An excerpt from an AP story on San Fran Nan's first 100(25) hours as Speaker of the House:
"Pelosi, who is in her 10th House term, moved quickly to defuse the first potential controversy to beset her speakership: questions over whether the minimum wage bill gave preferential treatment to a company in her district. She instructed the bill's authors to make sure it did not."
She instructed the bill's authors to make sure it did not.
Oh. Then everything's alright now, isn't it?
God help us.
30 comments:
Yup - hands not in the cookie jar anymore, mommy, so all is okay. Typical crass Dem/lib hypocrisy.
How is this hypocrisy?!
If Hastert had done something like Pelosi's Tuna-gate, Dems would be calling for hearings and the media would be all over him.
Republican Culture of Corruption?
Look in the mirror, Nancy.
Could someone explain why her action is hypocrisy? It doesn't strike me as even newsworthy; isn't it the role of the Speaker of the House in the US to make sure the governing party's legislative agenda has a smooth passage? And shouldn't all politicians ensure that legislation they bring forward is seen as impartial? Thanks.
Liam and Dan, let me explain the background.
When Pelosi's party passed the minimum wage law, which they say is good for America, she left an exemption in it for American Samoa. This means employers in American Samoa would not be complelled to raise that particular island's minimum wage.
Chicken of the Sea Tuna is produced in American Samoa and employs something around 70% of the islands population at a minimum of about 3 bucks an hour.
Chicken of the Sea Tuna is a subsidiary of Del Monte Foods, which is based in Nancy Pelosi's home district in San Francisco.
This means, unless it is just a coincidence of monumental proportions, apparently Nan realizes that raising the minimum wage for Del Monte Foods would be potentially devastating to a corporation that contributes heavily to Nancy Pelosi's various political interests.
Thus, it could be misconstrued as hypocritical. Clear enough now?
Mark, I understand that Pelosi's husband owns $17 million dollars in Del Monte stock.
Pelosi: Uh hum.. just a terrible coincidence, my dears, I wasn't thinking of that when I pushed to exempt American Samoa from the minimum wage hike...really... honest injun. Meanwhile I will continue to fight against the Republican culture of corruption.
Pardon me but bwahahahahahahaahaha.
Bite it (tuna we mean) Nancy.
Oh, by the way. The AP story says, "questions over whether the minimum wage bill gave preferential treatment to a company in her district. She instructed the bill's authors to make sure it did not."
It neglects to mention it did indeed appear to give preferential treatment to Del Monte, and only after her opponents were alerted to it did she tell the authors to make sure it didn't which actually was too late. The bill had already passed, so she literally had to go back and rewrite the bill to remove the exemption. As Francis says, she got her hand caught in the cookie jar.
Yeah, maybe. But she is against killing innocent women and children -- oh, men, too -- in a horseshit war for oil fought in the name of Jesus.
Redneck,
Good thing we're over there fighting those responsible for those innocent deaths. And who would you rather have controlling major oil reserves, a democratic Iraq, or Iran? In the name of Jesus? Who ever said that? Please provide a link. Or a correction. Forget the apology, I wouldn't believe it anyway.
Liam,
"My Two Cents Worth" from Dec 2006.
I checked it out and found your response, to which I responded, if you care.
This is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of "hypocrisy". In Peter Schweizer's book, "Do as I Say" you can find several inconsistencies in Pelosi's political policy advocacy and how she seems to exempt herself from being affected by those policies. What's good for others, apparently, is not so good if it affects her financial interests.
Mark, that was some serious ownage above at 5:17. Good job.
"Yeah, maybe. But she is against killing innocent women and children -- oh, men, too -- in a horseshit war for oil fought in the name of Jesus."
You're delusional.
1) If the United States government wanted Iraqi oil, there was an easy way to get it-- work out a quid pro quo with Saddam, just like the corrupt UN arrangement that benefited the French, Germans, and Russians.
2) Many supporters of democracy in Iraq, including myself, don't believe in the divinity of Jesus. Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Joe Lieberman and so forth are Jews. I am an atheist. In addition, many vocal opponents of democracy in Iraq, including the Rev Jesse Jackson and the Rev Al Sharpton, are hardcore Christians.
"In addition, many vocal opponents of democracy in Iraq, including the Rev Jesse Jackson and the Rev Al Sharpton, are hardcore Christians."
