The Democrats sure are draining the swamp huh?
On Wednesday, the House voted to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour.
The bill also extends for the first time the federal minimum wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. However, it exempts American Samoa, another Pacific island territory that would become the only U.S. territory not subject to federal minimum-wage laws.
One of the biggest opponents of the federal minimum wage in Samoa is StarKist Tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 Samoans, or nearly 75 percent of the island’s work force. StarKist’s parent company, Del Monte Corp., has headquarters in San Francisco, which is represented by Mrs. Pelosi. The other plant belongs to California-based Chicken of the Sea.
Then we have Sen. Reid, the Democrat leader in the Senate, trying to squash a bill that would shine the spotlight on earmarks:
After campaigning for months on a promise to tighten ethics rules, Senate Democratic leaders tried unsuccessfully Thursday to block a measure that would shine a light on the shadowy practice of earmarking federal money for lawmakers’ pet projects.
Last week the House Democrats passed an unexpectedly broad change to their chamber’s rules that would disclose the size, purpose and sponsor of any earmark.
But on Thursday, when Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, introduced the same thing in the Senate, Democratic leaders moved quickly to squash it, calling the House bill ill thought out.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said he was happy to see the House “moving things along very quickly.” But, Mr. Reid said, “frankly, I don’t think they spent the time on this that we have.”
The Democratic leaders’ effort to block the DeMint proposal was defeated by a vote of 51 to 46, surprising almost everyone in the Senate. The outcome reflected the keen desire of many lawmakers to appear to be on the side of openness and reform after an election that turned in part on Congressional corruption scandals.
Thankfully at least 9 Democrats showed some backbone and went against one of the most corrupt Democrats in the Senate. But the more accurate description of all this is that the Senate Republicans have passed a genuine ethics reform bill while the Democrats fought against it at every step of the way.
I guess draining that swamp to a backseat once they got into power huh?
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