BARBOUR AND MINIMUM WAGE (written Thursday, 1/4)

Haley Barbour opposes raising the minimum wage in Mississippi to $7.25/hour, which would be 40% higher than the current national rate of $5.15. His laughable argument against such an increase is that it would, according to an AP article, “drive jobs out of this state.”

Having not read Barbour’s actual statement on this issue, just a brief AP story, I don’t know this for sure, but I would imagine that the reason he thinks a minimum wage increase would drive jobs from Mississippi is because corporations and other employers are looking for places with cheap labor and would therefore be turned off by higher labor costs.

Why Haley is wrong

It is certainly true that corporations favor the lowest possible labor costs. So why aren’t all major corporations currently clamoring to get down to Mississippi? We not only offer low labor costs but also a “right to work” law. After all, as I pointed out in a post a few days ago, Mississippi ranks 49th in median household income–low wages are the norm in this state and people are mostly used to them, for better or worse.

In other words, it is absurd to argue that improving the wages of Mississippians will discourage corporate interests from setting up shop in the state, because corporations apparently aren’t interested in coming here under the current low-wage, right-to-work conditions. Why should Mississippians be kept in their current low-wage status when maintaining that status obviously isn’t acting as an incentive for corporations to move here? For that matter, why should that status be maintained even if corporations theoretically did want to move here? Mississippians have been poor long enough. Besides, isn’t the right-wing, cheap-labor conservative argument that minimum wage jobs are mostly held by teenage burger flippers anyway? If that’s true, what’s the difference if all the Wendys and McDonalds and Burger Kings close down and leave the state?

The difference, of course, is that a significant number of adults do work for minimum wage, and that many of the jobs that currently exist here and that would theoretically be brought here would be minimum wage positions. Barbour and the right-wingers know this but don’t want to admit it. Barbour wants to pretend that he would be doing Mississippians a favor by bringing in more jobs, but most jobs that would likely be brought in would be for minimum wage with minimal or no benefits. But if more corporations brought in even minimum wage jobs, Barbour could then argue that unemployment went down on his watch, even if the jobs that are created are not so-called “good jobs” that pay a living wage. After all, Barbour’s partner in crime George W. Bush called having three jobs “uniquely American.”

Raising the minimum wage will provide relief to a large number of Mississippians and will not punish corporations, who have no plans to come here anyway. And maybe one of the big reasons they don’t want to come here even with our current status quo of low wages is because of another statistic that I mentioned a few days ago: of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Mississippi has the fewest number of high school graduates who are 25 and older. Knowing that, many corporations likely feel that a lot of Mississippians aren’t even competent enough to make change, much less to make some high-tech product.

On top of all of that, the new Democratic congressional majority that was sworn in today has already said that they’re going to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 over two years, the very policy Barbour despises, in the first 100 hours of their tenure. So Barbour’s objections not only reveal him to be a spiteful political hack who invariably sides with the rich and powerful, they are largely moot to begin with.

IMPEACHMENT, PLEASE

Been thinking this over for a few days since I read where Aravosis said that "Markos is right" with a link to this:

Bowers throws fuel on a fire that was simmering down and lists his argument against impeachment. I'll add further fuel with one more argument --

We have one year to make our case for 2008 to the American people. We need to show not just that we deserve to hold on the Congress, but that we should be given the White House as well.

2008 won't work, since as an election year, all meaningful legislative work will grind to a halt and the press will be focused on the horse race (as will we). So 2007 is it.

We can spend 2007 either pushing impeachment (which isn't as popular as Zogby claims, see Bowers' piece), or we can use it educating the American people about what a Democratic government would look like -- passing meaningful legislation that would improve their lives like the minimum wage, health care reform, ethics reform, stem cell research funding, policies that help families and the middle class.

Impeachment does none of that.

In a perfect world, we could do all of the above. But we don't live in a perfect world. And the second we start impeachment proceedings, the media will focus on that. Heck WE'LL focus on that, and the Democratic legislative agenda will fade into the background, ignored. A perfect opportunity to brand the Democratic Party in a positive light will be forever squandered.

