Senator Sanders: Welfare for Walmart?

[ProSense]

Welfare for Walmart?

Wal-mart pays its employees so little that many of the low-wage workers must rely on food stamps to feed their families and Medicaid to pay doctors when their children get sick. “Do you think the wealthiest family in this country should have large numbers of employees that depend on Medicaid,” Sen. Bernie Sanders asked a panel of experts at a Joint Economic Committee hearing Thursday. “That is corporate welfare of the worst kind,” said Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. The hearing was called to look at the economic impact of raising the federal minimum wage. Sanders is cosponsor of a bill that would boost the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from the current level of $7.25.

Watch Sanders at the Joint Economic Committee hearing

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/welfare-for-walmart

Obama weighing executive action on minimum wage?

By Greg Sargent

Here’s some welcome news. At his meeting with Democratic Senators last night, President Obama indicated that he is giving serious consideration to executive action designed to raise the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors...Proponents want to see this executive action happen on the merits — they believe it could impact as many as two million employees of federal contractors, and would help the economy. But they also believe such action could give a boost of momentum to the push for a minimum wage hike for all American workers, which obviously would require Congressional approval, but is currently facing Republican opposition.

Senator Bernie Sanders told me in an interview that the president took the idea very seriously when asked about it last night.

“I am very pleased that the president and members of his administration indicated they’re giving very serious consideration to this proposal,” Sanders said. “The president is weighing the pros and cons in terms of the impact on the overall debate.”

Asked what “cons” the president had identified, Sanders declined to say, noting that this had been a private meeting. But it seems fair to speculate that Obama, like some others, could be worried that raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors could be counter-productive, sapping momentum in the broader debate over whether to raise the minimum wage for all workers, by allowing opponents to argue that some have already been helped.

- more -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/16/obama-weighing-executive-action-on-minimum-wage/

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

2. ,

,

[Thinkingabout]

3. More attention needs to be shown to the corporate welfare. It should not be

Enough the corporations has to pay to recover the amount of money given to their employees but the is a loss in the future to the employees when they begin to draw their social security which is based on the amount one makes in wages. It would benefit Walmart also if wages increased because the extra money would be spent in Walmarts. It would be a win-win situation for Walmart.

[ProSense]

4. Reminds me

"It would benefit Walmart also if wages increased because the extra money would be spent in Walmarts. It would be a win-win situation for Walmart."

...of this:

Walmart could pay workers $14.89 an hour without raising prices
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024067021

[Thinkingabout]

5. Exactly, there are good hard working people at Walmart, know some personally and know

Some who are trying to raise a family working at Walmart.

[ProSense]

6. Kick! n/t

[ProSense]

7. Corporate shills take aim at workers fighting for a living wage

Corporate shills take aim at workers fighting for a living wage

by Ian Reifowitz

<...>

The above image was part of a full-page ad produced by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) that appeared in the New York Times last Tuesday. In addition to the photo, the ad condemns the push from Congressional Democrats and President Obama to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016 and index it to inflation going forward. My first thought (after resisting the urge to just rip the ad right out of the paper) was: I wonder how many actual unemployed and minimum wage workers the ad's creators surveyed before deciding what they need and don't need. What do you think?

The ad cites "most studies" as showing that a minimum wage hike doesn't actually help poor people, and then claims "The Best Weapon in the War on Poverty Is a Job." What the ad is actually trying to do is pit the unemployed against minimum wage workers seeking a living wage. There's a lot of bunk being peddled here. Let's unpack it piece by piece.

First, the academic, nonpartisan-sounding assertion about poverty and raising the minimum wage is simply incorrect. This Washington Post article by the Roosevelt Institute's Mike Konczal makes quite clear that the scholarly consensus is, in fact, the opposite. Even among scholars who disagree over whether raising the minimum wage has an effect on employment, there is no debate that doing so would reduce poverty, according to a recently published, comprehensive survey of relevant academic studies.

Konczal, relying on the data produced in the survey article, estimates that the Democratic minimum wage proposal would raise 4.6 million Americans above the poverty line, and increase by $1,700 a year the income of people at the tenth percentile from the bottom. More broadly, enacting the proposal would result in a noticeable increase in what folks in the bottom 30 percent would earn, and would have no discernible impact on households at the median income level.

