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Joe Biden 2021


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Do y’all not understand that Manchin and Sinema being bitches actually hurts Biden and helps McConnell? 

Yes. But so far the only ideas I've seen are to primary Manchin which is idiotic and a bunch of nebulous "put pressure on them!" which is just vague fan fiction.
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5 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Yes. But so far the only ideas I've seen are to primary Manchin which is idiotic and a bunch of nebulous "put pressure on them!" which is just vague fan fiction.

It's not vague fan fiction. It's called the bully pulpit and it works.

VP Harris went to WV to talk up the COVID relief bill and Manchin threw a fit. And that's just the Vice President and she wasn't even disagreeing with him about something. Manchin didn't throw a fit because the bully pulpit is ineffective, he threw a fit because he knows just how dangerous it is to him.

Use that.

Biden should schedule a rally for $15 in West Virginia and invite Manchin to be the introducing speaker, making it implicitly clear that the rally is happening with or without him. If Manchin balks, find a WV up-and-comer with energy to introduce Biden and then express hope that Manchin will come around to the right side and appreciation for all his hard work so far.

It won't happen, of course, because Joseph Robinette Biden cares more about the Senate's Holy Brotherhood and the Decorum of DC than he does about the financial pain of the American people.

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24 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Do y’all not understand that Manchin and Sinema being bitches actually hurts Biden and helps McConnell? 

The Senate itself being extremely undemocratic and giving an inherent advantage to the republicans means democrats have to live with the Manchins and Sinemas of the party to have a majority. 

I’d assume someone who tells us often how undemocratic the senate is would realize this.  So learn to work with them. Because threatening to primary Manchin just gets you an additional GOP Senator in 2025

Edited by Js1
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The Dems need to whip their senators in Line, you don’t see Mitch having this problem.

Dems will lose the house and senate in 2 years because they can’t agree on anything, are pussies and don’t attack the Rs

Edited by Gengs1
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It's not vague fan fiction. It's called the bully pulpit and it works.
VP Harris went to WV to talk up the COVID relief bill and Manchin threw a fit. And that's just the Vice President and she wasn't even disagreeing with him about something. Manchin didn't throw a fit because the bully pulpit is ineffective, he threw a fit because he knows just how dangerous it is to him.
Use that.
Biden should schedule a rally for $15 in West Virginia and invite Manchin to be the introducing speaker, making it implicitly clear that the rally is happening with or without him. If Manchin balks, find a WV up-and-comer with energy to introduce Biden and then express hope that Manchin will come around to the right side and appreciation for all his hard work so far.
It won't happen, of course, because Joseph Robinette Biden cares more about the Senate's Holy Brotherhood and the Decorum of DC than he does about the financial pain of the American people.

This is fine and a reasonable strategy. You and I have discussed messaging in the past and we generally agree that Democrats are terrible at owning and shaping the narrative.

But your scenario IS fan fiction. You dont know what maneuvering is taking place or what kind of complications stand in the way. For all you know he already threatened Manchin with that and got told no. If so, your plan is an exercise in puffery and won't do anything except drive a wedge between Manchin and Biden.

It's been one month. In a global pandemic. Let the machine work and let's see what comes out. You and hugo are being the Monday morning quarterback guy at the bar, but for things that haven't even happened.
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2 hours ago, DonkeyCigars said:

I’m just trying to be less white (less certain and more collaborative) and say I can’t say what is best for WV because I’m not WV. It’s like when people want to say what AoC should do or be who haven’t been in the city in decades or ever, much less not live in district. You should be less white (less defensive), too.

Arrogance. Don’t forget arrogance, troll.

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8 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

 

Joe Biden lets these Senators trample the working poor of America because they are his buddies. There's no larger calculation going on, they are his actual, real-life friends and we are all suffering because a bunch of dying, ancient white men want to feel like buddies.

 

140259395_10160819241027942_870775419854

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59 minutes ago, Gengs1 said:

The Dems need to whip their senators in Line, you don’t see Mitch having this problem

The Dems, as pointed out a billion times, is a more heterogeneous, diverse and complex group. Which is why they pull more people and had more voters and cut across a wider swath of demographics. One of the pros of this is you can marshall more folks and get a bigger popular, nominal vote. The cons are that it’s harder to please everyone all the time. Also you are tenuously allying with people because you have a common enemy more than common goals (see: the badteammate and Hugo’s of the world). At some point the relationship fails when you are just in it to beat someone and not because you want to fight together for the same things.

