Ralph Nader: Why Raising the Minimum Wage is a Winning 2012 Election Issue

[Better Believe It]

(The following is not copyrighted material. BBI)

Minimum Wage: Catching up with 1968
By Ralph Nader
February 29, 2012

How inert can the Democratic Party be? Do they really want to defeat the Congressional Republicans in the fall by doing the right thing?

A winning issue is to raise the federal minimum wage, stuck at $7.25 since 2007. If it was adjusted for inflation since 1968, not to mention other erosions of wage levels, the federal minimum would be around $10.

Here are some arguments for raising the minimum wage this year to catch up with 1968 when worker productivity was half of what it is today.


1. Pure fairness for millions of hard-pressed American workers and their families. Over 70 percent of Americans in national polls support a minimum wage that keeps up with inflation.

2. Already eighteen states have enacted higher minimum wages led by Washington state to $9.04 an hour. With the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the New York State legislature is considering a bill to raise the state's minimum wage. The legislature should pass the long-blocked farm workers wage bill at the same time.

3. Since at least 1968, businesses and their executives have been raising prices and their salaries (note: Walmart's CEO making over $11,000 an hour!) while they have been getting a profitable windfall from their struggling workers, whose federal minimum is $2.75 lower in purchasing power than it was 44 years ago.

4. The tens of billions of dollars that a $10 minimum will provide to consumers' buying power will create more sales and more jobs. Aren't economists all saying the most important way out of the recession and the investment stall is to increase consumer spending?

5. Most independent studies collected by the Economic Policy Institute show no decrease in employment following a minimum wage increase. Most studies show job numbers overall go up. The landmark study rebutting claims of lost jobs was conducted by Professors David Card and Alan Krueger in 1994. Professor Krueger is now chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers.

6. Many organizations with millions of members are on the record favoring an inflation-adjusted increase in the federal minimum wage. They include the AFL-CIO and member unions, the NAACP and La Raza, and hundreds of non-profit social service and religious organizations. They need to move from being on the record to being on the ramparts.

7. With many Republicans supporting a higher minimum wage and with Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum on their side, a push in Congress will split the iron unity of the Republicans under Senator Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner and gain some Republican lawmakers for passage. This issue may also encourage some Republican voters to vote for Democrats this fall. A Republican worker in McDonalds or Walmart or a cleaning company still wants a living wage.

8. President Barack Obama declared in 2008 that he wanted a $9.50 federal minimum by year 2011. If lip-service is the first step toward action, he is on board too. There is no better time to enact a higher minimum wage than during an election year. Against millions of dollars in opposition ads in Florida in 2004, over 70 percent of the voters in a statewide referendum went for a minimum wage promoted by a penniless coalition of citizen groups.

9. The Occupy movement can supply the continuing civic jolts around the local offices of 535 members of Congress, a slim majority of whom are not opposed to raising the minimum wage but who need that high profile pressure back home. Winning this issue will give the Occupy activists many new recruits, and much more power for getting something done in an otherwise do-nothing or obstructionist corporate indentured Congress. About 80 percent of the workers affected by a minimum wage increase are over 20 years of age.

Remember there is no need to offset a higher minimum wage with lower taxes on small business a higher minimum wage. Since Obama took office there have already been 17 tax cuts for small business and no increase in the federal minimum wage.

At the University of Virginia, twelve students have begun a hunger strike to protest the low wages and other injustices inflicted on contract service-sector employees. Students at other universities are likely to follow with their Living Wage Campaigns in this American Spring. They are fed up with millions of dollars for such top administrators' salaries or amenities as fancy practice facilities for athletes, while the blue collar workers can't pay for the necessities of life.

Raising the federal wage to 1968 levels, inflation adjusted, is a winning issue. It just needs a few million Americans to rouse themselves for a few months as they do for their favorite sports team and connect with all those large concurring organizations and their powerful legislators, like Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a big supporter, to start the rumble that will make it a reality.

http://nader.org/index.php?/archives/2354-Minimum-Wage-Catching-up-with-1968.html#extended

[bluestateguy]

1. Oh I couldn't agree more

President Al Gore would have fought for minimum wage hikes long before it ever came to this point.

