Minimum Wage

How "Conservatives" Pick Your Pocket

davidswanson — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:00:42 -0400

By David Swanson

"Jacked: How 'Conservatives' Are Picking Your Pocket (Whether You Voted for Them or Not)" is a short book by Nomi Prins that makes an excellent education for those remaining Americans who still do not understand that right-wing politicians take from those who work and give to those who live in luxury off the sweat of others.

At the end of World War II, corporations paid half the cost of the federal government. They now pay 7 percent, and many of them pay 0 percent. Unless you are very wealthy, you pick up the tab, and the tab has grown. The federal government now spends more than what it spends on everything else on the military alone, and that cost keeps rising.

So does the price of oil and gas, which is great for oil corporations, and maybe even for the chance our species has of surviving on earth, but not for your wallet. Americans are going more heavily into debt than ever, which is great for the credit card companies, banks, and blowhard politicians, but the most reckless debtor of all is the federal government, which makes things even worse for us.

Pensions are vanishing along with unions and jobs. Student loans are shrinking and college costs rising. Health care costs, too, are rising, while health insurance slips out of reach. Washington is still working hard to trash (or "privatize") Social Security and Medicare.

New Orleans still lies in ruins. Home insurance companies have still not paid up. Washington has still not stepped up. And Bush has neither apologized nor ceased making jokes about people's suffering.

Bush, on one of his Katrina-damage tours, remarked:

"An old lady walked up to me... and I said, 'How are you doing?' And she looked at me and she said, 'Not worth a darn.' And I said, 'Well, I don't blame you.' She said, 'I've been paying all my life for my insurance. Every time that bill came, I paid it... And, all of a sudden the storm hit, Mr. President, and it came time to collect, and they told me, no.' And she was plenty unhappy and she was looking for anybody she could be unhappy with, and I just happened to be the target."

Prins comments:

"No, Mr. President, you actually WERE someone she thought might be able to help her, a subtle difference that may have gone above your head."

The trouble is that it may have gone above some of his listeners' heads too. There are people who take it for granted that Bush can choose to destroy entire nations, but who accept at face value his claim that he has no power whatsoever to see that the victims of a hurricane are cared for. And it goes over even more heads that the two things are intimately related. We are killing and dying for the fossil fuels that lead to the destruction of global warming, and the financial cost of the killing and dying produces massive destruction in our economy. Meanwhile, we've allowed our government to empower loan sharks and insurance agents of all varieties to defraud us and defenestrate us from our homes.

Prins' advice is to write hand-written letters to your congress member's district office. Mine is to get this book read by any non-millionaires you know who believe "conservatism" to be something other than a cover for robbing the poor to enrich the wealthy. If enough people understood what we were doing, perhaps we could go to Washington with the message: "We've come to collect, and you don't just happen to be our target, and we won't take No for an answer."

Is Slavery In Our Future?

davidswanson — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:44:17 -0500

By David Swanson

John Bowe's terrific new book called "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy" takes the reader on a journey ending in the question I've placed above this essay.

Bowe makes three major stops along the way. The first is in Florida, where we learn in depth about the lives of immigrant farm workers held against their will and paid little or nothing for their work. By almost anyone's definition, this is a story of slavery. Yet, Bowe's fine-grained account makes clear that there are degrees of servitude, that there's no clear broad area in which to draw the line between slavery and non-slavery, and that the long history of farm labor in the United States dating back to the slavery of the 19th century is what makes modern farm slavery possible and perhaps probable. When you deny farm workers the right to even a poverty-level minimum wage, or the right to organize, and when you make them dependent for all their purchases on - and in debt to - their employer, you build a culture that inches closer to slavery. And culture, not economics understood as a science or an invisible force, is the primary problem. Slavery is the result of attitudes, of power, of sadism. It is not required by the modern economy, but our failure to regulate that economy makes slavery possible. When we see other sectors of the economy shifting to day-laborers without rights or benefits, we can expect those sectors to start looking increasingly like agriculture in other ways too.

