Missing Ingredient on Minimum Wage: A Motivated G.O.P.

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Photo WASHINGTON — Each of the three previous presidents — two Republicans, one Democrat — signed an increase in the federal minimum wage. Given Mr. Obama’s emphasis on income inequality, and the popularity of an increase in opinion polls, you would think he would. But the story of recent increases underscores the indispensable ingredient he so far lacks: a Republican leader strongly motivated to make a deal over the party’s philosophical objections. In 1989, it was a new Republican in the White House. President George Bush, while campaigning to succeed Ronald Reagan, had promised “a kinder, gentler America.” The Democrats then controlling both houses of Congress set out to take him up on it. Mr. Bush drove a hard bargain on the minimum wage. He vetoed the first version Congress sent on grounds that it raised the wage by 30 cents an hour too much. But he eventually accepted a two-stage increase to $4.25 an hour on the condition that lawmakers include a lower “training wage” for teenagers. Photo President Bill Clinton and the Republican former Senate leader Trent Lott in 2009, 13 years after they forged agreement on a minimum-wage increase. In 1996, it was a new Republican Senate leader. Trent Lott took over after Bob Dole, then running for president against the incumbent Democrat, Bill Clinton, resigned his Senate seat. Mr. Clinton, who had battled fiercely with the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, and Mr. Dole,...

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California Doctors Prescribe More Name-Brand Drugs Than Any Other State

Today's post was shared by Huffington Post and comes from www.huffingtonpost.com

The only thing that perhaps matched the vastness of the spread or the depth of the traction of the "death panel" lie was the predictability that such a lie would come to be told in the first place. After all, this was a Democratic president trying to sell a new health care reform plan with the intention of opening access and reducing cost to millions of Americans who had gone without for so long. What's the best way to counter it? Tell everyone that millions of Americans would have increased access ... to Death! The best account of how the "death panel" myth was born into this world and spread like garbage across the landscape has been penned by Brendan Nyhan, who in 2010 wrote "Why the "Death Panel" Myth Wouldn't Die: Misinformation in the Health Care Reform Debate."