Senator John McCain joined his fellow Republicans to vote to maintain a filibuster on the minimum wage hike. This is clearly a vote to win him financial backing and support from the elites, but it is one that should come back to haunt him in his Presidential bid.A hike in the minimum wage is supported by at least 75% of Americans -- that number includes a large percentage of Republicans. And it's an issue you can use to win -- as Sherrod Brown learned in Ohio, a state where I'm guessing McCain will want to perform well.
2008 will likely be the year when the rightwing economic vision and electoral reality collide into eachother. This vote is a clear example of how that will happen.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 11)
31. Raising the minimum wage gives us a chance to try the "trickle up" theory since the "trickle down" theory is carried on the backs of the American worker.
Bill Bransford at 3:32PM on Jan 24th 2007
32. John Mc Cain should take the advice of the host of the of the Television show called world's dirtiest jobs and get a real job like sewer cleaner or fish gutter if he and his Republican friends decide to sit in their millionaire mansions while blocking the way to raise increases for minimum wage earners.
McCain likes to talk of his veteran's background, which indeed is very well earned.
But he must remember that their are millions of veterans of all of our wars who through no fault of their own did not fare so well as has Senator McCain and his friends.
My daddy, for instance was a veteran of World War II and Korea, but because of a gap in veteran's payments between the two wars, never recieved veteran's benefits to get more schooling although he desperately desired to.
Instead he worked his fanny off from the day I was born as a fireman struggling to make ends meet.
His situation was tough.
Minimum wage workers' situation is tougher still, especially now, with the Republicans hell bent on giving breaks of all kinds to business while hitting the working man.
Alas, daddy never was even able to fully pay for the $11,000 FHA house he built in 1963 and lived in till he died in 1989 of cancer.
So, Senator McCain, for all of the people like daddy out there and for those millions in far worse shape, please, check your conscience and do not block the way for a small wage hike for all of them.
Or, indeed if you must, then divest yourself of your finances and take a minimum wage job at the local Wal Mart yourself.
craig griffin at 3:41PM on Jan 24th 2007
33. mccain should liveon my retirement of 379.00 per mo. for a while. He would beg for wages to go up. He is a bushite with a brown nose. P.J. Ohio
pj at 3:36PM on Jan 24th 2007
34. McCain lost my vote the minute he opened his mouth and started sounding like his old buddy Bush and company. As far as the minimum wage is concerned, seems all these Senators never miss a heart beat when it comes to giving themselves a wage hike, but, to hell with the less fortunate. It should be mandatory for all Senators to take part in a program, that, for one day, they do the job of one of these minimum wage workers.
cathy c at 3:42PM on Jan 24th 2007
35. If we are going to have a minimum wage we need the highest we can get. Unfortunately if we do not set one, we have plenty of business owners and elites who have a desire for slave labor. I believe that is why we have the widespread support to allow Mexicans into the country to work. People that care only for their bottom line and nothing for humanity will ask anyone (except themselves of course) to work for nothing. It is obvious if one lives in the U.S. they need $10.00 per hour and a 40 hour week in order to live a decent life. That is minimum. And don't fall back on "go to work for yourself and you won't have to rely on the government." That may be true but all of us are not born with the opportunity to do that. As an entrepreneur I can attest for the advantages it gives me but I never achieved those advantages by underpaying my people and working them under undesirable conditions. It is too bad our political leaders care so little for how people struggle in this country.
Johnnie Davis at 9:31PM on Jan 25th 2007
36. McCain is making a big mistake as is any Senator against the minimum wage increase. It is past time for it to be increased. Raising it will not cause the loss of jobs either. It didn't last time they used this excuse and it still won't.
Here in the Greater New Orleans Areas since Katrina, the fast food restaurants are paying $10.00 per hour and there is no shortage of customers.
To say the sky will fall if the minimum wage is increased is absolute BS.
Tevroc at 3:43PM on Jan 24th 2007
37. It's not the hike,It's what else that's in the bill!!!
robert pirillo at 4:16PM on Jan 24th 2007
38. McCain lost my vote the minute he opened his mouth and started sounding like his old buddy Bush and company. As far as the minimum wage is concerned, seems all these Senators never miss a heart beat when it comes to giving themselves a wage hike, but, to hell with the less fortunate. It should be mandatory for all Senators to take part in a program, that, for one day, they do the job of one of these minimum wage workers.
cathy c at 3:39PM on Jan 24th 2007
39. If anything the wage should be lowered, This country doesn't have enough homeless people at this time. The poor store owners are barley able to scrape by on a mear million or so a year. What with the price of drugs and hookers ever rising these men have to thank of themselves.
Satan at 3:40PM on Jan 24th 2007
40. If anything the wage should be lowered, This country doesn't have enough homeless people at this time. The poor store owners are barley able to scrape by on a mear million or so a year. What with the price of drugs and hookers ever rising these men have to thank of themselves.
Satan at 3:43PM on Jan 24th 2007
41. McCain is gutless Senator who is more interested in pleasing the corporate world and pissing on the workers who can't earn a decent living. General George Patton stated: "Find the bastards and pile on" we need to do this during the next election cycle, I don't think all of the demigods inside the beltway got the message last November.
Bill Fogarty at 3:43PM on Jan 24th 2007
42. I think it's ridiculous that our elected officials can vote to raise their salaries whenever they please, but do not care enough about the poeple of this country to make the minimum wage high enough so people can live on it.
The taxpayers should be the ones who vote on whether or not Congress gets a raise.
Sharon Compton at 3:44PM on Jan 24th 2007
43. Once I admired McCain. Now I see that he is just as evil and self-serving as the other wealthy Republican elitists who have made the privileged few in this country wealthy and the working poor impoverished. What a heartless tool of the rich.
Allen Drescher at 9:16PM on Jan 24th 2007
44. I cannot believe that anyone would not believe that we must have a raise in the minimum wage !! I have been in the corporate world and also owned a very small business.Anyone that states that this is bad for the small business man has no idea how to run a business. We always payed our employees well over the minimum wage and were paid back by those people tenfold in their honesty, reliability plus the referalls they were more than anxious to give. Our turnover was almost non-existent and that is a great savings to any size business. The basic reason small businesses fail is this type of myopic thinking. Give your employees the best you can in all regards and you will have a successful business !!!
John P. Krumpter at 3:44PM on Jan 24th 2007
45. McCain is making a big mistake as is any Senator against the minimum
wage increase. It is past time for it to be increased. Raising it
will not cause the loss of jobs either. It didn't last time they
used this excuse and it still won't.Here in the Greater New Orleans
Areas since Katrina, the fast food restaurants are paying $10.00 per
hour and there is no shortage of customers. To say the sky will fall
if the minimum wage is increased is absolute BS.
Tevroc at 3:43PM on Jan 24th 2007