The second stop is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a U.S. company is bringing skilled metal workers in from India on the pretext of training them, but actually forcing them to work for less than the minimum wage, and holding them there, not with chains but with confiscation of passports and the threat of deportation without payment for their labor or repayment of the money they were forced to invest to make the trip. Here Bowe's analysis strips us of the pressing need to decide whether this is or is not slavery. And here Bowe begins to raise questions about the ethics of mistreating (by American standards) workers who would earn even less at home. In this case, these workers wanted to flee their place of employment / servitude but not the United States. And when they were finally liberated (through a court case that probably cost a lot less than the ongoing "liberation" of Iraqis), these workers remained in the country and found jobs at other companies paying much higher wages.

The third stop is Saipan in the Pacific Islands or Micronesia, a place formally known as the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. The image I had of the Marianas going into this book was of an exploitative loophole engineered by Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff, a place where slave labor was used to produce goods marked "Made in the U.S.A." I still think that's accurate, but incomplete. Much of the abusive employment on Saipan that is or comes closest to being slavery is sex slavery. Working in a garment factory on Saipan is a horrible life, but one of the biggest complaints from workers is that they are not given enough overtime (of course if paid a decent hourly rate they wouldn't want overtime), and one of their biggest fears is being deported back to (in most cases) China. A lot of women come to Saipan intent on working very hard for some years and then returning to China with the money. Gambling, prostitution, and crime sometimes interrupt the plan. Women who get pregnant are often coerced into having abortions. The working conditions are outrageous and unpredictable. But most of the workers do not want to leave their jobs.

What Bowe found most revealing about his years in Saipan was observing the ways in which the culture of the place affected western men. He found them, like the natives, learning to avoid work and live by exploitation. "Each year, they knew less and were in most cases less capable of competing back on the mainland. And each year, to compensate, they pronounced from bar stools with greater and greater vigor, 'I am a man who knows things.' And many of them actually did know things, but smart or dumb, the main thing they'd learned is that life is good when one finds oneself at the top of the sexual food chain. Suddenly it was okay that three-quarters of the population lived as second-class citizens and were frequently abused, even though this was supposedly the United States. Three or four blow jobs into Saipan, most white men's reactions to the island seemed to evolve from "Gee, this is wrong" to "Well, it's complicated." Bowe compares this to how "Southerners must have sounded explaining plantation slavery to Yankees: "Oh I'm shuah it must all seem rathah strange, but you couldn't possibly understand."

Yet, we may end up having to understand, if we allow exploitation and slavery to spread. Bowe points out that the income gap between the rich and poor of the world has exploded since the historical moment when traditional slavery was largely eradicated. And in the past half century, we've moved billions of people from subsistence farming to the life of urban slums. We're on a downward path that increases exploitation, and it is not hard to imagine slavery again becoming an openly accepted practice. (Just consider how unacceptable it was to mention an American empire 7 years ago.)

The solutions, Bowe believes, are available and will probably be global. A global minimum wage and workplace and environmental standards can increasingly be seen as advantageous to everyone, meaning not just the working people of wealthy countries, but the owners - the slave owners - as well. This does not mean that appealing to people's own greed will solve anything. What Bowe recommends is that those who praise the existing global economy take the time to go and meet some of the people laboring in it. In his accounts of Florida and Tulsa, Bowe describes the efforts of people and organizations working effectively to educate and improve the world around them.

Labor and Paycheck Fairness

ricks_research — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 12:29:35 -0400

In these times of severe economic stress upon the middle class and the poor classes of our country, while the richest are becoming wildly richer, I beg of you to please support campaigns and legislation to correct the unfairness and to improve the distribution of economic wealth to those that properly deserve it.
It is the workers of America that need your help, and need it now.
We have suffered greatly for many years, it is time to turn this around in favor of the working people of America instead of the wealthy. It is time for the wealthy to payback what they owe the rest of us.

In recognition of Labor Day, here's a list of some of the current legislation in Congress affecting workers and businesses:
* H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. This act was passed by both the House and the Senate. It incrementally raises the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour, with the final stage taking place in July 2009.
* S.367, the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act. This act prohibits the "import, export, and sale of goods made with sweatshop labor"
* S.766, the Paycheck Fairness Act, "to provide more effective remedies of victims of discrimination in the payment of wages on the basis of sex"
* H.R. 2442, the Rural America Job Assistance and Creation Act, "To provide job creation and assistance"
* H.R. 2132, the Small Business Health Plans Act of 2007
* H.R. 1012, the Small Business Growth Act of 2007
* cap and regulate exorbitant CEO and other executive pay

Wall street needs to be cleaned up, and knocked back down into their place relative to the workers of America. The workers vastly outnumber the Wall street slick willys, why do we let them steal our wealth and power? It is time to stand up, and yell back at these narcisistic blow hards, and take back what is rightfully ours!!!