Alas, that didn't get to happen.

[libinnyandia]

6. Was Al Gore Tweedledum or Tweedledee? :o)

[bluestateguy]

10. He was the one who was against the Iraq War (before it started)

The one who would not have appointed John Roberts and Sam Alito.

He was that one.

[girl gone mad]

8. Based on what?

His support for NAFTA and other wage-suppressing globalization policies?

[Robb]

35. Gore promised to hike the minimum wage at every campaign stop.

June 16, 1999, the day he announced he'd run:

But the theme was clearly the family. Nearly every issue Gore mentioned was in the context of the family, from strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act to protecting the environment. Instead of budget deficits, Gore said there are new deficits in American life.

"These are our deficits now: the time deficit in family life, the decency deficit in our common culture; the care deficit for our little ones and our elderly parents. Our families are loving but over-stretched," he said.

He promised that he would protect Medicare, never privatize Social Security, raise the minimum wage and protect a woman's right to have an abortion, saying "some try to duck the issue of choice. Not me."

[girl gone mad]

44. And Obama promised he would fight for the Public Option.

Promises are promises. It's what they actually do that counts.

[Robb]

47. And Bush promised to reduce the size of government. Who did you vote for?

[grantcart]

50. It is not a requirement of DU that you fufill your DU handle in each and every post.

[onehandle]

9. Are you saying that Ralph Nader had a hand in electing George W. Bush?

Say it ain't so, Ralph!

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt

[FarLeftFist]

3. A very good idea.

[ProSense]

4. Good info here:

Pres. Obama to provide minimum wage, overtime protections for nearly 2 million in-home care workers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100222439

1.4 Million Workers To Benefit From Minimum Wage Increase In 2012
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/100255082

I suspect that the Republican House isn't going to pass a minimum wage increase.

[limpyhobbler]

5. Maybe we should have a maximum wage.

What if we had a maximum wage indexed to the minimum wage.

For example set the maximum wage = 300 x minimum wage.

So if the minimum wage = $10/hr,
then
the maximum wage = $3000/hr, or Three thousand dollars per hour, still pretty healthy.

Betcha then you'll see the minimum wage increased.
This might help keep the inequality from always growing.

[eridani]

19. Been proposed before, but not gotten much traction

Good idea, though.

[Selatius]

31. We need a senator to propose a bill tying minimum wage increases to Congressional pay increases.

If they give themselves a 5% pay raise every new congressional term, then the minimum wage would rise 5% in tandem as well.

Have one person in the House propose the exact same measure. Then watch all of Congress try to squirm their way out of trying not to be on record as voting it down.

[2ndAmForComputers]

21. It would be a nightmare to enforce.

How do you keep a person who wants to give money to another person from doing so? Both sides want to flaunt your rule. (As opposed to minimum wage, in which one of the side wants the rule enforced.)

[Fumesucker]

22. Kind of like the drug war, eh?

Both the buyer and the seller want to flaunt the rule.

When do you foresee our government ending the drug war?

[2ndAmForComputers]

40. Good point.

[RainDog]

7. k&r n/t

[FSogol]

11. Of course the min. wage should be increased, but in truth it really needs

to be totally scrapped and replaced a "living wage."

[FSogol]

13. Snicker

[Better Believe It]

15. Right-wing financiers? Post credible links. So what do you think about Nader's proposal?

Did you actually mean "Republicans" who made financial contributions to his election campaigns?

They were different and far fewer in number than the Republicans who made financial contributions to John Kerry and Barack Obama in the 2004, 2008 election campaigns.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. No, I mean right-wing financiers, the same people who've been funding this shit for years.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/09/MNGQQ7J31K1.DTL&ao=all

[Better Believe It]

32. Nice smear job. Now here's the documented facts on the so-called Republican funding of Nader.

October 19, 2004
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders?
Republican Contributions: $10.7 Million for Kerry vs. $111,700 for Nader

Washington, D.C.

Today, the Independent presidential campaign of Ralph Nader and Peter Miguel Camejo released the preliminary findings of research conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics. The findings demonstrate that Senator John Kerry has thousands of contributors who have supported the Republican Party. Kerry has more than ten million dollars donated by Republican donors.

