According to a BOSTON GLOBE article written by Rick Klein, a “key lawmaker said yesterday that Republican leaders would soon hold the first House vote in a decade on increasing the minimum wage, and predicted that the bill will pass on the eve of crucial midterm elections.” It continues:
House majority whip Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, told a luncheon crowd that leaders will vote on the minimum wage this fall or sooner. GOP leaders have come under heightened pressure from Democrats and moderate Republicans for supporting increases in their own salaries while the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 an hour since 1997.
“We’re at the point where that vote is coming,” Blunt said. “I’m not sure that it’s a ‘must-pass,’ but it will probably be a ‘will-pass.'”
First, let me say, the phrase “moderate Republican” just gets my goat.
These Republicrats — Demublicans? — don’t seem to understand who it is exactly that’s paying for their reelection campaign. It’s certainly not labor.
Sure, federal minimum wage has been at $5.15 an hour for almost ten years — that doesn’t mean it should be increased. We don’t need to change a good thing. Our current minimum wage is like Classic Coke — it’s time tested. If we go fooling around with the recipe, who knows what might happen? Vanilla Coke, anyone? Disgusting! And really, the $10,000 a person would make in a year, working full time for minimum wage, is above the poverty line, if that person is single and has no children — and how many high school students have children? Too many, I know, but not enough to justify an increase in minimum wage.
But, Jon, you might be thinking, according to the Economic Policy Institute an increase in minimum wage would affect the lives of 14.9 million workers — 11% of the workforce — and a full 80% of those people are age 20 or over, adults, not high school students. Furthermore, when a wage remains the same for long periods of time, a person is actually making less in real dollars, so by staying the same, the minimum wage is actually decreasing.
What? By staying the same it’s decreasing? Take your economic magic-talk elsewhere, heathen.
No, listen, Jon, you might continue thinking, according to the EPI, which I cited above, the buying power of our current minimum wage has decreased by 20% since 1997, making it this nation’s lowest minimum wage (in terms of buying power) since 1955.
Look. Just cut that out. If you want to argue in favor of a minimum wage increase you go ahead. But I’ll have none of it. I don’t need facts to help me make my mind up — I know what my position is — and I say increasing the minimum wage is a dangerous move, the Vanilla Coke of economic policy, and I intend to write to Congress to let them know I don’t take kindly to facts — because “probably” will pass also means “might not” pass, and that gives me hope.
So some poor folks have to live in three- or four-family households just to keep a roof over their head. All those people cramped into tight quarters probably decreases the heating bill in the winters. And that’s a savings they wouldn’t have if we increased minimum wage and they could afford to live in merely a two-family household.
That’s what’s wrong with liberals — pretending to give while secretly taking.
What I want to know is, why do they hate poor people so much?
God, Country & Apple Pie 
I completely, COMPLETELY agree with you, Jon! Just another way for the Left to drive their pathetic wedge issues into the national discourse. Disgusting.
You said a mouthful there, doctor! Keep on spewing the truth like a college student spews the morning after a keg party.
Lawmakers are looking at this all wrong. Income = hours x pay. If you want to raise the income, and the pay is at a happy place, why not raise the HOURS? That’s simple meteorology. If it’s not possible to raise a family on 40 hours/week of minimum wage, maybe it’s time to loosen the restrictions on maximum hours worked. If we let employers work people for 80 hours a week (without forcing punitive Commie overtime on them), that’s the same as raising the minimum wage to $10.30! (Actually, that seems kind of high now. We’d want to decrease the minimum wage to bring that down to something more reasonable.) And don’t get me started on my proposal of 120-hour work weeks—that’s just a cornucopia of industrial lovingkindness raining down on these minimum wage tycoons.
Vanilla Coke sure is gross, as all God-fearing Americans agree. But Coke with lime is tasty. Maybe reducing the minimum wage is like Coke with lime? I bet it is!
That is exactly the kind of forward thinking I was hoping this blog would inspire.
You know what the fucking problem is with minimum wage? If you raise it, it doesn’t become “minimum” anymore. Hello?! Am I the only one who sees this? The whole idea of “minimum wage” is to pay the minimum wage. So why pretend we care enough to raise it when the minimum isn’t enough? How much can they raise it? Do they really think by raising the min from 5.15/hr to say… 6.15/hr they’re going to pull people out of poverty? Hahahahahaha! In ten years’ time, they’ll probably want to increase that, too!
However if they changed the term from “minimum wage” to “mediocre wage”, I’d consider going along with it.