This is a small start, but it needs much more improvement.
Please help us, we are counting on you all!

What say you all?

Coburn Says Vote Against Minimum Wage Was "To Protect Salaries of Low-Income Families"

Bob Geiger — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:18:22 -0500

I figure the conversation went something like this last night in Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn's office after the Senate voted to increase the Federal Minimum Wage:

Media Flak Jane: OK, the boss was one of only three Senators to vote against the first minimum wage increase in a freakin' decade. How do we perfume this pig?

Media Flak Bill: Say he was drinking before the vote?

Jane: Can't. We've been using that for his support of the troop escalation.

Bill: Self-medicating?

Jane: Good point. He is a doctor.

Bill: Wait, how about this: We say he voted against giving the working poor a raise to "protect the salaries of low-income families."

Jane: But that makes no sense.

Bill: I know. I think the media will buy it.

That's the only way I can make any sense out of the press release that came out of Coburn's office last night, in which he depicted his steadfast desire to keep working families in poverty as a way of helping them. The headline on the press release said "Dr. Coburn Votes to Protect Salaries of Low-Income Families from Flawed Wage Bill" and it went on to explain how it's really him and not Ted Kennedy (D-MA) protecting America's working poor.

“This bill is unfair to workers and, in many cases, it will be harmful to the very people it is supposedly designed to help. Most workers will experience a minimum-wage penalty rather than a minimum-wage benefit because of this bill," said Coburn. "This bill has far more to do with increasing the political capital of politicians in Washington than increasing real wages of low-income families.”

Coburn than goes on to make the ludicrous argument that raising the wages of these workers would actually hurt them because allowing them to bring more money into their families would mean they would be eligible for… less welfare!

"In Oklahoma, low-wage workers are eligible for up to $25,726 in assistance in areas such as child care, housing assistance and food stamps," the reality-challenged Okie continued. "Under the minimum wage increase approved by Congress, these low-wage workers would find themselves eligible for benefits worth $4,600 less than they would under the current minimum wage. Yet, their newly increased wage would only provide an increase of $4,368 per year, resulting in a net income loss of $232 per year."

Coburn then explains that this is not all that big a deal because 29 states already have minimum wages higher than the current $5.15 per hour -- even though his constituents don't happen to live in one of those states -- and closes by saying that Oklahomans need to be wary of Washington politicians showing fake concern for the poor.

"American families deserve an economy in which they can prosper, not more counterfeit compassion from Washington,” Coburn concludes.

Hey, I think we can all agree on that.

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Update: You can go here to see statements from Senate Democrats on the minimum wage increase.

minimum wage

nm allen — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:51:53 -0500

Raising the minimum wage to a paltry $7-something an hour is ridiculous. A minimum wage which is less than a living wage keeps the middle class in the position of supporting the underpaid so that business-owners can continue to reap obscene profits, & a business which can't sustain itself while paying a living wage is an exploiter, not an employer.

Tying tax-rates for those in the uppermost brackets would automatically lead to decent wages for workers, since the minimum would then determine the highest incomes. For example, all personal income in excess of 3 times the minimum wage would be taxed at an 85% rate, all personal income exceeding 4 times the minimum would be subject to a 95% rate, & all income over 10 times the minimum would be taxed at 99%. Individual income between the minimum & the 3-times level would be taxed on a graduated basis.

Such a system would greatly diminish the greed factor without completely destroying incentives for those who are competitive, while comcomitantly redistributing wealth so that we might have a real democracy instead of a de facto oligarchy masquerading as an "everyone's vote counts" government, & America's unemployed could afford to take jobs currently being given to illegal aliens & third-world workers at slave wages.

GOP Stalls On Minimum Wage To Avoid Iraq Votes

Bob Geiger — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:41:02 -0500

The majority of Senate Republicans filibustering and delaying the passage of a new minimum wage law may be heartless, but they're not dumb. They know that bumping the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour is enormously popular with the American people and they're also aware that it passed by huge numbers in the House of Representatives, with 80 Republicans voting in favor of helping the working poor.