To state the ridiculously obvious, neither Jackson nor Sharpton are opposed to democracy in Iraq. Saying this is just an attempt at slander and building strawmen arguments.
Don't expect people to take you very seriously when you make such obviously wrong statements.
Jason,
Well, they SAY they're hard core Christians.
I wonder how Representative Faleomavaega (D - American Somoa) felt about the minimum wage increase being exempted for his area?
Rev Jesse Jackson and Rev Al Sharpton are not good examples of Christians in my opinion, but I won't go so far as to say they aren't. But if it were my right to suspect they weren't, I would suspect so.
dan--
Democrats don't take anything seriously lately, so what else is new.
There is a difference between liking something and supporting something. For example, one may dislike someone like Saddam Hussein, but give him de facto support through appeasement. On the other hand, one may like abortion rights to be protected at the federal level, but one may not support this at the same time, arguing that this right is not enumerated in the Constitution.
When liberals get accused of supporting the terrorists, they assume conservatives are saying liberals like the terrorists. Conservatives don't mean this-- it is obvious no one likes people like Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden. However, if one chooses a policy of appeasement with such people, you ultimately give them defacto support, no matter how great your dislike.
marshall, mark--
Liberals often believe that Republicans want democracy to succeed in Iraq because it is part of a sinister plot to convert people to Jesus by force, to bring on the Rapture, or some other nonsense. I'm pointing out two things-- the big policy makers who defend of freedom these days never make a Jesus argument. Secondly, the left has a lot of fundies on their own team-- Jesse Jackson never gets criticized for Terri Schiavo, for example -- so if believing in Jesus makes people evil, then what's good for the goose....
This is another bogus attack on Pelosi as I posted at Right from the Right:
You may want to read from a source besides the right-slanted Washington Times. Here's an article from The Hill which has some points of interest:
"But the disparity between American Samoa and the Northern Mariana islands' wage policies is nothing new, and the Democrats' minimum wage bill does not mention American Samoa in any way."
"While the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has been exempt from any federal minimum wage standards – an exemption that former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked for years to protect – Samoa has operated under federal minimum wage laws for years.
"Samoa, however, has a federal wage review board in place that allows it to evaluate the effect incremental increases in its minimum wages would have on the territory’s economy."
Read more here.
Jim, what is blatantly obvious is that Pelosi and all the other Democrats know what the overall effect of raising the minimum wage across America means a steep climb in inflation and higher unemployment.
They know it but they don't care, and why should they? Pelosi and Kerry and Kennedy and all the other fat cat Democrats will never suffer financially nearly as much as the average American when the consequences of their meddling with America's economy begin to manifest thenselves.
Plus, by that time, they will (they hope) be firmly ensconced as the ruling party in the United States and thus will have attained the power they have been jockeying for ever since they lost the majority.
And after all, it really is only about power.
Mark said, "Jim, what is blatantly obvious is that Pelosi and all the other Democrats know what the overall effect of raising the minimum wage across America means a steep climb in inflation and higher unemployment."
What a nonsense statement! "Overall effect" means steep inflation? Please prove this with links to citations. I could find nothing to support this. The issue of increased minimum wage causing ANY significant inflation is argued and arguable. So the fact that Pelosi would "know" something that is not supported by facts is patently absurd.
Jim--
I've given you the outlook of Nobel Laureates like James Buchanan and Milton Friedman on the minimum wage before. If economics has *any* scientific content, then what Mark says is factual. Read what a price floor is.
There is a lot of irony in the Democrats' position on the minimum wage. One, young minorities at the bottom of the economic ladder are the first to suffer the effects of a price floor in the labor market. Secondly, the price floors have a regressive effect on small businesses, who lack the economy of scale to absorb the increased labor costs. The Dems preach against the Walmarts of the country, but end up empowering them. Third, inflation is a kick in the nuts for people on fixed incomes -- poor and retired people.
Anyone who is not completely ignorant of economics has to agree with what Mark says: the Democrats really don't care. They want the feeling of doing good, not the act of doing good. The latter would entail intellectual and moral responsibility, and Dems would rather act like adolescents frozen in permanent rebellion, trying to free the sheeple from The System.
Jason, regarding price floors: Nice graph. Now, is the proposed minimum wage the solid green line or the dotted green line? How do you know?
Here is another interesting source:
"As stressed in the Card and Krueger book cited above, these studies reveal employment elasticities that hover about zero, i.e., they solidly reject the conventional hypothesis that any increase in the minimum wage leads to job losses among affected workers."