The GOP is much more homogeneous and aligned in values, desires, and political goals. That’s the benefit of being for status quo and just having to be...wait for it...conservative. The con is obviously you don’t have the sheer volume of people, especially as demographics are changing and have forever changed

Edited by DonkeyCigars
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51 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

But your scenario IS fan fiction. You dont know what maneuvering is taking place or what kind of complications stand in the way. For all you know he already threatened Manchin with that and got told no. If so, your plan is an exercise in puffery and won't do anything except drive a wedge between Manchin and Biden.

We know they didn't threaten that because there's been no Biden rally in WV. The threat isn't, "Do it with me or else nothing will happen". It's "Do it with me or I'm doing it anyway and, unspoken, I will be promoting potential rivals while making sure I publicly say nothing but nice things about you."

And then you follow through.

And that's only AFTER you've offered all the pork barrel spending he can eat.

The obvious reality is that Biden doesn't care about $15/hr. <-- Do you actually disagree?

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It's been one month. In a global pandemic. Let the machine work and let's see what comes out.

You know whether or not a dog will bite when he's a puppy.

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4 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

The Dems, as pointed out a billion times, is a more heterogeneous, diverse and complex group. Which is why they pull more people and had more voters and cut across a wider swath of demographics. One of the pros of this is you can marshall more folks and get a bigger popular, nominal vote. The cons are that it’s harder to please everyone all the time. Also you are tenuously allying with people because you have a common enemy more than common goals (see: the badteammate and Hugo’s of the world)

The GOP is much more homogeneous and aligned in values, desires, and political goals. That’s the benefit of being for status quo and just having to be...wait for it...conservative.

Tell me the key Dem voter base that opposes the $15/hr minimum wage.

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@bad_teammate, I have zero doubt every resident in WV making it, would love to nearly double their income and go from $8.75 to $15 minimum wage over night.

Likely, however, in a state like West Virginia where the cost of living, rents, price indices, etc. are much lower than Seattle and NYC and San Jose, when you double the SG&A of a business operating in WV you are going to have an equal force compete on the other end. This will look like either a) slashing hours / making people  part time vs full time workers b) raising prices or c) businesses closing. This is bad because businesses in rural podunk areas are already not the best. I made the joke earlier but it’s true, in food deserts where poor people (read: minimum age workers) live and shop and consume, options are already limited and not optimal.

I am assuming that the Senator of WV has been briefed by whatever large corporations who HQ and hold sway in WV (and provide a large tax number and employee headcount for WV) have briefed Manchin on what they will have to do if $15/hr becomes the mandate. I’m also assuming that any negative repercussions that happen due to the $15/hr would be viewed as unexpected and shocking and an unintentional consequence for those who would work at the Dollar Tree because their first reaction is probably not to dig into the causality of policy.

And WV is probably one of the democratic state outliers in this way. It’s a poor, rural, white state with a love affair of coal— you wouldn’t be blamed if you saw them and thought they behaved politically more like MAGA south. If you want to push them away and drive them into the open arms of the MAGA south you strong arm their businesses and rise the lowest earners to the same pay as semi-skilled to skilled manual laborers (e.g. tradesmen, etc.) who will not be mandated more money and may or may not see a slight uptick in their pay as a response.

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Just now, DonkeyCigars said:

@bad_teammate, I have zero doubt every resident in WV making it, would love to nearly double their income and go from $8.75 to $15 minimum wage over night.

The minimum wage increase is phased in over 4-5 years. 

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I made the joke earlier but it’s true, in food deserts where poor people (read: minimum age workers) live and shop and consume, options are already limited and not optimal.

Maybe that's because there isn't enough liquid capital in the hands of consumers?

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I am assuming that the Senator of WV has been briefed by whatever large corporations who HQ and hold sway in WV (and provide a large tax number and employee headcount for WV) have briefed Manchin on what they will have to do if $15/hr becomes the mandate.

Yes, of course, this is my entire point. Manchin isn't a representative of WV's working poor, he's a representative of its most powerful business interests.

In your worldview, perhaps, the book closes once the wealthy men speak, but they are almost always lying and even when not actively lying they are usually wrong and stupid.

Quote

And WV is probably one of the democratic state outliers in this way. It’s a poor, rural, white state with a love affair of coal— you wouldn’t be blamed if you saw them and thought they behaved politically more like MAGA south. If you want to push them away and drive them into the open arms of the MAGA south you strong arm their businesses and rise the lowest earners to the same pay as semi-skilled to skilled manual laborers (e.g. tradesmen, etc.) who will not be mandated more money and may or may not see a slight uptick in their pay as a response.