So why the stalling? Why put off the inevitable with over 100 nonsensical amendments, while already voting once against ending debate on a clean minimum wage bill?

Well, folks, it's kind of like the Seinfeld episode, where George Costanza knows his girlfriend is about to break up with him so he just ducks her -- breaks dates, pretends he's not home, doesn’t answer the phone, reasoning that if he can stall her by not being available, she can’t break up with him.

Except in this case, the Republicans figure that if they can keep the Senate occupied indefinitely with an open-and-shut thing like a minimum wage increase, they can avoid the thing they fear most -- having to vote on any of the myriad Iraq-war resolutions waiting in the wings.

"Tuesday, we'll have a vote and, you know, they may defeat cloture just like they did on the ethics thing," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), at a joint press conference with Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on Friday. "They know that they're on the wrong side on this issue. And we're going to not let them forget it."

"If they defeat cloture on minimum wage, they think we're going to bring this right back? Oh, no we're not. We're going to move to another subject they don't like to talk about: escalation of the war in Iraq… they know when minimum wage is finished, we're going to Iraq."

Reid has the bipartisan Biden-Hagel-Levin resolution against the escalation of the Iraq war waiting in the wings and my bet is that, if Republicans filibuster -- vote against cloture -- on the minimum wage legislation on Tuesday, Reid will temporarily table that legislation, call the Republicans on their game and move on to the Iraq war.

Senate Democrats can then bring the minimum wage -- which now contains $8 billion in new tax breaks for small businesses -- right back after Iraq resolutions and ongoing funding for troops (already in Iraq) are handled.

"It took the House of Representatives four hours to increase the minimum wage with 80 Republicans supporting it," said Kennedy at the Friday news conference with Reid. "Why, Mr. Republican, will you not permit the Senate of the United States to increase the minimum wage, which has not been increased for 10 years for men and women who are at the lower end of the economic ladder, men and women of dignity who take a pride in their work, who are trying to provide for their family?"

And Kennedy, who has fought for years to get the minimum wage increased, agrees with Reid that stalling from the Republican side of the aisle has nothing to do with the wage bill itself and everything to do with their fear of having to take a stand on the war. According to Kennedy , any Republicans voting against the minimum wage increase on Tuesday will effectively be telling Americans that they don’t want to move on to Iraq votes, meaning that they want to stay in Iraq indefinitely.

"The vote will be, effectively, the vote on the war. And the American people will understand it. And there is nothing that Mitch McConnell can do about that," said Kennedy. "So make no mistake about it, Mr. Republicans, we're going to get -- under the leadership of Harry Reid, we're going to get a vote, one way or the other. The American people are entitled to it. Under the cloture, that'll be the vote. It'll be the vote on the war."

I believe what will take place is that the minimum wage vote will occur as scheduled and, if the Republicans block it again, Reid will set it aside, bring it back in a few weeks and jump immediately to Iraq. He said as much on Friday.

"I'll tell you one thing: There are 21 Republicans up for reelection this time. If they think this is going to be a soft vote for them, they've got another thing coming," said Reid. " So let them defeat cloture. I'll take that bill [minimum wage] off the floor in five seconds and we'll get to debating Iraq."

Meanwhile, Kennedy keeps plugging away while getting angry enough, as he did on Thursday night, to ask just what the hell Republicans have against working Americans.

"I've said on the floor of the United States Senate, and I still question our Republican leadership," said Kennedy. "What is it about hard-working people that the Republicans don't like? What is it, Mr. Republican, that you cannot stand about hard- working Americans at the lower end of the economic ladder?"

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Kennedy Invokes Brother's Words In Minimum Wage Fight

Bob Geiger — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:18:04 -0500

It had been a long week in the Senate and it took Ted Kennedy (D-MA) finally blowing a gasket on Thursday and torching Republicans for their standard Simon Legree act in blocking a minimum wage increase for the tension to become apparent to the entire nation.

But it's important to note that, as the Senate leader on this issue -- and its chief proponent for years -- Kennedy had a lot of time in front of the microphone and most of it was spent trying to diplomatically cajole his GOP colleagues into doing the right thing.

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Senator remembered the words of his brother, President John F. Kennedy who, at a pivotal time in U.S. history, tried to lead Americans with a philosophy that is all but forgotten by the Republican party under George W. Bush.

