Charles Koch Launches Campaign to Eliminate the Minimum Wage

[Triana]

. . .

On Tuesday, billionaire libertarian Charles Koch joined Republicans pushing to eliminate the nation’s minimum wage he implied was the ultimate secret to lift Americans out of poverty as well as the major obstacle to economic growth. In fact, Koch said “we need to analyze all these government subsidies, all these things that are creating a culture of dependency, and we’ve got to clear out what reduces the mobility of labor.” A Koch-funded ad in Kansas insinuated minimum wage Americans earning $34,000 annually should consider themselves fortunate, but an American working full-time making minimum wage only earns $15,080 annually, if they can find full-time work. As it is, the poverty level for a family of four is $22,283 annual income, and even in the poorest state in the nation a worker earning minimum wage has to work 67 hours per week to afford the most meager apartment if they are fortunate enough to find a full-time job; food, utilities, and clothing are luxuries out of the realm of a poverty-level worker’s budget. Most medium to large businesses prevent full-time employment to avoid giving lunch breaks or benefits, and those working-poor Americans make up a large share of food stamp recipients Republicans just drove into hunger by eliminating SNAP funding from their Draconian farm bill.

Koch had the temerity to claim him and his brother’s political efforts to create poverty are not for their own benefit, but for the country’s greater good, and by country he means corporations; not the people. He also asserted that “other large companies are promoting some kind of special cronyism where they’re undermining economic freedom” and he certainly meant companies such as Costco Stores and Starbucks that pay a living wage that, according to Koch, are destroying Americans’ opportunity at economic freedom and chance of escaping poverty. Koch doubtless joins the Walton family company, WalMart, that recently threatened to scuttle plans to build three poverty-wage stores in Washington D.C. because the city council were considering a bill to require large companies to pay employees a living wage. As it is now, each WalMart store costs taxpayers a minimum of $1 million in public welfare and healthcare costs because they pay poverty-level minimum wage and maintain a strict policy against overtime pay, allowing workers to take bathroom breaks, or receive basic medical accommodations. According to Koch, who along with the Walton family holds more wealth than the majority of Americans, the minimum wage is forcing companies to fire employees and rails at the notion of raising it to $9 an hour that would barely help 15 million poverty-level American workers afford to eat, find shelter, or afford basic healthcare.

What Americans are witnessing now is a conservative movement that is finally revealing their only economic agenda is creating poverty for the masses by openly raping what is left of economic opportunity from the people, or any chance for tens-of-millions of Americans to escape extreme poverty borne of pathetic minimum wages at part-time jobs. The nation already ranks near the bottom of every category for a developed country whether it is middle class wealth, infrastructure, social programs, healthcare, education spending, or children living in poverty and still, Republicans voted to eliminate overtime pay, end Medicare and Social Security, food stamps, promote eliminating the minimum wage, and all to, as Charles Koch says, to lift Americans out of poverty and to spur economic growth. The Koch’s have even turned on their John Birch acolytes in the teabagger movement in Georgia by fighting the tea party to stop expansion of solar energy development because the billionaire brothers have not yet figured out how to charge Americans for harvesting energy from the Sun.

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MORE:
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/13/charles-koch.html

[Coyotl]

1. Higher minimum wage = greatest threat to plan to break up the USA and steal minerals

You wouldn't want a powerful economic stimulus right now or Obama will look good, Dems will look good, people will prosper, and destroying the country can't happen.

[MrScorpio]

2. Sounds exactly like something that a greedy rich fuck would say nt

[winter is coming]

3. A billionaire tells people getting minimum wage that they're overpaid.