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The bill entering law this session is very different from that of last session.
Here is the original bill:
Here is the amended version that passed the Senate last year…… which dropped the rates by a half a dollar, and excluded the possibility that Delaware could be over the Federal Minimum Wage…
The House Amended it this year, primarily to update the dates by 6 months.
Then came the first Republican torpedo, later stricken…. to poke multiple holes in the minimum wage, thereby making it a minimum seive. Allowing for the payment of $5.81 per hour to the following….
(1) employees under the age of 18; and
(2) employees during their first 180 consecutive calendar days of employment with the employer; and
(2) employees employed in a seasonal capacity.”
Here is the real Republican torpedo. (Defeated naturally like everything Republican in this wonderful state) to extend implementation by half a year.
Then the third Republican attempt at poking holes in the minimum wage to allow businesses to exploit child and migrant labor by paying them $5.81 an hour….
(1) is under the age of 18; or
(2) is within the employee’s first 180 consecutive calendar days of employment with the employer; or
(2) is employed in a seasonal capacity.”
As it stands now, the minimum wage will rise to $7.75 per hour on June 1, 2014, and then again one year later. On June 1, 2015, the minimum wage will be $8.25.. unless the Federal wage is passed at a higher amount: $10.10….
But the real question is this: how is it remotely possible that we still have 16 people in the civilized world, much less in our Delaware legislature, who still think it is ok to pay $5.81 for minimum wages therby putting Delaware in a slot between Slovenia and Greece on a chart of international minimum wages….
How is it possible that Blakely, Briggs-King, Dukes, Gray, Deborah Hudson AGAIN!!!!, Q. Johnson, Kenton, MIRO, Outten, Peterman, Ramone, D. Short, Smyk, Spiegelman, Walker, Wilson, are still living in the 1990’s back when $5.81 was considered the barest acceptable minimum wage? Roll back time 20 years… Sure, no problem say these 16.
Greece. These people want us to be Greece…. GET RID OF THEM! GET RID OF THEM ALL….. 🙂 (it is an election year, you know?)
Graphs Courtesy of Washington Post
Everyone knows the Republicans are the party of “no” . However not many of you have seen the full effect these Republicans have caused.
Introducing Next Year’s Republican House Schedule… Number of days working; 10% fewer than 2013.
Between August and Nov. 4 — Election Day 2014 — the House will be in session 12 days. The chamber will be in session for 27 days between August and the year’s end.
No week longer then 4 days.
One month they work 4 weeks. All others are three weeks or less.
For all intents and purposes, it looks like since Republicans cannot win elections, they have chosen to be famous for being the most unproductive party ever assembled in the once great United States of America……
Why?
We had this argument in the 18th Century and America settled it for once and all with it’s frontier. Why are we revisiting it again? Could it simply be put that the economics of today rival the disparities of income existing in that time, and with our poor appreciation of history we are again repeating the same mistake?
The British social srtata (between top and middle class) moved further apart from 1745 to 1875. That translates to the exact time period of the Industrial Revolution from its inception, to the the beginning of the formation of labor unions. When employers experienced work stoppages causing their companies to lose money, it was decided that perhaps paying them a more of a pittance was not that bad an idea after all.
Furthermore, during that time frame emerged the philosophy that labor forces HAD TO BE DISCIPLINED. Since the Industrial Revolution require humans to attend machines that went non stop through day and night, the necessity to always have a human being present to operate it. This shifted all attention away from mankind’s social needs and directed it to be decided strictly by an economic perspective. It accented the philosophy that work came before life making rather commonplace conversations like this: “I don’t care if your children haven’t eaten since yesterday. You want to buy food? You be here at eleven o’clock sharp. No, change that! I’ll fire you if you are not here by 10:59.” The fact that this notion of human behavior was actually honored and promoted gives credence to it’s level of acceptability.
If conversations like this take place in YOUR workplace, than you need no further proof that the philosophy of where work fits within our lives, has returned to where it was in the latter part of the 1700’s……
In reality, we as human beings need to live our lives,…. and incorporate work somewhere within that pattern.
Austerity can be summed up in two words: debtors prisons.
Financiers of old, felt that if a person became to indignant to pay their bills, then the state, using money from its tax payers, was responsible for culling those people from society, and using them for its will. It was felt that fear of austerity, would cough up the missing funds and help cut those investor’s losses.
But over time, they found that you can’t squeeze anything out of zero.
If the indigent have no assets, you can’t take them.
Eventually all those in debtors prisons got sent to America or Australia where they became productive citizens. (That could explain Georgia’s mis-behavior today). When these positive results were seen by society back in England debtors prisons disappeared and bankruptcy became the next evolutionary step.