Here's Ted Kennedy invoking his brother's memory in appealing to Republicans:

President Kennedy once said:

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

We are a rich nation, but unless we do more to help the poorest Americans, we will not be able to save ourselves.

We have an opportunity today to take one bold step toward solving the problem of poverty in this great Nation. Today -- right now -- we can pass the House bill and send it to the President. We can raise the minimum wage and give 13 million hard-working people hope for a brighter future."

But, as many expected, Kennedy got just the opposite result as the rest of the week unfolded with Republicans proposing over 100 amendments designed to stall a vote on the wage hike and secure more giveaways for business. Indeed, in a move that shocked even the most cynical among us, Republican Wayne Allard even proposed a bill to eliminate the Federal Minimum Wage entirely.

So the issue goes back to the Senate floor on Monday, when the measure to raise the minimum wage from the $5.15 per hour it has been for a decade to $7.25 -- which the vast majority of Americans support -- will once again hit the Republican wall.

"This should not be a partisan issue," said Kennedy, still holding out hope on Wednesday. "It is about standing behind our values. It is long past time to do the right thing and give minimum wage workers a raise."

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Voices From Senate Floor On Minimum Wage

Bob Geiger — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:38:39 -0500

Here are some notes and quotes from Senators fighting Republicans last week to get an increase in the Federal Minimum Wage. Ted Kennedy (D-MA): Wage hike not normally linked to tax cuts

"Only once in 1996 did we pair a minimum wage increase with tax cuts. Previous increases had strong bipartisan support, despite the lack of tax cuts. In 1989, the minimum wage was raised with no tax cuts and passed by a margin of 89 to 8. In 1977, with no giveaways, an increase passed 63 to 24. We have seen what has happened. "Only one time -- it didn't happen in 1938, 1949, 1955, 1961, 1966, 1974, 1977, 1989 --only in 1996. And look in the last 10 years what has happened in terms of the reduction of taxes for corporations and for small businesses. In corporations, it is $276 billion in tax breaks; small businesses, $36 billion; and no raise for minimum wage workers. "Now, all of a sudden, we are trying to get minimum wage workers a little boost, and everybody is running around to get an increase in tax provisions."

Bob Casey (D-PA): An issue of "economic justice"

"Since 1997, congressional pay has increased 24 percent, about $31,000. This has occurred while the value of the minimum wage has been eroded by 20 percent. "Let me say that again: Congressional pay up 24 percent, the value of the minimum wage down 20 percent. We cannot say that enough. The cost of living is up 26 percent, the cost of food up 23 percent, the cost of housing up 29 percent, the cost of gasoline up over 130 percent, the cost of health care up 43 percent. Families who are listening to this today know this. The average premium for a family of four costs over $10,000, almost $11,000, which is more than a minimum wage worker earns in a year. "What we are talking about here is an issue, indeed, of economic justice. Raising the Federal minimum wage will give our workers more than $4,000 per year. Let's consider what that could buy for a family in America. You can buy almost 2 years of childcare with over $4,000, full tuition at a community college, 2 years of health care, 1 year of groceries, 1 1/2 years of heat and electricity, and 8 months of rent. That is how we affect, in a positive way, people's lives, the lives of hard-working men and women in America today. "Those who argue against an increase in the minimum wage will say that an increase will hurt small business and/or the economy. I do not agree with that because if you look at the data, when the minimum wage was increased in 1997, what happened in the aftermath? Millions and millions of jobs were created and raising the minimum wage did not slow that down one iota."

Daniel Akaka (D-HI): Invokes Constitution's general welfare clause

"We have listened this morning to those who believe that raw economic arguments ought to control the question of the minimum wage. We as a country have moved away from that. We have accepted the great traditions of Judeo-Christian teachings as well as the underlying teachings of all the religions that talk about responsibilities we all have for the least among us. In the Constitution of the United States, they have what is called the general welfare clause. The general welfare clause was written into the Constitution for those very purposes."

You can read more of this article at BobGeiger.com.

Minimum Wage Front And Center In Senate

Bob Geiger — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:40:26 -0500

Almost two weeks after a bill to raise the Federal Minimum Wage easily passed the House of Representatives, the legislation has arrived on the Senate floor, with debate started yesterday and a vote expected by the end of the week.

