Do Your Homework, Kids
Republicans and other creatures of the night are not fond of the $15 an hour minimum wage.
So the House Education and the Workforce Committee was schedule to hold a hearing today on the economic evils of raising the minimum wage. They had everything all ready and set to go, along with your usual chicken littles to scream how small business people will be hurt. You’d think they’d learn that nothing trickles down but everything bubbles up. But, no they don’t ever learn.
The hearing was suddenly cancelled and I know you’re anxious to know why.
The House Education and the Workforce Committee postponed a hearing scheduled for today on the economic consequences of a $15 hourly minimum wage after homophobic and sexist blog posts surfaced that were penned by one of the Republican witnesses, San Diego State University economist Joseph Sabia. In a 2002 post published on his personal column “No Shades of Gray” (which has since been taken down but can be accessed through the Wayback Machine, an internet archive) Sabia suggested the idea to “tax and regulate homosexual acts.”
In another 2002 blog post titled “College Girls: Unpaid Whores,” Sabia argued that feminism “taught young women that equality is achieved by acting like promiscuous sluts.” Kelley McNabb, communications director for the committee’s majority confirmed to POLITICO that “members were uncomfortable moving forward on the hearing” upon discovering the posts.
“Uncomfortable,” you say?
Thanks to Phyllis for the heads up.
snacilbupeR Congress varmints, let them be known by the witnesses they select and the company they keep. Just an idea, but maybe reduce their salaries until they feel the pain. If they honestly feel that $15/hr is a princely sum, let them try living on it. Ironic that Sabia thinks homosexuals should be taxed for sex, when those before whom he would have been testifying have their forced sex victims paid off by the taxpayers. January cannot come soon enough for Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats to end the circus of hypocrisy.
1Jane & PKM
I’d go much farther. Let’s take away the gold plated health care bennies, the cushy retirement and other freeby perks of their office. Let them live as the working poor for a good while.
Yeah, I feeling in a bah humbug mood about their shenanigans.
2Jane & PKM,
Sex and female bodies are an obsession with elected officials. They need to stay the hell out of our bedrooms.
3Why has Joseph Sabia had a job/position at SDSU since 2002?
4Trump just penciled in on his To Do list:
Joe Sabia – Chief of Staff? or next Supreme Court nominee?
5I was going to say, “How do they manage to dig up these freakin’ weirdos?” (not meaning that in a good way), but then I realized that sick puppies of this sort have a tropism, a natural attraction, toward the GOP where they feel at home.
6I guess nobody will be surprised to learn that one of Sabia’s sources of research funding is the Charles Koch Foundation.
7People who want others to work for them for less than a living wage are not “small business people,” they are con artists and exploiters. If you can’t make a profit without putting your employees in a financial hole where they have to choose between food for their families and healthcare, you do not have a “profitable” business. You have con going that shifts costs on to taxpayers. If you can’t pay a living wage your idea for a business is not viable, just like it would be if you ran the numbers before you started and found couldn’t pay yourself.
8Well since this dimwitted idiot is most likely a xtian, acting like a ‘promiscuous sluts’ is easy …. can you see her ankles? Can you see her bare shoulders? Has long wave hair? Shows her belly button? Speaks her own mind? Any of these would do!
9Wally @8 – Excellent point! Gonna start using that one.
10Disregarding the perditious thinking of snacilbupeRs, I do think that $15/hr is too high for the national minimum wage. As much as I think that the minimum wage needs to be raised, going above $12/hr is likely to cause economic harm in a lot of small towns and rural areas where the cost of living is still quite low. A $15/hr minimum is justified in most cities, especially those with growing economies, but making that rate national is going to further depress the places that aren’t doing well now.
11Hmmm . . . when in high school I worked an after school counter job for a local drug store chain for 75 cents an hour. The “working” conditions were horrible, that is, very often the room for the staff to change into uniforms, leave their coats, etc. was a total PIT from hell. There were even store managers who accused us of “abusing” said pit by not hanging up our clothing! On what? I then went to a part time job in the last undergrad school I attended at the same rate of pay for a local newspaper. I also worked summers in an office for the same 75 cents/hour. All of this was in a huge metropolis with a really good working economy. Then I ended up in D.C. and discovered “prevailing wage”. That phrase alone is a total joke. It is a way of keeping poor people poor forever, no matter their talents and hard work.
Many years ago there was actually a Senator from a very northern state, either Montana or North Dakota, do not accurately recall, but on his days at home during the year he spent some time getting actual first hand experience at what his constituents went through to earn a buck. Fortunately, he had folks who would let him work behind a counter or whatever. He valued the experience. Fortunately, the vast majority of the people he encountered in these “jobs” did not recognize their own Senator! Tells you something right there!
In recent years I have come to the conclusion that one way to jerk legislators into the real world after they have been sworn in is to limit their pension. A House member must serve more than one term to get the full deal. Does that sound mean spirited? Well, guess how long a regular Joe or Jane has to work to get diddly for a pension – and if there are still pensions in existence.
And Wally, I agree with you. All too often I am in a store where the smallest bill I can offer to pay for something is a twenty and then comes a moan from behind the cash register, “Oh, don’t you have anything smaller? We just don’t have the money to make your change!” And I’m thinking, then how the hell and why the hell are you in business!
12Florida Senator Bob Graham used to have one work day a month from the time he was governor until he left the Senate. He would do a variety of jobs just to see what the rest of us go thru. I don’t think he is the Senator jmaggie mentioned as he would not have gone unrecognized.
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