Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Obama Is Setting Up a Minimum Wage Blame Game with the GOP in Coming Budget Negotiations

Never one to stay the course with an agenda item until it succeeds, President Barack Obama has now put aside the Chinese attempt to take over the entire East China Sea and the disastrous Obamacare and has turned to preaching to Congress about raising the minimum wage and securing the social safety net. He issued a wide-reaching appeal Wednesday to correct inequalities that he said make it harder for a child to escape poverty. "That should offend all of us," he declared. "We are a better country than this." Trying to benefit by hitting the pocketbook issues that Americans rank as a top concern, Obama argued that the dream of upward economic mobility is fading and that the growing income gap is a "defining challenge of our time." The President made his remarks at a nonprofit community center a short drive from the White House in one of Washington's poorest neighborhoods. Although he offered no new initiatives, Obama combined his call for Congress to act on pending short-term economic measures with a long-term view aimed at easing a growing level of US income inequality. If President Obama thought shifting topics would relieve the pressure he is feeling over the catastrophic rollout of Obamacare, he didn't help his own cause when he acknowledged his administration's "poor execution" in rolling out the flawed website that was supposed to be an easy portal for purchasing insurance, while blaming Republicans for a "reckless" shutdown of the government. "Nobody has acquitted themselves very well these past few months," Obama said. "So it's not surprising that the American people's frustrations with Washington are at an all-time high." Obama's speech was delivered amid public doubts over his stewardship of the economy, as his overall approval ratings sink and he seeks to move beyond the Obamacare troubles that have consumed his presidency in recent months. But, worse for Americans than the Obamacare fiasco, he said, are their growing difficulties in trying to make ends meet no matter how hard they work. The President quoted the Pope's question : why is it not news when an elderly homeless person dies from exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points. Obama said that a child born in the lowest 20% of income level has a less than 5% chance of making it to the top income levels and is 10 times likelier to stay where he is - worse than other industrial countries such as Canada, Germany and France. Responding, House Speaker John Boehner blamed lack of action on jobs-related legislation. He said bills passed by the Republican-controlled House that would help the economy and create jobs have been blocked in the Democratic-controlled Senate. "The Senate and the President continue to stand in the way of the people's priorities," he said on the House floor. Obama wants to increase the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour. A Democratic bill by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa would raise the threshold to $10.10 an hour in three steps and tie automatic annual increases to changes in the cost of living. Obama conceded that "the elephant in the room" is the political gridlock that has prevented congressional action. ~~~~~ Dear readers, as Washington gears up for another round of budget negotiations, beginning this month, the Obama minimun wage proposal seems unlikely to garner the 60 votes it would need to clear the Senate. President Obama seems to be using the minimum wage proposal as the budget negotiations approach in order to force the Republican House majority to publicly say "no" to a sensitive social issue in their legitimate effort to reduce America's debt and bring the federal budget under control. Since Obamacare is now an issue favorable to the GOP, Obama appears to be creating yet another obstacle to real negotiation and compromise. President Obama does not seem to recognize that negotiating is not throwing nails in front of the oncoming truck. Negotiating is finding ways to agree on behalf of America so that everyone feels that they are a valuable part of the political process.

9 comments:

  1. A $10.10 per hour minimum wage - now there is one brilliant idea. Exactly what would that do for the "minimum wage earners".

    1. Drastically reduce available minimum wage jobs in an already reduced lower wage earning jobs market.
    2. Increase the cost of living for the lower class of wage earners because of high double digit unemployment numbers and increase in prices that always accompany "minimum wage increases"
    3. Drive marginally qualified workers permanently out of the job market
    4. Drive up minority unemployment because of job experience, job qualifications.
    5. Make a simple High School Diploma virtually useless in the job market
    6. Eliminate "part time" minimum wage jobs for the 16-24 year old.
    7. In today's very depressed job market that Obama has created would almost certainly a college degree necessary for 90% of what ever jobs may be available.

    Here's an equally stupid idea ... reduce the minimum wage to open up the lower end job market. Or is it all that stupid.

    If business aren't filling lower end jobs because of the minimum wage -lowering the wage may just open up some jobs. But then all the "perks" of unemployment and welfare benefits would be more attractive that getting up and going to WORK at 1 or 2 jobs.

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    1. I like your idea to reduce the minimum wage.

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  2. The last statement is the way it ideally works but Washington is NOT ideal.

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  3. Obama and all his fellow Progressive Socialists reformers need to learn a few truisms. Firstly government can not manufacture fairness within a society. Secondly, earned monies cannot be redistributed to those who did not partispate in its generation. Wealth belongs to those who worked for it - not to the society as a whole.

    And maybe most important ... Money given but not earned decays the bottom tier of a society into a perpetual state of stagnation.

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  4. Considering all the entitlement programs, social welfare handouts, and protectionary programs that keep individual from loosing possessions ( ie: homes,cars, etc) what is the real purpose if a Minimum Wage.

    Is there a large number if people out there that are actually going to work for $7.25 per hour vs sitting at home collecting various benefits and somewhat being paid for doing nothing.

    Paid by whom ... Those who produce, those who are the wheels of Industry go round, those who do the best they can and then proceed to live within those parameters.

    With all the availability of government subsidized education, extension if unemployment checks if your in a training program (at government expense) that will enhance your marketability ... Who really needs to worry about an increase in minimum wage increase.

    Instead maybe we should standardize Allstate and federal minimum wages at the same level ... Some number that really represents "minimum" and has an action that propels into a training program to secure a better income on their own merits.

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    1. Excuse the typo ... should have been "We Challenge"

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  5. Is this the absolute best that the president of the USA come up with given all the festering problems he has on his plate presently.

    Because of all his lies, misrepresentations of facts, deceit, and cover ups all falling in on him and his administration - minimum wage is not on the radar screen.

    DROWNING - pure and simple that is what is happening to his administration and his ability to "lead" (if he ever did) this nation. The calls of pre-investigation of possible Impeachment charges is hot and heavy.

    All this Minimum Wage talk is about changing the subject from Obamacare, Benghazi (which won't go away), Libya, Syria, Iran, China, North Korea, his own birthplace is coming back to center stage, a far off question about "his" daughters lack of birth certificates... to something new that he has yet to lie it into another crisis.

    Trust is not a word that can be used in the same breath with Obama.

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  6. When someone is being interrogated (for whatever) a giveaway that there is the presents of guilt is that the subject cannot or will not make eye contact when answering and/or keeps answering but not the direct question.

    Observe how Obama keeps looking around the room during a press conference or a one on one interview and that he always answers the associated question or his perceived question and not the actual asked question.

    If increasing the Minimum Wage would make this fairy tale administration disappear then lets act on it today. Under this administration the debacle of jobs, job creation, and general economic improvement is off the table. When was the last time Obama spoke of job creation.

    The Labor Department’s weekly reports are so flip flop,, so made up, so contradictory, and so unbelievable that the rise to the level of a Comedy act.

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  7. The difference between Bill Clinton and Obama is that when Clinton got into trouble he moved to the center politically. Whereas Obama moves further to the left politically and exasperates the trouble with more people on the political spectrum.

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