The measure to raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade has been a long slog for Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who brought the legislation to help the working poor before the previous, Republican-controlled Congress three times, only to see it shot down by the GOP on each occasion.

"After 10 long years without a raise, it’s long past time to share the wealth with America’s minimum wage workers," said Kennedy, in a speech last week. "I’m optimistic that my colleagues in the Senate will agree, and we can take prompt action next week to give working families the raise they deserve. No one who works for a living should have to live in poverty."

The bill would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over two years, which is still less than the lowest allowable wage rate in states like California, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts -- you know, the blue states.

Senate Republicans facing reelection in 2008 realize they better have a damn good reason to vote against this increase and are trying to make a wage hike for workers more palatable for themselves by attaching add-on bills to give yet more tax breaks to business. And they were successful at getting Max Baucus (D-MT), the chair of the Senate Finance Committee to agree to add a bill providing more business tax breaks -- but they did that under the threat of a filibuster, which would then essentially require 60 votes to pass the minimum wage legislation, versus a simple 51-vote majority.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney comes down hard on that and urges the Senate to have the courage to pass a "clean" minimum wage bill.

"The Senate should pass a fair and clear-cut minimum wage increase for our nation’s working poor, with no special strings attached for business," said Sweeney in a statement yesterday. "We are urging Senators to vote 'yes' on a clean minimum wage bill in order to prevent even more business pay offs and anti-worker add-ons to what should be a straightforward piece of legislation."

Sweeney points out that it's also just a silly way for Republicans to kiss up to business as they have already been remarkably generous to the business community in the decade that has seen no salary increase for minimum-wage workers.

"There's no good reason to lard the Senate minimum wage bill with yet another round of unwarranted tax breaks for business," said Sweeney. "In the last 10 years, the Republican-led Congress provided corporations with $276 billion in tax cuts and provided small businesses with another $36 billion in dedicated tax breaks."

The AFL-CIO president also said that Senate Democrats must "squash the business lobby’s myth about how raising the minimum wage will hurt small business and cost our nation jobs," a call that Senator Kennedy has been heeding for years. Here's Kennedy:

"In the House debate last week, opponents again claimed that the small business community is vehemently opposed to an increase. They think small businesses will suffer or collapse even with our modest increase.

"That’s preposterous. A recent Gallup poll found that 86% of small business owners don’t think that the minimum wage affects their business—at all. In fact, small businesses have historically prospered after past increases. More than half the states have already acted to increase minimum wages above the federal level today, and these states are generating more small businesses than states with a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour"

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also compromised with Republicans in order to get the sweeping ethics legislation passed last week -- isn’t it amazing how much you have to compromise with the GOP to get an ethics bill passed? -- and has promised to bring a measure by Judd Gregg (R-NH) to give a line-item veto to the president to the floor for a vote this week.

The Senate's not about to give the line-item veto to the most incompetent president in U.S. history and it is my hope that Democrats will soundly reject the bill calling for more business tax cuts and pass a clean minimum wage bill to help the five million additional Americans who have slipped into poverty during the Bush years.

With the minimum wage at its lowest buying power in 50 years and with a presidential election and more huge Congressional elections coming in 2008, I say let the schmucks on the other side of the aisle filibuster or vote against it. Then we simply hang that giant rock around their necks for the next election and, being the majority party and all, simply keep bringing economic justice to the floor of the Senate until it passes.

Said Kennedy in the Senate yesterday: "Americans understand the issues of fairness. They understand the importance of work. Americans have believed, for a long period of time, if you work hard and play by the rules, you should not have to live in poverty in the United States of America."

You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com.

Kucinich - Out of Iraq and Back to the American City

CactusPat — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 20:57:39 -0500

So who do want to be President?

Out of Iraq and Back to the American City By Dennis J. Kucinich, Democratic Candidate for President of the United States - 10th Annual Wall Street Project Conference - Sheraton New York & Towers, Monday, Jan. 8, 2007
We are losing our nation to a philosophy of war and destruction. It is time for policies of peace and construction. It is time for the philosophy of peace, nonviolence and economic justice. This was the philosophy of Dr. King, Gandhi, Jesus, Fredrick Douglas, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Cesar Chavez, and Jesse Jackson.

