increase. The Earned Income Tax Credit is a popular federal anti-poverty program and an important piece of the ongoing strategy to make work pay. One reason for the EITC’s popularity is that it is based on family income and is therefore well-targeted to poor families. In addition, it encourages work because the wage subsidy increases with earnings until it reaches the maximum credit level. The EITC and minimum wage work in tandem to raise a family’s income. The effectiveness of the EITC in raising the incomes of the working poor above the poverty line therefore depends, in part, on regular increases in the minimum wage. This is because the EITC and the poverty threshold both rise each year to reflect increases in the cost of living, but the federal minimum wage does not. The EITC alone is not enough to keep a family above the poverty line, and a minimum wage worker gets further away from the poverty line each year the minimum wage is not increased.

If the minimum wage is raised to $7.25 by 2008, these two policies would work in tandem to raise the income of a family with one full-time minimum wage worker to $18,326, 14% above the poverty line of $15,735 for a family of three. A proposal that sets annual increases to the federal minimum wage to adjust for changes in the cost of living would ensure that the combination of full-time work and the EITC would always keep this family above the poverty line.

What does it say about the intellectual life of this country when a potential candidate for President drops out because he botched a joke? What were electing a stand-up comic? Call AMERICAN IDOL! What he meant, of course, was the relentless badgering he’d get in the media would doom the chances of his message getting out. Just as Gary Hart found in 1988. Just as, I believe, Al Gore feels now. I’d bet he is not running because he dosn’t want a repeat of the crap he endured in 2000 from the great and the good in punditland.

A true story. Back in 1996 Felix Rohytan of Lazard Freres was being considered for a vice chairmanship of the Fed. He decided to turn it down. When he did, he told Charlie Rose, all kinds of assiciates asked him why he would ever want to subject himself to the crap a nominee had to thru from the press. And that was a non-elective post.

Ever wonder why so many don’t run?

You need a cast iron stomach to eat this crap.

Mavis: http://www.cepr.net/publications/labor_market_2005_12.pdf … the average benefit would be $1,520/yearly. 49% of the people earning this in 2004 are still >20 years. 71% have less than a college degree. Again, I’ll state it unequivocally, 1/2 the people being helped are not the people who need it. And for those who do need help, the EITC will provide twice as much money (your numbers, Mavis). Jack up the EITC and make sure that everyone eligible receives it (25% eligible didn’t claim) and that’s a real effort fighting poverty. A minimum wage is for the most part a red herring. It doesn’t cost jobs, but it doesn’t do a lot of good. Also, the amount of lost revenue for a significant increase in the EITC allocations is minimal.

Richard -> you’re truly, truly silly. At no point did I say a damned thing about the minimum wage stifling enterprise or costing jobs. Why you’re inventing this bs is beyond my ken.

But Mavis, Richard, Randy … just because I look at the minimum wage increase in tokenism by no means makes me indifferent to the plight of the poor. It is an issue near and dear to me –> especially after growing up in a household that thought it was a good year to break the poverty line. The point I’m making is that the bourgeois congressional Dems are once again FAILING the poor … they are willing to accept no onus for increasing expenditures to expand EITC even though they are willing to go billions more to stay in Iraq. F*cked up value in my opinion.

We should expect and demand more … period.

Increase the EITC? Great idea. Bill Clinton asked Congress to do it in his last four SOTUs but they didn’t want to. In fact, in 1995 Newt and the “Conractors” tried to CUT IT. And I’d note the GOP had SIX Years in complete control and never introduced a bill to do that.

1. As the table Reg cited shows, the vast majority of workers who benefit from a min wage hike are not teenagers. That point seems settled.

2. Vivian points out that 71.3% of workers who benefit from a min wage increase live over 150% of the poverty line. For starters, why shouldn’t those people make a little more? According to HHS that means earning $30,000 a year for a family of four. I think giving those people a raise isn’t a morally questionable act. The question arises is there any practical downside? Economists argue whether or not modest minimum wage increases hurt the economy with many economists, especially those I’m inclined to believe, saying it doesn’t.

3. Vivian prefers the EITC because it’s more targeted, but does a modest increase in the EITC comparably increase wages? The pretax increase from a $5.25 per hour job to a $7.25 per hour job, assuming a worker is employed 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year, is $4,380. After taxes, I’m sure that shrinks a few hundred. Assuming that you increase the first tier of EITC (after all, you’re trying to target the poorest of the poor) from 40% to 60%, workers will go from keeping $4,300 of their first $10,750 to $6,450 of that same sum, an increase of $2,150 (this sum is after taxes). The proposed increase in minimum wage helps a comparable number Americans and gives put significantly more money in their pockets. And it’s worth noting that an EITC increase comes out of government coffers, further exacerbating our budget problems. I’m a bit out of my bailiwick here so if anyone’s got better numbers, counter-analysis, or a Max Sawicky post, I’d be glad to see it. But even if my numbers are wrong and the EITC benefits poor Americans more than a minimum wage increase, the increase is a very worthy policy goal and one that progressives should gladly support – no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the very good.

As Marc and others point out, Webb is, apparently, not the Great Liberal Messaiah, but I’ll take anti-war Democrats wherever I find them and so, I predict, will voters.