The anti-Nader Democrats have spread their big lie to discredit Nader and silence his anti-war and progressive message that Kerry could not rebut. The anti-Naderites hired Stanley Greenberg to conduct surveys and focus groups to determine how best to smear Nader. They found that falsely claiming Nader was funded and controlled by Republicans was the most effective line they could use ­ a line that can’t pass the laugh test when compared to the facts. They announced their findings at the Democratic Convention and then spread the lie through the Naderfactor.com and the United Progressives for Victory.

But the reality was only 700 Republican contributions (not individuals, but individual contributions) had given donations to the Nader campaign and most of the contributors were people Nader had worked with on justice issues in the past. Even among these 700 the Democrats received more money than Nader-Camejo — $111,700 to $146,000. But, the Democrats continue to use the Big Lie ­ despite the facts.

Preliminary CRP results: 50,000 contributions who have given to President Bush or the Republicans have given $10,697,198 in large contributions to Kerry. This means 100 times more Republican money has been contributed to the Democrats campaign than to the Nader-Camejo campaign. That amount is five times the entire budget of the Nader Presidential campaign! These are preliminary results because there are so many that it is too expensive for the Center to review the donations for final results. Maybe an independent media outlet would like to try, rather than continue to repeat the corporate media’s reporting of the malicious Democratic fabrication that the campaign is funded by organized Republicans. We’re waiting for the full story on how the Kerry campaign is funded by the Republicans who play both sides of the two party duopoly.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/10/19/republican-contributions-10-7-million-for-kerry-vs-111-700-for-nader/

[Robb]

36. Idiotic and distorted comparison at that link. What were the percentages for each campaign?

What percent of Nader's campaign funding came from the GOP?

What percent of Kerry's did?

[Better Believe It]

51. You don't know? When you find it post it! And that's irrelevant.

The fact is Kerry got millions from Republicans and Nader got chump change in comparison.

[Warren DeMontague]

55. Nader was funded by Republicans and functioned as a deliberate tool of the Republican Party

he was directly and deliberately working for the re-election of George W. Bush, and as such he lost any and all moral authority he may once have had. He should just admit that he's a right-wing republican, and get it over with.

[Snake Alchemist]

66. Everyone knows he was in the back pocket of Ford when he wrote "Unsafe At Any Speed." nt

[Snake Alchemist]

69. Poppycock. Ford hired him to make GM look bad. And he did a bangup job. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

70. Poppycock? Poppycock, sir?

Why I say unto that balderdash to such folderol.

[Warren DeMontague]

48. The Republicans who donated to Kerry were trying to put a DEMOCRAT in the White House.

The Republicans who donated to Nader were trying to put... wait for it.... a REPUBLICAN in the White House.

You can pretend all day long that you're not capable of understanding the difference- implied or otherwise- there, but I'm betting you do.

[Better Believe It]

52. So Republicans who wanted Bush in the White House donated to Ralph Nader and not George Bush!!!

Of course.

That's what happened!



And to continue with your poltical logic that must mean that Democrats who wanted Kerry in the White House donated to Nader and not Kerry!



Your information and logic makes perfect sense.

What credible progressive organization revealed this amazing campaign strategy you discovered?

[Warren DeMontague]

54. "Nearly one in 10 of Nader's major donors have given in recent months to the Bush-Cheney campaign"

Let me repeat that:

[font size=5]
Nearly one in 10 of Nader's major donors -- those writing checks of $1, 000 or more -- have given in recent months to the Bush-Cheney campaign, the latest documents show.[/font]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/09/MNGQQ7J31K1.DTL&ao=all

[Better Believe It]

58. Republicans organized a campaign committee to back Kerry, not Ralph Nader.

And the Republicans gave millions to Kerry, not to Nader.

The author of the old hit piece against Nader you use just didn't know that!

Of course that must be why the Carla Marinucci failed to mention that little fact in her article.

She just didn't know.

And apparently you still don't!

But if you wish to refute the documented facts regarding Republican organizing a Republicans for Kerry Campaign Committee and raisng millions for that effort please go ahead.

Did I just repeat myself?

Hey .... I'm still waiting for your serious reply to the Nader proposal!