We are all united with the philosophy which birthed the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the dreams of social and economic justice which could be called forth by those who were ready to stand up, to speak out, to march, to demand, to testify about the good news...

The world is interconnected. The world is interdependent. We are not just our brother and sisters keeper, on a deeper spiritual level we are our brothers and sisters. This is the meaning of the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the meaning of Love Thy neighbor as thy self. This is why policies of unilateralism, first strike, and preemption are dead ends. This is why nuclear proliferation is a threat to every person on the planet. This is why the very idea that war should be an instrument of policy needs to be challenge. War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we are prepared to work for it.

Dr. King understood this. In his speech in New York City nearly forty years ago, he created a synthesis of peace and civil rights. “Somehow this madness must cease,” Dr. King told those assembled at Riverside Church about the annihilation of the Vietnamese people and their nation. “I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are destroyed, whose culture is being subverted…. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world, as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our nation: The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours too.”

That is why tomorrow I will present Congress with a plan to get out of Iraq. We must end the occupation, close the bases, and use the money that is there now to bring the troops home while we prepare Iraq for an international security force. I led the effort in the House of Representatives challenging the Bush Administration’s march toward war in Iraq. I organized 125 Democrats to vote against the war.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But there are plenty of weapons of mass destruction here in the United States which need to be removed. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction, joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction, theft of pensions, a weapon of mass destruction, hopelessness is a weapon of mass destruction.

Let’s deal with the WMD’s in our cities. It is time to get out of Iraq, which did not have weapons of mass destruction and into our American cities, which are loaded with weapons of mass destruction.

This then is a call for a politics of unity where human unity becomes an imperative. This is a call for a politics of economic justice, where wealth creation is available to everyone, where the government becomes an engine to create wealth for all, where it functions to equitably redistribute the wealth.

We know the challenges. The war in Iraq is the product of the same type of thinking which underlies racism. Us vs. them. The minute there is a THEY or a THEM it creates separation. Separation is the basis for discrimination. Separation is the basis for subjugation. Separation is the basis for insularity. Separation is the basis for conflict. Separation is the basis for war. Separation is the basis for the destruction of our environment. Separation is the basis for the destruction of the planet.

We are at a moment where our survival instinct causes us to declare the imperative of human unity. A unity of states is a superficial unity if it does not embrace policies which promote human unity, human equality, human striving, the practical aspirations of people.

There has been a massive redistribution of wealth in our society. Government has been turned into an engine to redistribute the wealth upwards. Our whole monetary system is based on debt creation for the masses and wealth creation for the few. War has become an engine of wealth for military contractors. Health care has become an engine of wealth for the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies. The tax system is used to accelerate wealth to the top. Our banking and credit systems accelerate wealth to the top. Our electric utilities, our gas companies, our oil companies accelerate wealth to the top. Our energy systems accelerate wealth to the top. Our transportation systems accelerate wealth to the top. Our information systems accelerate wealth to the top.

The concentration of wealth in our society has jeopardized our democracy. It has created a two class society. And in doing so jeopardizes the very institutions of wealth creation. Franklin Roosevelt recognized this in the creation of the New Deal which saved not only economic opportunities for the masses, but also saved capitalism itself.

There is an unlimited amount of wealth that can be created in our society. We need to teach our children wealth creation. But we need to challenge the fundamental assumptions that guide our society, assumptions such as “a certain amount of unemployment is necessary to the functioning of the economy.” or “let the market decide access to health care.” We need to perfect our union. This then is the perfect opportunity for us to perfect our union, to perfect the purpose of government, to perfect our mutual pledge to each other. It is time for a declaration of human economic rights of citizens of an urban society, and tie that declaration to legislation and use that legislation to create wealth and harmony and peace.

Langston Hughes wrote: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” We know that experience, we also know that we can teach people to create wealth if we can help them find a way to get access to wealth.

I am a product of the city. My parents never owned a home. I grew up in 21 different places by the time I was 17, including a few cars. I’ve learned about opportunities. I’ve learned that if you believe it you can conceive it. I’ve learned about pulling oneself up by bootstraps. I’ve also seen the cynicism which comes when you tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and then you steal their shoes. I’ve seen people dreaming the dreams and stuck singing Sixteen Tons.

We are not going back to the days of Sixteen Tons.