Who is the "them" I am wanting to push away? Be specific.

Is it the workers at the bottom who will see either direct pay increases from the minimum wage hike or the just-above-minimum wage people who will see increases as employers compete for labor?

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12 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

The minimum wage increase is phased in over 4-5 years. 

Maybe that's because there isn't enough liquid capital in the hands of consumers?

Yes, of course, this is my entire point. Manchin isn't a representative of WV's working poor, he's a representative of its most powerful business interests.

In your worldview, perhaps, the book closes once the wealthy men speak, but they are almost always lying and even when not actively lying they are usually wrong and stupid.

Who is the "them" I am wanting to push away? Be specific.

Is it the workers at the bottom who will see either direct pay increases from the minimum wage hike or the just-above-minimum wage people who will see increases as employers compete for labor?

“If you want to push them away”: the them I refer to is West Virginia, the state. If you want to push them away from being a Democratic Senator and into a Republican Senator, I think the best way is to, instead of finding a way to bring everyone up, bring the lowest rung of WV up one or two rungs while keeping the majority of folks in WV stagnant (or worse case, down a couple rings) in the process.

The way senate and senators are supposed to work, as fair as I can tell, is by taking comprehensive views and make decisions that have the greatest positive impact on the most number of people and for the statehood specifically. If everything were to remain the same, all things remain equal, and the only change is workers making $8.75 make $12 or $15 eventually, then great. That’s a slam dunk, do it tomorrow. But that’s not living in reality.

And I get that the business interests shouldn’t be the “be all, end all” point of view for Manchin, but neither should the interest of the poor people trump everyone and everything else.

And again, I’m just some guy in Texas who doesn’t live in WV and struggle the same as WV folks, so it’s mighty presumptuous for me to be so certain and hard on the Democrat Senator for the state. You might feel the right to do that, but I’d challenge you to be less white.

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2 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

WTF difference is there between a (D) senator who leans (R) and (R) senator?  I mean, I get it, Manchin isn't a true Republican, but he's definitely a headwind on the Democrats.

As noted this guy voted against Trump, etc. Even if a Democrat from WV would be a Republican by California standards, you won’t be full on MAGA/GQP and obstructionist with a democrat in many other issues and needs (like the continuously mentioned infrastructure bill upthread).

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17 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

“If you want to push them away”: the them I refer to is West Virginia, the state. If you want to push them away from being a Democratic Senator and into a Republican Senator, I think the best way is to, instead of finding a way to bring everyone up, bring the lowest rung of WV up one or two rungs while keeping the majority of folks in WV stagnant (or worse case, down a couple rings) in the process.

So you're talking about the entire state as if it is a single monolith?

"finding a way to bring everyone up" ... what is that? Sounds like extremely vague politician speak.

And this quote closes out with a massive assumption regarding the impacts of a minimum wage hike, one that goes against decades of evidence to the contrary. Republican talking points.

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And I get that the business interests shouldn’t be the “be all, end all” point of view for Manchin, but neither should the interest of the poor people trump everyone and everything else.

Yes, truly, who will speak up for the millionaires and billionaires? :(:(

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And again, I’m just some guy in Texas who doesn’t live in WV and struggle the same as WV folks, so it’s mighty presumptuous for me to be so certain and hard on the Democrat Senator for the state. You might feel the right to do that, but I’d challenge you to be less white.

You've made this joke multiple times now and while I'm sure the rest of the Ben Shapiro and Stephen Crowder fans love it it just makes you look like an idiot. Not surprised that the shitlibs adore this right-wing concern trolling.

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1 hour ago, DonkeyCigars said:

The Dems, as pointed out a billion times, is a more heterogeneous, diverse and complex group. Which is why they pull more people and had more voters and cut across a wider swath of demographics. One of the pros of this is you can marshall more folks and get a bigger popular, nominal vote. The cons are that it’s harder to please everyone all the time. Also you are tenuously allying with people because you have a common enemy more than common goals (see: the badteammate and Hugo’s of the world). At some point the relationship fails when you are just in it to beat someone and not because you want to fight together for the same things.

The GOP is much more homogeneous and aligned in values, desires, and political goals. That’s the benefit of being for status quo and just having to be...wait for it...conservative. The con is obviously you don’t have the sheer volume of people, especially as demographics are changing and have forever changed

Blah blah blah same old loser talk,

its like being the cowboys where they have a good team and can win the division by winning against shit team and lose by 3, averaging 6.5 yards per carry but deciding to throw it 35 times in the second half 

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WTF difference is there between a (D) senator who leans ® and ® senator?  I mean, I get it, Manchin isn't a true Republican, but he's definitely a headwind on the Democrats.

