Yes, those Republican do-gooders in the Senate have never failed to vote themselves a raise, but they have once again decided that they are the only ones who have to contend with the rising cost of living. So, they killed the minimum wage hike, and it will stay at $5.15. In case you're wondering which Senators were in on the deal, here they are (for Tennessee -- the rest of the list follows below):
Bob Corker: voted against raising the minimum wage -- this is the little weasel who used the Chattanooga mayor's office to enrich his portfolio. Just one one of the sweet scams he ran through the city's offices was good for $4.6 million, wetlands be damned. Now that he's bought himself a Senate seat, his income is sure to go up, especially if he gets some tips from Tennessee's other Senator:
Lamar Alexander: voted against raising the minimum wage -- this is the guy who somehow managed to get rich while earning a relatively modest salary in "public service." Doug Ireland wrote an article about him titled "Politics for Profit: The Rich Rise of Lamar Alexander" (if I can find an online source for the text, I'll add the link).
Oh, and Alexander is also, amazingly enough, one of
28 Republican Senators who
voted to eliminate the minimum wage completely (note that at least a couple of presidential wannabes are on the list, too). No,
I'm not kidding.
"Gosh," Corker and Alexander reason, "the downtrodden can just pull themselves up by the bootstraps like we did!" However, unlike Mr. Corker and Mr. Alexander, a lot of honest, hard-working Americans aren't willing and able to screw over the US taxpayer in order to make a buck.
Here's a simple bit of math:
A person working
40 hours a week,
50 weeks a year at minimum wage (
$5.15 per hour) -- before any taxes, insurance, uniform fees, parking fees, day care, transportation costs, or any other expenses are deducted from the gross -- will make
$10,300 a year.
40 x 50 x $5.15 = $10,300
OK, first stop for a minute and imagine trying to make ends meet on $10,300 a year. How would you manage? Could you?
Now, consider this:
The
current poverty threshold for a single person living in the contiguous US is
$9,800. For two people (say, a single mother and her child), the poverty threshold is
$13,200. If a man works industriously all year long in a minimum wage job, it's impossible for him to earn enough to support a wife and one child, because the threshold for three people is
$16,600 (of couse, the right wingnuts and holy rollers are always shrieking about how women should stay home with their children, but when Republicans are called upon to require their corporate patrons to pay a living wage, those same conservatives suddenly don't seem to remember a thing that Jesus said).
The math tells the story, and it is unconscionable. The richest nation on earth, a supposed Christian nation, should be ashamed of such a failure to take even basic steps to combat poverty. We won't be a great nation for much longer if we continue to neglect our most vulnerable citizens.
So there you have it, folks. A complete list of how our Senate voted follows after the bump. Remember these names when your Senators come calling -- if they ask you for money or for your support, remind them of this vote.