Do you think that President Obama and Democratic politicians should support an increase in the minimum wage and campaign hard for that?

I'm listening.

[Warren DeMontague]

60. Many moderate Republicans supported Kerry because they wanted Kerry to win.

Conservative Republicans supported Nader because they wanted BUSH to win.

Again, you're being facile, and doing the same shit Nader did, which is pretending that actively enabling and assisting Republicans at the Expense of Democrats is somehow a noble endeavour. Bullshit.



In answer to your question, yes: I do think Obama and the DNC should support an increase in the minimum wage. A livable minimum wage, actually. And a single payer health care system. And full legalization, regulation, and taxation of pot.

However, it's a shame that something like this minimum wage proposal is coming out of a duplicitous republican tool like Ralph Nader, who has completely blown all his credibility and moral authority.

Still, I agree with the basic premise.

[Better Believe It]

65. It's too bad President Obama and the DNC don't support the things that you and Ralph Nader support.

Things like:

"an increase in the minimum wage. A livable minimum wage, actually. And a single payer health care system. And full legalization, regulation, and taxation of pot."

Since Nader has always supported those programs that's clear evidence he's a "Republican tool"!

Come now. You really don't expect a well informed progressive to believe that nonsense now, do you?

That's just old "trash talking points" you've dredged up from the discredited 2004 character assasination campaign directed against Nader.

I've read all of the "swiftboat like" attacks on Ralph Nader and they have all been rejected by thinking progressives who don't constantly repeating such trash talk ad nauseum.

Endless repetition of low level personal attacks against Nader does not make them true.

And the idea that Nader is a secret right-winger funded by Republicans to destroy progressive movements is 100% bull shit in my opinion.

Talk about conspiracies!

I don't believe in that right-wing conspiracy theory.

It doesn't exist in the real political world.

Not on this planet!

I'm being blunt and hope your feelings have not been hurt by my comments.

They shouldn't be. Nothing personal.

It's OK to have robust debate on Democratic Underground.

And I hope you reconsider your view by seriously studying the objective facts.

There is nothing wrong with someone changing their opinion.

So don't be a trash talking point parrot! That's how you are coming across to me. Be a thinker!

I wish you the best.

[Warren DeMontague]

67. Robust debate is ok. Supporting 3rd party candidates like Nader is not okay.

In fact, it's right there written in the rules.

Have you 'hurt my feelings'? No. Not even close. And yes, my hope is to move my party towards a saner approach to things like a livable min. Wage or the drug war... And like gay marriage, I believe we will get there, not just because it's the right thing to do but because it's politically smart, too.

I do NOT believe, however, that helping republicans get elected is the way to get there. And that's what Ralph Nader does- he helps republicans get elected.

[banned from Kos]

14. NOW Nader goes populist? Fuck him

and I mean that.

[Better Believe It]

16. Guess you haven't been following Nader. He's been a populist for almost a half century now.

Here's a few things Nader's been involved in just in case you hadn't noticed.

I know.

It's a very small progressive resume.

Smaller than yours by any chance?

Ralph Nader's Achievements

Some of the books Ralph Nader has written or helped produce:

◦Unsafe at Any Speed
◦Action for a Change(with Donald Ross, Brett English, and Joseph Highland)
◦Whistle-Blowing (with Peter J. Petkas and Kate Blackwell)
◦Corporate Power in America (with Mark Green)
◦You and Your Pension (with Kate Blackwell)
◦The Consumer and Corporate Accountability
◦Corporate Power in America
◦Taming the Giant Corporation (with Mark Green and Joel Seligman)
◦Verdicts on Lawyers
◦The Menace of Atomic Energy (with John Abbotts)
◦The Lemon Book
◦Who's Poisoning America (with Ronald Brownstein and John Richard)
◦The Big Boys (with William Taylor)
◦Winning the Insurance Game (with Wesley Smith and J. Robert Hunter)
◦Canada Firsts
◦The Frugal Shopper (with Wesley Smith)
◦Collision Course (with Wesley Smith)
◦No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and Perversion of Justice in America (with Wesley Smith)
◦The Ralph Nader Reader
◦Cutting Corporate Welfare
◦Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender

