The election was exactly one week ago and I am still in shock. How could this happen? There are so many reasons why the midterms were a disaster for the country that I almost don’t even know where to begin.
I thought this video was a good place. For reasons nobody understands, Fox News decided to host the brilliant Rutgers University Labor Professor, Carla Katz, to their show apparently so they could shout over her about the minimum wage for roughly ten minutes.
Still, the soft-spoken professor dismantled the inept duo of Neil Cavuto and Fox Blonde #47 (Melissa Francis) back to the Stone Age with their ridiculous, false arguments about the minimum wage which they only spew to prop up their Republican puppet masters.
As I was watching I was reminded of what Teddy Kennedy once said of the cold-hearted Republicans he battled in Congress: “What is it about working men and women these people find so offensive?” He asked, “When does the greed stop?”
Cavuto and Fox Blonde #47 dutifully argued against giving ordinary working Americans a break by raising the paltry minimum wage because it was bad for the economy.
What they fail to understand, and what Katz did a good job of explaining in the spaces between their hysterics is that when poor people get more money they spend it. This extra income the working poor receives in the form of a wage hike goes straight back into the economy, revitalizing it. It’s a shot in the arm to our collective bottom line. Everyone benefits. Even sadistic CEO’s who resist paying their starved and degraded workers a living wage receive a boost because more people are able to purchase their goods and services.
“Raising the minimum wage does make the economy stronger, because people that are earning low wages put that money right back into the economy,” Katz said. “We’re not going to recover if we continue to have an incredibly super rich and a huge part of the population that’s incredibly poor.”
This argument is in stark opposition to economic measures favored by Republicans which revolve around giving greater tax breaks to the wealthy. The reason? When the wealthy get more money it bypasses the economy altogether, simply adding to their piles of billions hidden away on some offshore tax haven.
New York Times best-selling author Thom Hartmann, put it this way: “If the 400 richest billionaires in America could generate just as much economy activity alone as the rest of us can, then maybe there’d be an argument for such vast wealth. But they can’t. The typical billionaire doesn’t buy thousands of more pairs of pants, or dine out thousands of more times, or buy thousands of more cars typical working class American.”
Our current failed economy is the direct result of years of monstrous tax breaks to the wealthy. Meanwhile, middle class wages have remained stagnant since the 70s.
As part of their ongoing (and since the midterms) newly emboldened campaign to frighten the middle class and working poor into voting against their own interests, Fox had Cavuto and the blonde arguing that taxpayers would have to subsidize this wage increase.
Katz countered with the obvious point that taxpayers were already subsidizing wealthy CEO greed by paying for the welfare services their employees currently depend on to survive.
“Folks that are not making a living wage, are going to be on public assistance,” she said. “You’re paying for public assistance and if they’re on public assistance then you’re paying for that as well.”
Enough is enough.
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Nicole Girard is a political writer with a passion for civil rights and the truth. Follow her on facebook and twitter. |
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