"Second, following the most recent increase legislated in 1996, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades. The fact that the employment and earnings opportunities of low-wage workers grew so quickly following that increase continues to pose a daunting challenge to those who still maintain that minimum wage increases hurt their intended beneficiaries." [emphasis added]
"• Between 1998 and 2001, the number of small business establishments grew twice as quickly in states with higher minimum wages (3.1% vs. 1.6%).
• Employment grew 1.5% more quickly in high minimum wage states.
• Annual and average payroll growth was also faster in higher minimum wage states."
So go ahead and bash liberals, but all anyone has to do is perform the slightest bit of research to learn that your "truth" isn't necessarily.
" I could find nothing to support this."
Higher labor costs force employers to raise prices. If anything, this is common sense, not an absurdity. The burden of proof is on the Keynesian and the Marxist, not the classicist.
Of course, in the leftist fantasy world, wine spouts from rocks at our command, rivers flow with chocolate, and French Fries fall out of the sky when we open our mouths. They don't believe there are any problems of production, only distribution.
I present the economies of Japan and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as my proof. Or ask yourself why unemployment is 9.6% in Germany, or 9.1% in France. My favorite modern example of socialism in action is Zimbabwe. The country used to be a net ***exporter*** of food. The people made the mistake of voting for Mugage, a demagogue like Chavez promising milk and honey. Mugabe, like Chavez is doing, rigged the government in his favor and will never leave office. Thanks to Mugabe's racist redistributionist schemes where capital was stolen from the evil whites, power is now in the hands of the common man, unemployment hit 80%, inflation is running at 1280%, and people are starving.
None of this evidence will deter the committed leftist-- they are given finite intellectual and moral capital to cover for their failures.
Jim--
You never did read Buchanan's rebuttal to that study I linked before. Buchanan, who has a Nobel prize in his field, said the Card and Krueger study is tantamount to denying economics has any scientific content. Critiques of the position are easy to find, such as here, here, and here.
Rationality concurs with this. For if minimum wages were all that was necessary to improve living conditions, we could just make it $20 or $30 dollars and hour and pat ourselves on the back for creating social justice.
Your sources question the Card and Krueger book methodologies but don't refute their findings.
However, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. The Card and Krueger study predates the last raise in the minimum wage and so do two of your three "rebuttals". And then of course there are the actual observed data following the 1996 minimum wage increase which I cited in my earlier post.
Wow. This is all heady stuff, this back and forth economics stuff. It's enough for me to know that no one has the right to tell me how much to pay my employees (if I had any). It's completely unAmerican. But it IS typical socialist Democrat to be so arrogant as to suggest they know better how to run a business than the businessman who employs people.
Wow, again. I decided to read Jim's offering and after doing so, have a few problems. The use of simulations to make their case doesn't consider that fact the very, very few of all minimum wage workers never receive wage increases by their employers. In many cases, a crappy starting salary is rectified after the employee proves their worth to the employer within as little as six months in some cases. I also didn't see any consideration for any other factors that may explain the results of their observations. In other words, it's as if only min wage or increases of the min wage was the only reason for success of the tactic. This is unlikely. It also doesn't take into account, as far as I could see, what the employers might have done hiring wise, were they not forced to raise wage minimums. In other words, the employers may have survived the hike, but only because the new hires they were considering never took place. In short, too many variables were not even considered or were seemingly ignored as if they don't take place.
But Marshall, whatever they did or didn't take into account in their simulations, the data shows that neither employees nor small businesses were apparently harmed in those states with the highest minimum wage.
If they ignore other factors that may have had an impact on the situation, then their findings are not credible. That's all I'm saying. For all I know, they DID take other factors into account. Or maybe the factors had no impact at all. But none were discussed within the confines of your link, so it seems an incomplete picture.
It's even possible, that the employers bit the bullet and took less profit than they normally would have rather than to lay off workers or raise prices. But then, that would mean that businessmen aren't the heartless bastards the left holds them up to be. But if so, isn't the point of starting a business to make money? If you hire someone, you enter into a contract with which that person agrees or he wouldn't take the job. The employer determines what it's worth to him to hire and where does anyone get off telling him what it's worth to him? If he can't get anyone to work for him at the offered wage, he'd raise the wage until he gets any takers. Why is this dynamic a problem for the left?
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