<...>

The Employment Policies Institute is little more than a shill, a front group for the restaurant industry and other corporate, right-wing interests, as documented by the Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch. Here's more on these shills:

The Employment Policies Institute operates from the same office suite as Berman and Co., a public relations firm owned by Richard Berman. This is not an opinion; it’s a fact anyone can verify by viewing EPI and Berman and Co.’s websites.

(snip) At the Center for Media and Democracy, we have spent 20 years tracking disinformation and spin, and Richard Berman has long been one of our favorite research subjects. Berman came out of the restaurant industry, spending several years as a top executive at Steak and Ale before launching Berman and Co. to help advocate for corporate America. His clients have included tobacco companies (for which he formed an entity he called the Center for Consumer Freedom) and the alcoholic beverage industry (for which he created the American Beverage Institute). He was once profiled on a 60 Minutes piece titled “Dr. Evil.” But one of his most successful products has been the Employment Policies Institute.

EPI regularly opines in the press on a host of topics. Recently it has been working to show that restaurant workers don’t need higher wages or paid sick days, but few Americans are informed by the press that this “think tank” is just one or two individuals working for spinmeister Berman.

Berman's Employment Policies Institute opposes not only an increase to the minimum wage, but a minimum wage of any kind. Previously, it has lined up with the right wing against health care reform, and—in what may be a first for a self-described "nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth"—took out a full page ad attacking ... wait for it ... ACORN.

CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has created a website called "Berman Exposed" that offers the following:

Richard Berman is a Washington, D.C.-based hired gun who uses front groups to defend his corporate clients against the public interest. Using his lobbying and consulting firm, Berman and Company, as a revenue vehicle for his activities, Berman runs at least 23 industry-funded projects...and holds 24 "positions" within these various entities.

The anti-minimum wage ad is part of a larger push by corporations—spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—to attack the interests of workers. The lead article in Friday's New York Times Business section examines the push in detail. For good measure, that article notes that Berman has been paid millions of dollars by corporate interests to oppose labor unions and push hard against an increase in the minimum wage.

On the merits, the case for raising the minimum wage to (at least) $10.10 an hour and indexing it to inflation going forward is a no-brainer. The purchasing power of the minimum wage is barely two-thirds what it was at its high point in 1968, and has been essentially flat since 1990.



The ad created by corporate shill Richard Berman also says we should focus on creating jobs, not raising the minimum wage. Never mind that, according to the real EPI, enacting the Democratic minimum wage proposal would increase GDP by $22 billion over the next three years, resulting in the creation of 85,000 net new jobs. That's in addition to lifting millions out of poverty.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/19/1269641/-Corporate-shills-take-aim-at-workers-fighting-for-a-living-wage

Note:

Kos Media, LLC Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified

[warrant46]

17. The Koch Brothers corporate shills extraordinaire

They are lining up hundreds of millions for this November

[Armstead]

8. Kick

I certainly agree that a company whose owners are worth in excess of $100 B should not have ANY employees who have to collect food stamps or any other form of public assistance

[woo me with science]

9. Yet Obama NEVER MENTIONS corporate welfare in budget negotiation.

Look at the offers. Look what was never on the table.
Look what passes for Third Way negotiation on behalf of the people.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022060108


Never demands or even mentions an end to corporate welfare. Never demands or even mentions cuts to the military.

Yet still refuses to remove the vicious Social Security cuts from his pending budget.

Look at the OFFERS. This country desperately needs Bernie Sanders. The Third Way? Not so much.

[ProSense]

10. You really

"Yet Obama NEVER MENTIONS corporate welfare in budget negotiation."

...shouldn't rely on just images. It leads to screaming fact-free nonsense.

President Obama's Tax Proposals in his Fiscal 2014 Budget Plan

<...>

Here are the percentage changes in federal taxes that Obama proposes over the upcoming decade by type of tax:

■ Personal income taxes, mostly on the wealthy, would go up by 4 percent.

■ Corporate taxes would increase by 1 percent.

■ Excise taxes would increase by 10 percent.

■ Estate and gift taxes would go up by 40 percent.

In total, federal revenues would increase by 2.8 percent over 10 years.

Except for the excise tax increases (mainly almost a $1 per pack tax hike on cigarettes), most of the President’s proposed net tax increases would fall on the very well off.

- more -

http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2013/04/president_obamas_tax_proposals_in_his_fiscal_2014_budget_plan.php

[woo me with science]

12. Corporate taxes up by ONE WHOLE PERCENT!!!!!111!!

We have five years to look back on, ProSense. FIVE YEARS. The record of his intent and actions is clear.