The difference between bankruptcy and debtors prisons, was the common sense that if you took everything a person had, divided it up between the creditors, and then let him go, it was overall cheaper to society as a whole, than incurring the cost of incarcerating him on top of all the debt he owed. Upon forgiving the debt, at least there was a chance he could go on to become a benefit to society, thereby adding his small slice to the future GDP of that nation.
Bankruptcy is a wonderful thing. Creditors get some pay back, or if not, at least get solid knowledge they should finally write off that debt, and those who once owed, can go forward. It is important to remember that bankruptcy and fraud are too distinct entities. If someone uses fraud to achieve wealth, then that case needs to go to court, to be decided on laws affecting fraud. But 99.99% of bankruptcy is not fraud. It could be a bypass built around one’s city, diverting all hotel traffic to the outskirts. It could be a diagnosis of cancer, and the choice of one’s survivors to extend that person’s life, and the choice of an insurance company not to pay for that extension. Good bankruptcies need to be separated from the frauds.
Likewise, within the realm of bankruptcies, there needs to be a separation between those happening to individuals through no fault of their own, and those CAUSED BY HARM intentionally and legally being done to society to benefit a certain perpetrator. Bain Capital is in the news. They buy a property, close it down, and put the real estate up for sale. Those employees who can’t find a job, declare bankruptcies. Are they… morally required to reimburse that new company for payments the old company made to that now bankrupt companies pension plan? They are if a court says they are. If Bain Capital gets a legal judgment requiring such a reimbursement payment, then that out- of- work person is simply out of luck. Bankruptcy ensues.
Leading us to Greece and Spain. Should citizens be held accountable for the failures of their government? Aren’t corporate presidents held accountable for the failures of their companies? What? They aren’t?
YOU MEAN THEY GET BONUSES WHEN THEY COMPANIES FAIL ? AND THE BIGGER THE FAILURE THE BIGGER THE BONUS THAT THEY RECEIVE?
Yes, that is exactly how it appears to be.
Yet we impose austerity upon those who have no connection to the amount owed, and who are in no way responsible at all for the losses their sacrifices are being taxed to pay.
We are in a sense putting them into a financial prison. Saying we are taking everything you make for the next 20 years. (Wasn’t that the entire underlying philosophy of Soviet Russia and Maoist China?)
That alone, makes the comedy of pursuing austerity apparent.
It is like against your will (but doing it to keep your job), agreeing to go on a company outing with your boss to Atlantic City, and then, when he unfortunately does badly at the roulette table, find out belatedly that he is taking the losses out of your and your coworkers pay over the next few years since you agreed to ride with him…..
So fight back Spain. Make them lose ALL their money…….. 🙂 Bottom line, they can’t take it if you don’t choose to give it….
The largest reason Greece defaults are so big, is that that were hidden until it became too big to hide…
The problem if noticed earlier, could have been corrected by now, without letting the debt balloon into the crises we have now.
Republicans want to use the same scoring method used by the Greeks to hide our their proposed deficits.
Remember, Newt Gingrich’s deficit is $7 trillion higher than Obamas. Santorum’s deficit is $6 Trillion higher than Obamas. Romney’s deficit is $2 Trillion higher than the deficit…..
So, the idea is that if you “pretend” that growth will be “off the charts”, because you cut taxes “too low”, then all that “growth” will generate tons of revenue that will magically appear….
Before we jump into this, has this ever been tried before?
Yes… as mentioned, it was done in Greece… Look how that turned out.
Yes, ..Bush W… taxes were cut too low… and instead of growth, we got this Depression…….
Yes,..Ronald Reagan. 86. taxes were cut too low, and instead of growth, we got a Massive Recession in 89.. Had Clinton not been elected it would have continued on into a Depression.
Yes, The 1920’s… Taxes were cut too low, and instead of growth, we got “the” Great Depression…….
And now they want to do it again, with dynamic scoring….
Because they have a problem. That problem is the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) by law is required to cost out budgets to see where they end up. They’ve gotten pretty accurate lately. So when a Republican puts up a budget, it like the candidates listed above, look pretty bad… So, Republicans want to change the formula.
The reason they want to use it is obvious. Their idea that cutting taxes increases both jobs and revenue, is a fairy tale.. If it was true, it would have worked the four examples I gave above….
Cutting taxes leads to lower revenue and larger budget deficits. There are no two ways about this…
Republicans think this is not true. Just like they think global warming is not true. Just like they think the separation of Church and state is not in the Constitution. Just like they think birth control is too important a topic to let women decide how it should be used…..
Republicans are wrong on all counts.
And so, if we get a Republican Congress in 2012, we will then get dynamic scoring to deny how much their policies are costing us, as we too, will wind up bankrupt……
So if you don’t want America to turn into Greece ( who would?)…… it is imperative that no Republicans make it into Congress this next time….
Their steadfast belief in nothing but psuedo-science, will be their undoing…..
kavips 
