Why is it so hard to raise the minimum wage?

read with interest the excellent article from the Columbia Tribune about the minimum wage in Missouri and nationally. It gives an historical perspective and compares what the minimum wage would be today if it had kept up with the peak rate which was in 1968. Hard to believe, but $1.60/hour in 1968 was pretty good income. When I worked at Woolworth's as a teenager in the 1950's, I was paid 75 cents an hour. The same argument that employers use now was used then. "If the minimum wage goes up, we'll have to lay off people or close up shop." Well, Woolworth's finally did go the way of the dinosaur, but it wasn't because they paid their employees too much. I was disturbed to read in this article that the head of some economic policy dept at Mizzou is also the chief economist for the Show-Me-Institute which is the core of Rex Sinquefeld's privatization scheme. SMI's goal is to dismantle everything "public" and shift control of our lives from elected representatives to King Rex and his business buddies. They've made pretty good inroads into buying our "elected representatives" and it seems they are also infecting our public universities. The last sentence of the article sums up the entire ideological discussion in America today. What kind of standard of living "should" people have? "Should" is the key word here, so I looked up the definition. It is the past tense of "shall." It implies duty or obligation. I remember a discussion I had with a co-worker back in the 1970's who was claiming that her father, a factory worker, deserved enough income to afford a decent standard of living. I wasn't sure about that. After all, if her father wanted to make more money, why didn't he go to college and get into some kind of work that paid better? Her point was that her family had the the same needs as that of any other family, regardless of income or status. I was looking at the discussion top down and she was looking at it bottom up. To me, that has come to signify the essence of the difference between what we call conservatives and liberals now. No matter how powerful the top down argument is, the "need" point of view is the way we "should" be looking at the minimum wage debate. There is a strong economic argument to be made for paying workers a little more. As Lara Granich of Jobs with Justice says in the article, people earning at that level are not putting their money into Swiss bank accounts. They spend it locally which helps even more people pay their bills. But the "should" argument need not be cast aside just because the temper of the times is all caught up in "what's in it for me?" There is a moral imperative at work here. Human beings deserve the basics to survive just by the very fact that they are human. We hear a lot about "freedom" these days, and I'm reminded of the wry, satirical comment by Anatole France that "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." What good is freedom if you are starving? I asked a Tea Party cheerleader from my neck of the woods what a person is supposed to do who doesn't make enough to feed a family, much less pay rent and utilities. He said we should turn to our families and churches. How quaint a notion. And how totally out of touch with reality. If someone's family is also starving, they are not much help, now are they? And the churches and food pantries are overrun with applicants, many of whom are just now using up what little savings they had and have maxed out their credit cards. I hope everyone who can understand how humiliating it is for people who are working full time to ask for help will join in support of Give Missourians a Raise this fall. Susan C Here's the article again in case you missed it. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jun/23/finding-fair-price/

Can we "overcome" this time?

Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, began his pep talk Friday night by having members of the audience stand and touch each other's shoulders to make a connected force for "good government." It was pretty effective in making the audience relax and get in the mood for a political speech. Bob Edgar actually believes we can overcome the power of people like the Koch brothers, Sam Walton's heirs, and Wall Street gamblers. After Wisconsin voters chose last week to keep the governor who is working directly against their best interest, I just shook my head in dismay. Actually, I'm still shaking my head over the outcome of that election. Last weekend, my husband and I attended a wedding in Kansas, his home state and a beautiful place if you like endless horizons. The next day, we visited with his former neighbors and some old friends at one of the three fast food restaurants in town. There used to be two family restaurants, but they went broke. Actually, much of the town is dying as people are losing their jobs and homes. There are almost 100 houses for sale in a town of 3200 population. Never exactly an exciting place, at least not for about 30 years, that little town literally is dying a slow death. And I mean "literally" literally. Most of the deaths are from cancer. The sad thing is that the farmers know the chemicals they must use to get the yield they need from their crops to make a living are actually poisoning the very land they love. We talked about that a little bit. I don't preach to people who work that hard and look that tired. I know they are conflicted about what they are doing to the land, water and air around them. We talked a little about the runoff and the rivers and streams. As we drove home the next day, I was incredibly depressed thinking about those people and the cycle of death they are caught up in. I had just read the Huffington Post article about climate change and how scientists are now saying we are at the tipping point. Our lovely planet can't take any more poison. She is dying the same slow death that the Kansas farmers face. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/07/earth-tipping-point-study_n_1577835.html?ref=mostpopular Long before I heard Bob Edgar speak on KWMU and at the Ethical Society this past week, I had decided to hang up my spurs after this November's election. I've been spurring people to help progressive candidates for almost ten years with minimal success. I'm old. I'm tired. This my last election. And I mean it this time. Then, yesterday, on a beautiful June day, I transported three very large puppies 100 miles to the next transporter in our multi-state dog rescue system and came home feeling really, really good about doing that. As I drove back home from Altamont, IL, I played Peter, Paul and Mary on my CD player and sang "This Land is Your Land, This land is My Land" as loud as I could as I passed miles and miles of corn. I know the farmers who plant those row crops realize what they are doing to our only Mother Earth. They are probably just as conflcted about it as the Kansas farmers. But what can they do? They are helpless, aren't they? The next song on the CD was "We Shall Overcome." The Peter, Paul and Mary rendition of that old, wonderful tune from the civil rights protests is pitched exactly where my voice sounds really powerful, especially alone in a car driving an endless highway. As I sang the words, I thought about the people who overcame what was thought to be a hopeless situation in their time. I remember the civil rights protests of the 1950's and 60's although I was too young and busy to get involved. Then I thought back to the abolitionists and the women who suffered to get the right to vote. If you don't think they really suffered, get a copy of "Iron Jawed Angels" and watch it. It will change your mind in a hurry. And the labor protesters who were called every name in the book but who finally achieved what we take for granted today. Then I went back even further in my mind to the European colonists who decided they didn't want to be economic slaves to Britain any more. I can only imagine the arguments among neighbors and probably even families about the choices they had. Our history books make it seem like there was 100% agreement and cooperation among the colonists in the decision to break from England. Not true. They faced the same disagreements we are having today about what the best economic system is and what the role of government should be. I'm glad it turned out that the revolutionaries won that argument. They convinced the power and glory of the English monarchy to take their oppressive policies elsewhere and leave "the people" to their own devices. Coincidentally, the men chosen to be the leaders during those rebellious years were influenced by the European enlightenment and thought some spark of goodness resided in the souls of all human beings. Based on what some still today call that misguided belief, they set up a governmental system that divided decision making power to make it really hard for a handful of plutocrats to hoard all the wealth. Fast forward to today. We are still fighting that same battle to keep the plutocrats from hoarding all the wealth. No need to repeat the statistics from the last 30 years about median family income and depressed economic opportunities. Anyone who has read this essay to this point knows what I'm talking about. The fossil fuel companies are not only killing our planet, they are killing our hope for the future by buying elected officials who do their bidding. Drive around any large American city and look up at the shiny glass skyscrapers. Banks. Insurance companies. Stock brokers. Chemical and poison manufacturers. Oil and coal companies. They should be required to paint the skull and crossbones warning on their palaces of greed. So what's an old lady to do? I really want my grandchildren to be able to live in a healthy environment and have the opportunities they deserve to contribute their talents to the greater good. Martin Luther King Jr. said he'd been to the mountaintop and seen the promised land. Truthfully, all I've seen lately is the endless expanse of Kansas and Illinois. If there is a promised land out there in all that corn, it would have to be a field of dreams made up by a movie producer. It certainly isn't there for me to see. Bob Edgar wants us to believe we can combine our talents and resources to fight the corruption in government. He's right that the amount of money in elections is killing our chances for a healthy future. His organization is doing a good job of shining a light on groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the other "free market" extremists. By the way, "smaller government" is code for destruction of everything with the word "public" in it. Don't fall for that charade. They use nice words to hide their selfish intentions. You can watch Bob's presentation here: http://www.mopag.info/ Frankly, I think Missouri is hopeless. We have a governor who jumps for joy at the prospect of an oil pipeline crossing our state. We have the mayor of the largest city taking money from a billiionaire who wants to destroy public pension systems and public education. We have a state legislature run by ALEC functionaries. One of the Republican candidates for Secretary of State is the same Missouri house member who pushes bills making it harder for people to vote. Think about that. The man who wants to control our elections is also the man who wants to make it harder for people to vote. We're becoming Florida and Ohio where elected officials think nothing of rigging elections. Okay, it's hopeless. What if Mitt Romney and the plutocrats take over the White House? It was bad enough when the oil company executives were invited to the White House to write our environmental policies. Just imagine what will happen to "This land is your land, this land is my land" when there is no more balance of power in government? They have the Supreme Court, the House of "Representatives" (note the cynicism) and they can block anything good that might happen in the Senate because the Democrats are too timid to change the filibuster rule. If the plutocrats are going to run the country and the states, why bother paying for salaries, health care and pensions for elected officials? We can skip the middleman and save a ton of money. Again, what's an old lady to do? Bob Edgar made us repeat several times "We are the leaders we've been waiting for." I said that over and over with conviction. I sang "We Shall Overcome" with conviction. Now if I could only convince myself I mean it. Susan Cunningham June 10, 2012

The insidious plan behind the lies

The plan of the corporate toadies in our state legislature has never been clearer. Now that they see what happened in Wisconsin, they are emboldened to continue their assault on what used to be a strong middle class. Let's be clear as glass on this. These people do NOT believe government is responsible for the "welfare of the people" as stated in the Missouri state motto and in all the documents that created our national government. The Republicans have worked for years to get to this point. They do not even have to pretend to care about American families any more. They've worked their way up the political ladder for the past three decades and now have the reins of power in their hands. Under George W. Bush, they bankrupted the country on purpose with their tax cuts and two unfunded wars. Never have we gone to war without paying for it. They knew exactly what they were doing. Their plan was to bankrupt the country and then claim to care about "our grandchildren's future." They want to "starve the beast," meaning our government and public institutions. The goal is to privatize the entire system of goods and services under the flag of "free enterprise." The sad thing is that the same people who swallow the lies and repeat the anti-government mantra are also the ones who usually get hurt the most. They will have to take a job that pays less than they used to earn. They are barely hanging on financially, but they don't understand who has pulled the rug out from under them. The "free market" Republicans now in charge of our state government and much of the national government will not rest until workers have no rights, no power to complain and no choice but to work for less than a living wage. The corporate puppets in Jeff City gloat over their "success" in making life more and more miserable for the majority of Missourians. Older people who used to be able to take vacations and buy gifts for their grandchildren are now in line for menial jobs at restaurants and big box stores. I see them everywhere and want to cry. I also realize that, if the Republicans are successful in destroying the Social Security program, I may be right there in line with them. Susan C From Progress Missouri: SOME MISSOURI GOPER’S OVERREACT TO WISCONSIN RECALL RESULTS. Peter Kinder, Cole McNary and Birther Tim Jones call for renewed attacks on public workers, middle class. •Beacon: Republicans call for Missourians to emulate Walker policies, victory in Wisconsin •News-Leader: Republican candidate for state treasurer pushes for pension plan changes •Turner: State treasurer candidate: I'm going to tackle public workers' pensions