So what is more important, proving that we can govern and making the case for future Democratic majorities? Or a high-profile vendetta campaign against Bush? It really is just one or the other.

It's an easy call.

Don't worry about Bush and company. Congress will pursue its oversight duties. Waxman and Slaughter and Conyers and the rest of those guys aren't about to take the next two years off. People will be held accountable. Impeachment isn't the old path to accountability.

And Bush? He's going down as the nation's Worst President Ever. We don't need "impeachment" to make that case, Bush has done a great job of it all by himself.

What the Hell?

There are so many wrongheaded ideas in this post that it's hard to know where to begin.

1) First of all, I guess, the idea 2007 could be spent "educating the public about what a Democratic government would look like" is a farce. The public already knows what a Democratic government would look like, and that's why they kicked the Republicans' ass. The only people who need to be educated are the 30% that still say that Bush is doing a good job, and they are beyond hope, so they must be written off. There is nothing we can do to change their minds--in fact, in their minds, having Democratic control of anything is anathema and tantamount to impeachment anyway, so we might as well do it.

2) Markos rightly worries about what the media will make of the situation if impeachment were to go down. He writes here that the Democratic legislative agenda will be obscured. It seems to me, though, that that's how you get things done, as the Republicans have shown us--you distract with wars on Christmas and/or actual wars (our distraction would of course be impeachment instead of war).

3) He says "impeachment isn't the old [sic--I'm sure he meant "only"] path to accountability." That may be, if by "accountability" you mean "a slap on the wrist." Markos tells us not to worry, that Bush is already going down as the worst president in history, so the next two years can only dig a deeper hole for him.

The thing is, though, is that Bush's war in Iraq and his war on our freedom have to stop--the sooner the better. If Bush is still president for the next two years, neither of those wars will stop before he leaves office and they are likely to escalate.

Bush needs to be removed from office, and Cheney along with him. I don't know why it wouldn't be possible to have the hearings and trial in January-February 2007, and Bush and Cheney are in jail by March. Then it's over with--Bush and Cheney get their just desserts, the war is over, Democrats are in power, and the electoral coup that began in 2000 is finally and thankfully over.

That scenario would also be a good way to educate the public about what a Democratic government would be like--waste our blood and treasure on an unnecessary war and you pay the price for it.

There's more

If Bush isn't impeached, I can imagine the conservative taunts after 2008: "Why would anybody vote for Democrats--they're weak and spineless! They had the pistol of impeachment against Bush's head but couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger--even though they said he was irresponsible, dangerous, and a threat to the country and the world! How can such wimps be trusted to fight al Qaeda?"

Or look at it this way: our soldiers in Iraq don't have two years for us to wait to take them out of harm's way. This fucker Bush has got to be reined in and made an example for the future.

I would feel completely different about this if it wasn't for the wars mentioned earlier. But this guy has abused our trust and the Constitution from the day he was (s)elected.

There are some other points I wanted to make, but they kind of vanished for now...I'll have to think about them some more and then update this post or something.

Here's one final thought, though. A lot of people thought there was no way that the Democrats could take back the Congress in 2006. Very few thought there could be a complete upset like there was. My point is, a Democratic takeover (of both houses of Congress, no less) seemed to be too much to hope for on Nov. 6. On Nov. 8, it was a reality.

I think it could be the same way with impeachment. Markos and Aravosis and others are hedging their bets, and not trusting in the people by thinking that they somehow couldn't handle impeachment and would be turned off by it and the Democrats. I think that the sweep of the elections ought to embolden our side and give us confidence. Right now, it seems to some that impeachment would be too politically costly--but what if it actually turned out to be politically beneficial, which is also a likely outcome.

Let's face it, the Republicans didn't take over and get us into this situation by being timid and hoping the press would be nice to them. And we should learn from that...