Instrumental in the passing of the following legislation:

◦Clean Air Act
◦Clean Water Act
◦Consumer credit disclosure law
◦Consumer Product Safety Act
◦Co-Op Bank Bill
◦Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act
◦Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
◦Freedom of Information Act
◦Funeral home cost disclosure law
◦Law establishing Environmental Protection Agency
◦Medical Devices safety
◦Mine Health and Safety Act
◦Mobile home safety
◦National Automobile and Highway Traffic Safety Act
◦National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
◦Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act
◦Nuclear power safety
◦Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)
◦Pension protection law
◦Safe Water Drinking Act
◦Tire safety & grading disclosure law
◦Whistleblower Protection Act
◦Wholesome Meat Act
◦Wholesome Poultry Product Act

[DonCoquixote]

17. quote that shows how unworkable this is

"Remember there is no need to offset a higher minimum wage with lower taxes on small business a higher minimum wage. Since Obama took office there have already been 17 tax cuts for small business and no increase in the federal minimum wage."


Small business is dying as it is. It will need HELP to survive, not platitudes.

[Better Believe It]

27. That's what Republicans and media say. Please don't believe their lies about high business taxes.

The Republicans claim that ALL businesses are hurting because of high taxes.

I know we also hear that constantly from the mass media but it is false.

The problem is the lack of consumer demand and that is due to lower wages, wage cuts and unemployment.

[DonCoquixote]

62. there is aworld of difference

between small business takes and big ones. Smmal buisness is fundered by the bare savings of family members, and if they go, all hiring gets done by corporations that do not have to care about the nieghborhood.

[Better Believe It]

63. Are small businesses being hurt by big business and their political whores or high taxes?

[DonCoquixote]

71. both, though mostly the former

however, many small business cannot afford to pay ten dollars an hour, are they going to get grants to help?

[Motown_Johnny]

20. Increased federal spending isn't politically viable right now

and this will just open up more lines of false attacks concerning the debt and labor unions


I am all for increasing federal employees minimum wage but bringing it up now is a mistake

[Better Believe It]

25. Not one penny of "federal" money is spent to increase the minimum wage.

False attacks by the right, Wall Street and big business will be made against ALL proposals designed to improve the wages and lives of working people.

The fear of such attacks is not a good reason to oppose such improvements and run away from challenging right-wing lies.

[Selatius]

26. Actually, the minimum wage law applies to both public AND private sector workers.

Raising it a dollar, for instance, would not hurt and would likely garner votes and increase consumer spending, yet I don't hear Obama or Harry Reid anywhere near talking about the minimum wage at all, not even just using it as a bludgeon against Republicans.

In a practical sense, a minimum wage increase would be impossible because the Republicans who control the House wouldn't bother with such a bill, so paying lip service to the minimum wage would only do the Democratic Party good, but none of the party leaders are going that far.

[Better Believe It]

30. You're right. Republicans in Congress would fight against higher wages.

That's the fricken point!

Get it?

And Democrats including Obama should make that one of the central themes of the 2012 election, not just pay lip service to it!

An increase in the minimum wage could have little or no impact on federal workers or even most state employees since they make well above the current minimum wage.

But millions of the "new jobs" are low wage jobs.

Millions of low pay workers need help.

If Democrats won't fight for them why should they help Democrats who promise them nothing and do even less?

Your comment sure demonstrates the pathetic state of the Democratic party leadership when you say that they are unwilling to "go that far" in proposing an increase in the minimum wage!

Ya .... that's pretty fricken radical!

[Fumesucker]

23. Clearly then the correct course is to lower or eliminate the minimum wage..

Just to say "Fuck Ralph Nader With A Rusty Chainsaw" I for one am prepared to take a wage cut so that the truly needy 1% can have their taxes slashed yet again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

[ibegurpard]

24. indeed

[scheming daemons]

28. Right message... wrong messenger.

Plus... the RW groups that finance Nader's election campaigns won't be very happy about this.

[Better Believe It]

34. Nader proposed that the messenger be Obama and Democratic Party leaders! You disagree?

Still using the old claim that Republicans funded Nader's campaign! That's been disproven.

Republicans gave a lot more money to Kerry in 2004.