The single biggest difference is majority leader Schumer vs McConnell.
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11 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

So you're talking about the entire state as if it is a single monolith?

"finding a way to bring everyone up" ... what is that? Sounds like extremely vague politician speak.

And this quote closes out with a massive assumption regarding the impacts of a minimum wage hike, one that goes against decades of evidence to the contrary. Republican talking points.

Yes, truly, who will speak up for the millionaires and billionaires? :(:(

You've made this joke multiple times now and while I'm sure the rest of the Ben Shapiro and Stephen Crowder fans love it it just makes you look like an idiot. Not surprised that the shitlibs adore this right-wing concern trolling.

I’m not joking, pal.

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16 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

The single biggest difference is majority leader Schumer vs McConnell.

There are definitely advantages to having majority control versus not, but there are dangers to it, as well (for instance, by encouraging things like Trumpism through years of inaction/ignoring the needs of the working poor).

If we just re-run the Obama presidency we are doomed. I am not a ledge guy, but the desperate situation of the Democratic Party nationwide is hard to understate.

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10 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

There are definitely advantages to having majority control versus not, but there are dangers to it, as well (for instance, by encouraging things like Trumpism through years of inaction/ignoring the needs of the working poor).

If we just re-run the Obama presidency we are doomed. I am not a ledge guy, but the desperate situation of the Democratic Party nationwide is hard to understate.

People came together in record turn out and voted for an Obama-esque presidency by the very virtue— begging the question— of voting for Biden to win DNC & President. Maybe you were just high off of Trump being removed, but curious we didn’t hear the doom until now.

Or, to your credit and professionalism and courtesy and maturity, maybe you were going to give him a chance to somehow not be Obama-like first, but now the strain is too much to bear?

Either way, maybe now you and others can understand I wasn’t trolling when I said Biden was not a bad outcome to me, it was the best thing that could happen in the election if my party lost, of all possible outcomes when the primaries began.

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8 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

If we just re-run the Obama presidency we are doomed.

This is my biggest worry too.  Fascist movements gain steam when governments abandon their populations or when voters perceive their government has abandoned them.  Biden needs to deliver early, often, and stand up to GQP obstruction tactics. 

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2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

This is my biggest worry too.  Fascist movements gain steam when governments abandon their populations or when voters perceive their government has abandoned them.  Biden needs to deliver early, often, and stand up to GQP obstruction tactics. 

My fear with Biden was that he was going to try to placate everybody by negotiating with Republicans, who would get concessions from him and then renig.

The GOP can't be negotiated with, because they don't want any actual policies enacted, they just want power.

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3 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

People came together in record turn out and voted for an Obama-esque presidency by the very virtue— begging the question— of voting for Biden to win DNC & President. Maybe you were just high off of Trump being removed, but curious we didn’t hear the doom until now.

b_t: Guy famous for not talking about major problems within the Democratic Party.

Yes, we voted in Joe Biden... and lost ground in the House, which is continuing the Obama-era trend of putting all of our energy and money into the singular office of the presidency to the detriment of everything else.

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Either way, maybe now you and others can understand I wasn’t trolling when I said Biden was not a bad outcome to me, it was the best thing that could happen in the election if my party lost, of all possible outcomes when the primaries began.

Of course I understand why Republicans liked Biden most of all.

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7 minutes ago, DonkeyCigars said:

People came together in record turn out and voted for an Obama-esque presidency by the very virtue— begging the question— of voting for Biden to win DNC & President. Maybe you were just high off of Trump being removed, but curious we didn’t hear the doom until now

The data on the motivation of voters runs contrary to this analysis.  Many of Biden voters were voting against Trump.  Also, Trump has the voter enthusiasm advantage because well, he’s an actual cult leader, Biden is not. 

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_111820/


 

 

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3 minutes ago, ndawg said:

The GOP can't be negotiated with, because they don't want any actual policies enacted, they just want power.

The GOP uses obstruction as a political tactic. It’s easy to build around a narrative that Biden can’t get anything done when his party controls the House, Senate, and WH.  It’s why the filibuster has to go. McConnell is only going to wield it to hurt democrats and democracy.  He’s proven this time and time again.

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There will be no learning lessons.

