MINIMUM WAGE: WHAT CAN YOU DO?

All the Democrats and 8 Republicans-- including staunch conservatives like Richard Lugar and John Warner-- voted in favor of Kennedy's minimum wage increase bill. It has been $5.15 for 9 years and Kennedy's bill would have gradually raised it to $7.25. It had a majority (52- 46) but not a big enough majority to pass. If this is important to you, these are the people who are up for re-election in November who voted to block the minimum wage increase:

George Allen (VA)
Conrad Burns (MT)
John Ensign (NV)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)
Jon Kyle (AZ)
Trent Lott (MS)
Rick Santorum (PA)
Jim Talent (MO)

Funny how these same Republicans that can't see their weay clear to give working men and women a break are frothing at the mouth to give their biggest campaign contributors another tax cut. Of course, this is the Big Enchilada for the Republicans: the permanent abolishment of the estate tax. Oh, you thought it was defeated last week and went away? As long as their are Republicans breathing and as long as their are Democrats who would sell their souls to Big Business, it will never go away.


UPDATE: BOXER SLAPS DOWN ENZI'S PACK OF CALLOUS REPUBLICAN LIES

My friend Bob sent me the text of Barbara Boxer's pointed answer to Wyoming plutocratic wingnut Michael Enzi's discredited malarkey about why raising the minimum wage hurts people-- I mean I thought this was laid to rest in the 1930s.

Senator Enzi says this debate is grating on the Republican side of the aisle. Sorry, that is how it is when you are on the wrong side of the truth. It is grating to have to hear the truth as Senator Kennedy and others have spoken of.

It has been 9 long years since there has been an increase in the minimum wage. It is a disgrace. While we see our friends on the other side fight for the CEOs of oil companies, in the Committee on Commerce, they would not even swear them in. They are all on that side. When it comes to working families, forget about it.

Then Senator Enzi implies this does not have anything to do with women. Women make up 59 percent of the workers who would be affected as a result of raising the minimum wage; 1.4 million working mothers would benefit directly, 760,000 single moms would get an immediate raise, and over 3 million kids have parents who would get an immediate raise.
What has happened to family values on the other side of the aisle? It seems to me it is just so many empty words.

Then they scare you and say the economy will suffer. All you have to do, again, is look at the facts and look at the truth. In the 4 years after the last minimum wage increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in over three decades. All the talk about how bad a minimum wage increase is for the economy is not true.I say to my Republican friends, support the Kennedy increase in the minimum wage. The truth shall set you free.