[mvd]

49. Yes, it should be a part of our platform.

This has pretty much become a party website, so I mostly post my criticism of my party and Obama elsewhere. But Democrats would be wise to take up making the minimum wage at least $10 an hour.

[Better Believe It]

53. But the Republicans would attack Democrats for advocating higher wages!

Can't let that happen.

[we can do it]

29. Fuck Nadar

[CanSocDem]

33. Whose side are you on? (eom)

[we can do it]

38. Not Ralphie's

I am in favor of a much higher minimum (a living) wage...

However I don't want to hear Ralphie ever again

[Bobbie Jo]

41. ...and fake Naderites.

divide/conquer/lather/rinse/repeat..

GOP Playbook, page 103.

[we can do it]

46. Its kind of obvious, isn't it?

[FSogol]

61. Yes, it is very obvious.

[Honeycombe8]

37. Oh, yeah. Let's listen to a LOSER of elections for what's good for winning elections.

wtf?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

39. Heresy! How dare he challenge the Party to do what's right?!!?

[jimmie]

42. Yes...He's running again

same thing he said 4 years ago.

[gulliver]

43. Nader ruining another good idea by trying to associate himself with it.

He has more than shown his true colors. I feel sorry for anyone dumb enough to think Nader does anything good for anything he supports. This is just Nader grasping for anything to get out of the toilet of history where he belongs.

[Better Believe It]

57. Before you know it Nader will be supporting Medicare for All. Oh ... he does. What a creep!

As you point out, Nader never did anything good for any progressive causes he supported.

For example:

Just some of the organizations Ralph Nader founded or helped start:

◦American Antitrust Institute
◦Appleseed Foundation
◦Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest
◦Aviation Consumer Action Project
◦Buyers Up
◦Capitol Hill News Service
◦Center for Auto Safety
◦Center for Insurance Research
◦Center for Justice and Democracy
◦Center for Science in the Public Interest
◦Center for Study of Responsive Law
◦Center for Women Policy Studies
◦Citizen Action Group
◦Citizen Advocacy Center
◦Citizen Utility Boards
◦Citizen Works
◦Clean Water Action Project
◦Congress Project
◦Congress Watch
◦Connecticut Citizen Action Group
◦Corporate Accountability Research Group
◦Critical Mass Energy Project
◦Democracy Rising
◦Disability Rights Center
◦Equal Justice Foundation
◦Essential Information
◦FANS (Fight to Advance the Nation's Sports)
◦Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights
◦Freedom of Information Clearinghouse
◦Georgia Legal Watch
◦Global Trade Watch
◦Health Research Group
◦Litigation Group
◦Multinational Monitor
◦National Citizen's Coalition for Nursing Home Reform
◦National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
◦National Insurance Consumer Organization
◦Ohio Public Interest Action Group
◦Organization for Competitive Markets
◦Pension Rights Center
◦Princeton Project 55
◦PROD - truck safety
◦Public Citizen
◦Retired Professionals Action Group
◦Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest
◦Student Public Interest Research Groups nationwide
◦Tax Reform Research Group
◦Telecommunications Research and Action Center
◦The Visitor's Center
◦Trial Lawyers for Public Justice

[gulliver]

59. What an awful list of betrayed friends he has.

Assuming this doesn't come from commondreams.org.

[Alexander]

45. Even Mitt Romney supports adjusting the minimum wage due to inflation.

Yes, the likely Republican nominee also supports this proposal.

I must admit I was surprised to hear him say that, but there you go.

That's how much this issue is a winning one for Democrats in 2012.

Much as I despise Ralph Nader, he has a point.

[Telly Savalas]

56. Nader may be an asshole, but he has a point

Kicked and recommended.

The way to render Nader irrelevant here would be to start a similar thread with similar current quotes from a Democrat running for office. If that can't be done, then by default we're left with Nader being the champion for basic common sense shit like this. And if you ask me that's pretty pathetic.

[Snake Alchemist]

64. Raise it to 50$ an hour and watch consumer spending go through the roof. nt

[mdmc]

72. ..

[SomethingFishy]

73. I'm going to withhold comment until

LoZoccolo tells me how his uncle and grandfather feel about this.