Monday, December 11, 2006

Open Forum

New U.S. Reps. Joe Courtney and Chris Murphy announce that they'll vote to raise the federal minimum wage as part of the Democrats' ambitious "first 100 hours" agenda.

Murphy was on the radio today with Susan Bysiewicz and Kevin Sullivan (Colin McEnroe lost a bet--I'm not kidding). Bysiewicz has job security for at least four more years, while Sullivan's future is a lot less certain after Lt. Governor-elect Michael Fedele is sworn in on January 3rd. He seemed to think he wasn't done with politics, although he admitted that "politics might be done with me." Sullivan explored a gubernatorial bid this year, but gave up on the idea. I have a hard time seeing a Governor Sullivan in our future.

Speaking of: the inaugural ball is on for January 3rd! You can go--but it'll cost you $150 for a ticket. The invitations expressly forbid any sort of gifts.

What else is going on?

7 comments:

Tim White said...

Have any of CTs four Dem congressmen endorsed our senior Senator for President yet? Or have they endorsed anyone else? Not that they should have. Is anyone besides Vilsack even "official" yet?

Anonymous said...

I'm still waiting for my invitation to the ball. Was it lost in the mail?

Anonymous said...

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=70d29784-d2e0-485a-9e70-b01c0a9dc6a5

Amman is an idiot.

Anonymous said...

Have any of the new Congressmen announced staff or anything yet? Chris Murphy seems to have been pretty active, but Joe Courtney disappeared it seemed after the recount.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe that people still think that the minimum wage is the way to raise living standards.

It's really about special interests: It's about reducing competition for unions, giving them more monopolistic power. Our unions have given CT a higher minimum wage for this reason, and that's not enough - they need to eliminate competitors in the rest of the country, too. Our new congressmen even admit in this article that this is what its all about.

Because the minimum wage increases the price of consumer goods, it really only hurts the middle class.

Anonymous said...

The CEO of WalMart supports raising the minimum wage so it must be good for America.

Anonymous said...

The CEO of Walmart supports raising the minimum wage so it's got to be good for America??

The next time you go to a Walmart try to find much of anything that's made in America. So raising the minimum wage will have little or no affect, on consumer goods.

However if I were the CEO of Walmart would I be more concerned about paying those few of my help who I maybe paying at the minimum wage a little more, or would I rather see more kids coming into my stores with a few more bucks, to buy more products made in Asia, at the same cost to me? It would seem to me this is a far better deal for Walmart, and China, than it is for America.

Besides just how many families who exist on any minimum wage will not continue to live in poverty?

On the surface this sounds oh so nice, but for me this is one way for our newly elected members of Congress to continuing giving themselves pay raises with a clear conscious. So we made a change, and it's business as usual I guess.