So let it be said here:
We have a right to a job.
We have a right to a living wage.
We have a right to an education.
We have a right to health care.
We have a right to decent and affordable housing.
We have a right to a secure pension.
We have a right to air fit to breathe.
We have a right to water fit to drink.
We have a right to be free of the paralyzing fear of crime.
We have a right to be free of a government tapping our phones, opening our mail, checking out our library reading lists, snooping into our medical records, and our credit records.
We have a right to fair, open and verifiable elections where every vote counts and every vote is counted.
We have a right to peace.
We have a right to prosperity.

This means ending the war in Iraq.
This means bringing the money home to our cities.
This means a full employment economy.
This means good paying jobs.
This means a living wage.

This means a federal infrastructure bill to put millions to work rebuilding our schools, our bridges, our libraries, our universities our hospitals, our city halls, our recreation centers, our sidewalks, our street lights, our parks, our water systems, our sewer systems, our neighborhoods.
This means a more perfect union.
This means every child goes to a prekindergarten and every young person goes to a junior or a four year college.
This means universal health care.
This means a new housing initiative where everyone has access to affordable housing.
This means full protection of social security and no privatization.
This means protection of private pension funds.
This means giving workers access to the power of their pension funds to invest in job creation.
This means cleaner energy, greener energy.
This means programs for safer neighborhoods..
This means initiatives which bring people out of prison and into the mainstream of society.
This means a Department of Peace and nonviolence.

I don’t just talk the talk. I walk the walk.
The universal health care bill is called Conyers-Kucinich. It calls for a universal single payer not for profit health care system to lift everyone up. To give everyone access to health care.

I wrote the federal infrastructure bill.
I wrote the universal pre-kindergarten bill.
I wrote the bill for a Department of Peace and non-violence to make Dr. King’s dream of non- violence a reality. That bill will deal with the realities of violence in our society and take a path towards more peaceful relationships. It will help families who suffer from domestic violence, spousal abuse, child abuse; it will meet the challenge of violence in the schools, racial violence, violence against gays, police community conflicts, using the principles for which Dr., King lived. And it will create a context where a peaceful America can help to create a peaceful world. Imagine. Peace as an organizing principle. Prosperity as an organizing principle.

And when I am elected President of the United States, in my first day in office I will be ready to push. I will send to the congress a bill for universal single payer not for profit health care.
I will send to the congress legislation for creating millions of jobs through rebuilding America’s infrastructure, I will send congress legislation to create a summer jobs program.
I will send congress legislation to create affordable housing.
I will send congress a bill to establish a cabinet level Department of Peace and Non Violence.

I can do this because I have already written many of these bills. They are ready and so am I. I will move to restore the Constitution, restore habeas corpus, and repeal the Patriot Act. If you are ready, I am ready for a new America. And I am ready to unite this country in the cause of peace, justice and prosperity.

Our unity extends to all people everywhere. The Bible tells us to make peace with our brother because we are all one. We are told whatever we do for the least of our brothers and sisters, we do for the Lord, because we are all one in spirit. We are told that we have an obligation to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked not simply because we are our brother and sisters keeper, not just because there but for the grace of God go I, but because wherever there is a hungry person, there I am. Wherever there is someone who is homeless, there I am.

Wherever someone is walking the streets looking for a job. That person is my brother and that person is me. Wherever a child goes to bed hungry, I am there. We connect with each other in our profound, human experience. We connect with each other through the imperative to love one another. We bind to each other in all of our hopes, in all of our dreams, and in all of our sufferings. The awareness which bids us to pursue a more perfect union make us aware of the perfectibility of our social systems, our economic systems and our own lives. We are meant for higher things. We are meant for better things. We are meant for peace, for prosperity, for enlightenment, for health, for love, for a more perfect union with ourselves, with each other, with our nation and with the world. Human unity is the great path that we all can walk upon. The world is interconnected. The world is interdependent.

I know that we are on the threshold of greatness because the people are great and we just need to call forth that awareness, call forth that ability, give people the resources, show people the money, show them their power, show them their beauty, show them that we can all be more than we are, better than we are. It’s about reaching up and reaching out. It’s about Push. It’s about the Rainbow Coalition. It’s about Human Unity. It’s about a new America. It’s about a new world. Let us begin.