AFL-CIO : Minimum Wage Hike Should be No Strings Attached

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/4919

AFL-CIO : Minimum Wage Hike Should be No Strings Attached

By Doug Cunningham

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says Bush’s insistence on tying a business tax break string to a minimum wage increases demonstrates he didn’t get the message working families sent at the polls in November. Business has gotten billions already in tax breaks, Sweeney says, so a minimum wage increase needs to go to low-income workers with no strings attached.

AUDIO story: http://www.laborradio.org/files/lo/winsheadlines.ram

[Fridays Child]

1. I'd like to see them start a "No Strings Attached" campaign to bring it to...

...light that Bush wants yet another handout for the business class, before he'll even consider doing anything for the working poor. People need to understand that.

[Wisconsin Larry]

2. Yes! And Harry Reid needs to stop compromising and recognize that we are the majority. n/t

[beaconess]

3. How is Reid compromising?

[Wisconsin Larry]

4. Sorry, I should have included a reference. What was in my mind

was his response to the troop surge proposal. I was more than dismayed by his initial response.

From amongst other references is the following. However, I should add that he has modified his stance. But dammit, this should not be the first response to * "new" way forward.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16262093.htm

Reid: Brief troop increase OK in Iraq
HOPE YEN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Senate's top Democrat offered qualified support Sunday for a plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq, saying it would be acceptable as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.
<snip>
nco ming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose party campaigned in the November congressional elections on changing course in Iraq, said he would be open only to a short-term increase.

"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.

"The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically," Reid said.

At least three other Democrats did not support Reid's position on the additional troops.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that if it were a short-term increase, "won't our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you'd have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said, "I respect Harry Reid on it, but that's not where I am."

Kennedy, like Reed a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there would be widespread opposition by members of his committee if Bush proposed a troop increase.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said any proposal to send more troops should only follow a political solution that will end civil unrest. "The president and others who support the surge have it exactly back wards," Biden said during a speech in Manchester, N.H.