John Boehner Makes Terrible Case For Not Raising Minimum Wage, Great Case For Him Being Dumber Than A Fruit Smoothie
Comrade Barack Barakovich’s announcement that he will raise the minimum wage for workers under federal contracts to the economy-destroying level of $10.10 an hour is already getting pushback from the highest (and drunkest) levels of Congress. That would be John Boehner, fresh off his stand-up tour to beautiful downtown Burbank, CA. In a press conference today Boehner continued the yucks by decrying the tyranny of paying cafeteria workers and janitors an amount slightly closer to a living wage.
I used to be an employer. When you raise the cost of something, you get less of it. We know from increases in the minimum wage in the past that hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans have lost their jobs, and so the very people the president purports to help are the ones who are going to get hurt by this.
That’s funny, because there are studies that say raising the minimum wage does not lead to vast swaths of workers suddenly being laid off. Other studies show increases in the minimum wage stimulate the economy because more money in workers’ pockets means they purchase more goods and services. Besides, the janitorial and food workers on federal contracts are paid so little they often qualify for food stamps. Since Congress just passed a farm bill that cuts the SNAP program, the financial resources to purchase food have to come from somewhere. If the Speaker does not want to pay people a living wage for their work, perhaps he would like to reconsider his position on the SNAP cuts?
When you look at African-Americans and Hispanics, they’re the people who never have a chance to get on the economic ladder.
Barack Obama doesn’t care about black people! Hilarious concern-trolling here, Mr. Speaker. If those poor blahs and browns who clean his office and bus his tray in the House cafeteria lose the opportunity to perform these hallowed dead-end jobs now that their bosses must pay them ten bucks an hour, how will they ever advance up the ladder to the higher-paid dead-end jobs that janitorial work qualifies them for? Damn takers should accept their eight bucks an hour and like it.
Boehner went on to suggest that, since this raise affects only future contracts and not current ones, the number of people it will help is "somewhere close to zero," because John Boehner, former small-business owner, does not understand that contracts are set for a fixed length of time, after which they are renegotiated and renewed under new terms. We understand, Mr. Speaker. Time also loses its linearity for us when we're at the bottom of a bottle of gin.
As Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Moron) so astutely observes, this is yet another step on the road to a government takeover of government:
This tyranny comes on the heels of Obama authorizing a 1% pay raise for federal employees, which caused a level of pants-shitting among the wingnuts usually reserved for threats to cancel “Duck Dynasty.” Luckily Art Laffer, father of supply-side economics, will be at the State of the Union tonight, so maybe he can pull a Joe Wilson and remind the president that this way lies madness. Besides, doesn’t Barry know that the money shoveled into bloated federal contracts should go only to mercenaries and defense workers?
In conclusion, go home Boehner, you're drunk.
[ ABC News ]
John Boehner Makes Terrible Case For Not Raising Minimum Wage, Great Case For Him Being Dumber Than A Fruit Smoothie
It <i>is</i> more than <i>$ Nine . nine nine</i>!
Laffer is an <a href="http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aptronym" target="_blank">aptonym</a>