I got into a heated political discussion in the CS lab today. It started with discussion of the caucuses, primaries and the candidates. Aparently, many people feel that Bush is too popular and that there is no way he could be defeated.

Later someone mentioned that all of our current problems weren't Bush's fault, but Clinton's. I was simply outraged. Are you kidding!? We had a $230 billion budget surplus when Clinton left office. He raised the minimum wage, he even reformed welfare!

Those that I was talking to were against raising minimum wage: "When I was working, all the new people got hired at my current wage, but did I get a raise - no." That's too bad. I'm sorry that the conservative tightwad at the top of your company didn't feel as generous as our president had and raised your wage also.

The minimum wage hasn't been raised since 1997. They argued that no one hires at minimum wage anyway. I beg to differ, but that's not the point. The minimum wage should be raised at the very least in accordance with inflation. Their theory was that raising the wage will make inflation go up. Well, let's see has inflation risen in the last 5 years? Yes. Have we had a raise in minimum wage? No. Prices are going to go up on their own, we need people to be paid enough so that they can afford to have food to eat and a warm place to live. Is that too much to ask. Why are people against raising the wage when they already make more than that?
Julie @ 1:27 PM Permalink |