They carried out a brilliant Kabuki to implement austerity, and they succeeded as a result of the very sorts of manipulations I linked to, but you steadfastly ignore. If you had told us five years ago that we would wake up to a level of austerity even more vicious than that requested by Paul Ryan, under a Democratic President, nobody would have believed you.

But that is exactly what they did. They did it by threatening to cut Social Security and by setting up a process in which the only possible outcomes were austerity or more austerity.

Look at those negotiations. They are obscene. They are unconscionable.

And now the President trumpets his NEWFOUND CONCERN ABOUT INEQUALITY, just in time for an election year, while he is simultaneously pushing to fast-track the most predatory "trade" agreement in American history. And his minions post excited posts about Bernie Sanders opposing corporate welfare, as though the President had ever shown any interest whatsoever in it, even when he was deeply involved in budget negotiations.

What a con game. What a scam. Five years in, my friends.

I will let you go now, but in the face of all these commercials from you today, it sure seemed important to mention THE RECORD.

[ProSense]

13. At least you acknowledge that this claim "Yet Obama NEVER MENTIONS corporate welfare in budget..."

was completely bogus.

[woo me with science]

16. No, I don't.

I was very clear about that.

For any other responses, I will refer you again to post 15.

[ProSense]

19. You don't acknowledge that statement is bogus?

How about now?

President Obama repeats call to end subsidies for Big Oil

by Barbara Morrill

With Newt Gingrich pretending he has a secret plan to slash the price of gasoline, and with the entirety of the Republican Party screaming "drill, baby, drill" and blaming everyone and everything except Big Oil for rising costs at the pump, this week President Obama decided lay out some pesky facts ... starting with the giant, oily elephant in the room:

... at a time when big oil companies are making more money than ever before, we’re still giving them $4 billion of your tax dollars in subsidies every year. Your member of Congress should be fighting for you. Not for big financial firms. Not for big oil companies.

In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies. And when they do, we’re going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people. They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century, or they can place their bets on America’s future. So make your voice heard. Send your representative an email. Give them a call. Tell them to stand with you.

The President also points out that there are many factors that affect the price of gas, including manipulation from Wall Street and reiterates that the U.S. is now producing more oil than it has in years, that the number of operating rigs are at an all time high and that our dependence on foreign oil is steadily going down ... but the main message today is to contact your congressmen and senators and tell them to remember who they're supposed to be representing.

- more -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/17/1075105/-President-Obama-repeats-call-to-end-subsidies-for-Big-Oil

[ProSense]

11. Question: Do you support the President and Senator Sanders' proposal to raise the minimum wage? n/t

[woo me with science]

15. I dislike that it's used as cover by propagandists for a viciously predatory overall agenda.

Of course I support a raise in the minimum wage. It should be a hell of a lot larger to even keep pace with the increase in cost of living.

But to trumpet THIS as evidence of the President's newly claimed interest in "income inequality" is beyond insulting to Americans.

Proposing this small increase in the minimum wage *while simultaneously pushing to fast-track the most predatory free trade agreement in US history,* that is projected to lower wages for over 90 percent of Americans, is like giving a man a quarter and then beating him to a bloody pulp and stealing all his money.

This proposal is consistent with Sanders' history and actions on behalf of the people for many years. For Obama, a cynical bid to raise the minimum wage comes five years into his presidency, during an election year, and in the context of ongoing attempts toward even MORE VICIOUS predatory policies that will completely wipe out for Americans any gains to be trumpeted from this bit of largesse.

[ProSense]

18. LOL! "Of course I support a raise in the minimum wage. "

"This proposal is consistent with Sanders' history and actions on behalf of the people for many years. For Obama, a cynical bid to raise the minimum wage comes five years into his presidency, during an election year, and in the context of ongoing attempts toward even MORE predatory policies that will completely wipe out for Americans any gains to be trumpeted from this bit of largesse. "

Seriously, that's hilarious: I support it, but I'm pissed Obama proposed it and his supporters get to say he proposed it.

[Cha]

14. Sanders "pleased that the president and members of his admin

indicated they’re giving very serious consideration to this proposal,” Sanders said. “The president is weighing the pros and cons in terms of the impact on the overall debate.”

that's what the President does.. thanks ProSense