Some Difference! 15/17

Trey Smith

2 No minimum wage increases for you, no right to form a union, no right to negotiate or strike if you already have a union, and no enforcement or reform of existing labor laws. Again, Republicans have always opposed minimum wage laws. Obama promised to boost the minimum wage his first two years in office, while he still had majorities in the House and Senate. But he didn't do this, or pass legislation beefing up the right to organize unions, which has been eroded under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.
~ from Closer Than You Think: Top 15 Things Romney and Obama Agree On by Bruce A. Dixon ~

If you pay attention to the news, you know that the Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio have led an assault against public sector unions. What has received much less attention is that the Democratic governors of California and New York have done much the same thing!!

These days both parties have seemed to settle on public sector unions as a convenient scapegoat for all the ills of our current budgetary woes. Though these unions didn't get us into this mess -- Wall Street is the culprit -- they are the ones the big wigs have decided who must pay for it!

Even worse, while banks and other Wall Street types have received bailout after bailout, average workers haven't received as much as a tiny boost. As Dixon points out, Obama said on the campaign trail that he would work to increase the federal minimum wage, but once elected, he completely "forgot" about the issue.

Today the federal minimum wage stands at a paltry $7.25 per hour. If you are paid the federal minimum wage and you work 160 hours per month, your gross pay is $1,160.00. After taxes, that ends up being about $1,000.00. In our expensive western world, it's near too impossible to survive on that. Yet, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are concerned about it!