Joe Biden 2012: 

”I believe that If we’re successful in this election, when we’re successful in this election, that the fever may break, because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that. My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again.”

Joe Biden 2019:

“I just think there is a way, and the thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”

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15 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

There will be no learning lessons.

Joe Biden 2012: 

”I believe that If we’re successful in this election, when we’re successful in this election, that the fever may break, because there’s a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that. My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again.”

Joe Biden 2019:

“I just think there is a way, and the thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”

It’s challenging to believe Biden is this stupid but the alternative explanations are worse. 

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She's a blue MAGA grifter

Biden's statement might have been the most pro-union statement by a President since FDR.  When Scott Walker was crushing unions in Wisconsin, Obama either kept quiet or tacitly agreed with Walker's actions. 

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16 hours ago, DonkeyCigars said:

@bad_teammate, I have zero doubt every resident in WV making it, would love to nearly double their income and go from $8.75 to $15 minimum wage over night.

Likely, however, in a state like West Virginia where the cost of living, rents, price indices, etc. are much lower than Seattle and NYC and San Jose, when you double the SG&A of a business operating in WV you are going to have an equal force compete on the other end. This will look like either a) slashing hours / making people  part time vs full time workers b) raising prices or c) businesses closing. This is bad because businesses in rural podunk areas are already not the best. I made the joke earlier but it’s true, in food deserts where poor people (read: minimum age workers) live and shop and consume, options are already limited and not optimal.

I am assuming that the Senator of WV has been briefed by whatever large corporations who HQ and hold sway in WV (and provide a large tax number and employee headcount for WV) have briefed Manchin on what they will have to do if $15/hr becomes the mandate. I’m also assuming that any negative repercussions that happen due to the $15/hr would be viewed as unexpected and shocking and an unintentional consequence for those who would work at the Dollar Tree because their first reaction is probably not to dig into the causality of policy.

And WV is probably one of the democratic state outliers in this way. It’s a poor, rural, white state with a love affair of coal— you wouldn’t be blamed if you saw them and thought they behaved politically more like MAGA south. If you want to push them away and drive them into the open arms of the MAGA south you strong arm their businesses and rise the lowest earners to the same pay as semi-skilled to skilled manual laborers (e.g. tradesmen, etc.) who will not be mandated more money and may or may not see a slight uptick in their pay as a response.

The minimum wage has been raised 22 times since it came into existence.  How many of those times have resulted in total collapse of capitalism?

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31 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

The minimum wage has been raised 22 times since it came into existence.  How many of those times have resulted in total collapse of capitalism?

I think an investigation into a couple of factors would better inform the situation, as opposed to "it's happened 22 times before and hasn't broken it yet!" (especially when a not so insignificant contingent of people would argue that our capitalist system is in fact a collapsed lung, though we can heave heavy and labored and painful breaths still).

1) What were the increases each time there were raised? I think I read this represents the largest single jump (by a wide margin, over 50% for a lot of states) in history. That probably has a lot more implications than raising it a tick or two. And this is taking into account the transition over a couple of years, which is a blip on the radar of time.

2) What were the rises in wages across all other strata? I believe we've been in a more or less stagnant wage situation. I'm not arguing this is good, I'm just saying we'd need to see if stimulating something which hasn't been growing is an apples to apples from the previous.

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This will definitely be the largest single jump, but it's also the longest time frame between increases by a couple of years.  Twelve years in this case since the last increase and it looks like there was one case of a ten year gap and another case of a nine year gap.

I just feel putting more money in the hands of more people will increase demand.  Increase demand will keep businesses going like all the other times minimum wage was increased.  It will certainly play out better than giving more money to the very privileged few who will keep hoarding more and more.

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17 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

This will definitely be the largest single jump, but it's also the longest time frame between increases by a couple of years.  Twelve years in this case since the last increase and it looks like there was one case of a ten year gap and another case of a nine year gap.

I just feel putting more money in the hands of more people will increase demand.  Increase demand will keep businesses going like all the other times minimum wage was increased.  It will certainly play out better than giving more money to the very privileged few who will keep hoarding more and more.

Not only that, but it also should reduce the government's burden on subsidizing low earners with food stamps, EITC, etc. It's a reduction in the socialism the conservatives claim to oppose.

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3 hours ago, DonkeyCigars said:

1) What were the increases each time there were raised? I think I read this represents the largest single jump (by a wide margin, over 50% for a lot of states) in history.

It's not a single jump.  It's a phased increase between now and 2025, so at least be intellectually honest and acknowledge the reality of the situation.

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