http://www.washtimes.com/national/20070112-120720-2734r.htm So, in this situation, which is worse: the group that tacks on special exemption to the bill raising the minimum wage, or the group that cries foul after the vote - publicly announcing that they clearly didn't know what they were voting for? If you ask me, both parties should be taken out back and shot - I don't want to see special exemptions or riders on bills. I don't want to see my representatives announcing that they aren't doing what they're paid to do: read the bills and decided if its good or not. Instead, we have people trying to gain special compensation for their campaign contributers and the like all while not even bothering to make a decision for themselves. They hear the main points of the bill from discussion, vote blindly on it based on the party line, and never even read the thing. There would be one easy way to take care of this... require a signed statement that you personally read and understood the bill before you're allowed to vote on it (and remove your voting privileges if you refuse to sign it) - it will let people vote the idiots who can't read (i propose to call them IWCR) out of office, and those who do read can fight all these senseless riders and exemptions that "the other party" is trying to slide in (in this case, the other party refers to either, since they're both guilty of everything). The one good thing about the article is the stated inclusion of the North Mariana islands under minimum wage. (see http://www.msmagazine.com/spring2006/paradise_full.asp for more details on conditions there).
I don't know. I guess I'd have to say republicans because they want to send my generation out to die for oil and yellow cake. I'd die for red velvet cake, but yellow cake tastes like pee. But both party's seem to want to take away first amendment rights. The democrats just keep talking about restricting so many different things in video games, the republicans don't. Being an avid gamer, this affects me. The democrats also are the guys who keep trying to add taxes to anything you buy online. That's some bs right there.
I don't like the Demorats, or the Republican'ts. Both are corrupt. Both milk the system. Someday, we will have viable third (and fourth, and fifth) parties, I hope, so the system can become more fair.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TJandGENESIS @ Jan 19 2007, 03:37 AM) [snapback]377636[/snapback]</div> Yeah, that's like asking someone whether they like having a bad cold or a case of the flu. A rash or a wart. Driving to work in a snow storm or an ice storm. The list is endless. What do you like, as Lewis Black puts it, the party with no ideas or the party with bad ideas? Ah, that would be neither but what's the third option?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Jan 18 2007, 09:13 AM) [snapback]377229[/snapback]</div> Have you ever seen a bill? They are often hundreds, and sometimes thousands of pages long. The first step of a solution is to limit the length of bills to something a legislator actually could read, and then (as I believe some states have) put a requirement that a bill may not address more than one issue. And it wouldn't hurt to have a requirement that to be president you have to actually be able to read. Does anybody here imagine that W has actually read a single page of any bill he's ever signed???
I find it comforting that neither of the big tuna companies lobbied her to get this exemption. She just randomly chose an industry to tack on as an exeption. Wow, that's fortunate for those big businesses to not have to pay the higher wages that will impact the competitors of those two. Can someone remind me which party is "for big business" and which party "is for the working man"? Losers... all of them...
Democrats, because they are morally bankrupt and will speed the already rapid moral descent of the nation.
they both suck. man i was holding out hope that the democrats would bring funding back to research since they were so vocal about science, stem cell research, etc. i was disappointed.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jan 20 2007, 07:58 AM) [snapback]378239[/snapback]</div> I didn't read the article linked in this thread, but I did read about Speaker Pelosi's minimum wage exception for the American protectorates which just happened to favor one of her home district's companies. Here's what the Washington Times said about it: From: http://washingtontimes.com/national/200701...20720-2734r.htm Obviously a special consideration for a home district company. My understanding is that this loophole has now been changed, so Ms. Pelosi's home district tuna company will have to pay the minimum wage. Or move the packing plant. Which is probably what they will do, and probably why she had the exemption in the first place. Politicians, however, are prisoners of their rhetoric, so she couldn't possibly sound like a Republican and say that raising the minimum wage in Samoa would cause job loss for an essential industry there. But her first inclination is right ... with wages in the Philipines at under $1 a hour, what do you think StarKist will do? Pay $7.25 an hour? They will move the plant. About 3% of the full time hourly workers get paid the minimum wage or less in this country. Only 10% of the teenagers who have jobs are paid the minimum wage. This whole issue is simply a campaign wedge issue that serves to ... in the case of StarKist ... eliminate jobs for those who need them the most.
