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Anyone who works full time, ought not live in poverty. Period.
Raising the minimum wage above the poverty level, is not a question of economics (even though it would be a big plus for our economy), but a question of morality. Who are we as a people, a nation – especially in the richest nation in the world – if we dishonor the work ethic with a wholly-unethical wage floor? It’s disgraceful, which is why three out of four Americans support raising the floor, including a majority of Republicans.
Yet, the wage stays stuck at the unconscionable level of $7.25 an hour because Republican leaders are stuck on the low-wage dogma dictated by corporate elites.
At a forum in April, GOP congress critter Dennis Ross of Tampa was confronted by a fast-food worker who asked him to support a minimum wage hike. “Who’s going to pay for it?” snapped Ross, who’s paid $174,000 a year by us taxpayers. A person in the audience rose to say he’d gladly pay a little more for a hamburger so workers could be paid a decent wage – a comment that prompted applause from the crowd. Yet Ross railed against the very idea of a minimum wage: “If the government’s going to tell me how much I can get paid… then we have a serious problem in this country.”
Yes, we do have a serious problem, and its name is Dennis Ross. Or, let’s call it Lamar Alexander. The Republican Senator from Tennessee said of the minimum wage, “I do not believe in it.” Indeed, he “believes” in the immorality of letting executive-suite kleptocrats set sub-sub-sub-subpoverty pay scales to impoverish America’s workforce. Or, how about John Boehner, the GOP Speaker of the House, he’s gone operatic on the issue, declaring that he would “commit suicide before I vote [to raise the] minimum wage.”
These guys aren’t just out of touch – they’re nuts!

“In Denial,” www.thinkprogress.org, April 16, 2014.
“3 Out of 4 Americans Agree: It’s Time to Raise the Wage,” www.social.dol.gov, January 15, 2014.


Trying to pervert consumer protection into corporate protection

The giants of food manufacturing are very concerned about you. They fear you could come down with a terrible plague called “consumer confusion” – and these selfless corporate entities are going all out to save you from it.
The altruistic corporations say that this plague emanates from the grimy and untrustworthy grassroots. Indeed, several states intend to require food manufacturers that put genetically modified organisms in their products to include that information on their labels. Labeling advocates note that, since millions of consumers don’t want their families eating foods with altered DNA, putting the phrase “Contains GMO Ingredients” on the packages will let every shopper decide whether to buy that product or not. It seems both simple and honest.
“No way,” shout lobbyists for the food adulterators. One, they claim that such efforts would create “a patchwork of state labeling laws,” inflicting confusion on consumers. Also, they say the labels might further spread confusion by implying that the genetically tampered ingredients are… well, tampered with by corporate engineers.
So, the benevolent corporations are lobbying Congress to save you from confusion by autocratically preempting the states’ authority to write consumer protection laws. Instead, the industry demands that a federal agency be directed to create a national labeling program that would take precedence over all state laws. Not that the national GMO label would be mandatory. No, no – it would be voluntary, so each corporation could decide for itself whether to tell consumers what’s in their food.
I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night. No consumer is so confused as to believe that even a single GMO user would “volunteer” to be honest with us. Anything less than mandatory GMO labeling is flagrant consumer fraud.

“Firms want to control labels on genetically modified food,” Austin American Statesman, February 7, 2014.