Thanks to Steve Zemke over at Majority Rules for this head’s up on Mike! (Mini-Slade) McGavick’s new radio ad . In the ad, approved by McGavick, he accuses Maria Cantwell of voting against extending the state sales tax deduction from our Federal Income Tax. So much for Mike!’s “pledge of civility” in the campaign.
The woman’s voice over in the ad says, “Senator Cantwell says she voted no because she disagreed with parts of the bill.” What the ad fails to disclose is that the “parts of the bill” she disagreed with were a full repeal of the estate tax and a massive wage cut for people in this state who earn a portion of their wages in tips. According to the Congressional Resource Service (CRS) “…under the proposal, states that do not allow employers to take a minimum wage tip credit would be required to use the federal minimum wage until they passed a new law allowing such tip credits.” The effect of this in Washington State would be to reduce the minimum wage for many tip earners by over $5 per hour!
Mini-Slade then muddies the waters by claiming that the real problem is with the partisan divide in Washington DC that causes “people to vote against their own state’s interests.” Hey Mike!, wake up! Which party is in charge? Yours! If this issue is so important to you, why didn’t you ask Bill Frist (who was just here to raise money for you) to send up the state sales tax measure as a stand alone bill and, while he’s at it, have him send it up as a permanent inclusion rather that the “extension” that was offered in this plainly partisan election year garbage called “the trifecta” by the republican leadership? Since you obviously haven't been watching, this is exactly what Senator Cantwell has been pushing for as she fights for the citizens of this state in your republican controlled Congress. I didn't hear you supporting her then.
By the way Mike!, a real man would do his own talking. What’s with the “voice over”? If you are going to criticize your opponent, you should have the equipment to do it in your own voice.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
Mike's Blog Round Up
52 minutes ago
7 comments:
Amen, brother! We have got to friggin educate the voters of Washington State how totally screwed up this Congress is! In this State, we have a constitutional mandate that every law deal with one specific subject. They don't have that in the Federal Government. That's why the Republicans are so easily able to screw us in this way.
Civics education in our schools and daycare centers is an absolute must!
Chad:
Thanks for the link directly to the radio ad. Not surprisingly, I came away with a very different impression from you.
First, a little correction is in order. Take a look at this article on The Hotline. Some key points:
While it's true that the bill would have penalized tip-earning workers, Majority Leader Frist's staff offered to exclude Washington state's tip earners from that provision. This effectively neutralizes Senator Cantwell's objections on the basis of the minimum wage provisions. The bill, for Washington state taxpayers, thus becomes an extension of the sales tax deduction and a reduction in the estate tax. (The bill did not repeal the estate tax entirely -- it simply raised the amount excluded from taxation to $5 million.) If your point of view is that a reduction in the estate tax is good for Washington taxpayers, and McGavick obviously does, then Cantwell's vote went against the best interests of the people of Washington.
McGavick's ad goes on to say that when Cantwell "was offered a compromise, she refused to even talk." The Hotline article has specifics: she "shied away" from Frist's approach on the Senate floor, and failed to return his phone calls. That seems like her decision to follow her party's leaders rather than work for the good of the voters of Washington state.
Politics is the art of the possible, according to Otto von Bismarck, and it was possible for Maria Cantwell to secure tax benefits for her state and an increase in the federal minimum wage. She declined. I don't think it's uncivil of her opponent to point that out.
PS: I think it's a little silly for you to poke at Mike! over the female voice-over. The ad opens with McGavick stating his approval of the ad, and his is one of the two voices heard on the ad. Does Cantwell speak every word in her campaign ads?
PPS: I do think the exclamation point in Mike! is a little silly.
PPPS: How come you don't accept trackback links?
Allen, (Thanks for staying engaged)
To overriding point is that this was a blatantly political bill (as pointed out in the opening sentence of the article to which you referred, "The “Trifecta” fusion legislation was drawn up by Republicans and endorsed by Sen. Maj. Leader Bill Frist as a way to supply his vulnerable incumbents with a graceful political out on the minimum wage and to send them home with two solid, tax-cutting accomplishments.") that the republican majority intended to use for campaign fodder. McGavick knew this and is using it accordingly. I see that as playing the very game he decries. Bad Form.
Again, my point on the bill (even if Frist's "compromise" had been accepted) is that if there was a legitimate concern about any of these issues, they should have put out on the floor to stand or fall on their own merits and not set up as an election year game played at the worker's expense. Cantwell has been attempting to get the state sales tax exemption made permanent for a couple of years now and Mike! knows it.
As for the "voice over", this is a favorite tactic of someone who wants to "appear" above the fray. It is the woman's voice who criticizes Cantwell, while Mike! says things like, "this isn't really about Maria Cantwell...." or some such nonesense. Look, at the beginning of the ad, he says, "...I approve this message." He doesn't get to play both sides of the net and if he is going to criticize his opponent, he should do it in his own voice. In Cantwell's ads, Mike! is not mentioned. When he is, I will expect the same thing from Cantwell.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
Allen McPheeters is not a Democrat for sure or he would have been concerned about how the minimum wage provision in the bill under consideration was not even a good minimum wage provision.
Republicans know that a minimum wage increase is coming and they continue be unsympathetic to lower income workers and families. The minimum wage provision proposed by Frist was a sop to the National Restaurant Association. Washington and some 7 other states would have seen a reduction in minimum wages for tip workers.
What isn't mentioned by McPheeters is that Frist's bill would also have prevented every other state in the future from excluding tips from the minimum wage.
The "compromise" offered would have been to ONLY exclude tips from Washington's current minimnum wage but as the minimum rose, tips would have had to be deducted from any increase in the minimum wage above Washington's current minimum wage.
McPheeters also skips a real discussion of the estate tax proposal, trying to have us agree that it was a good deal. It is not.
Repeal or further reduction of the estate tax means that more of the tax burden would fall on lower and middle income people. The estate tax benefits multimillionaires, not the average American family. It allows appreciated property and stocks to escape taxation by passing it on tax free to the next generation. Frist's bill is another example of the priviledged wealthy escaping taxation while minimum wage workers don't even make enough to exceed the national poverty level.
If Frist is serious about helping Washington State taxpayers, he should divide his bill into 3 parts and let the Senate vote on increasing the minimum wage,giving a sales tax deduction to states without an income tax and voting an estate tax decrease on its own supposed merits without tying the three together.
Steve:
No, of course I'm not a Democrat. I've not claimed to be one. I do like to drop by now and again to see what's happening on the other side of the aisle.
I'm not trying to be a troll, and I presume Chad will let me know if I fall into that trap. I just like to point out the view from my side. Consider it food for thought.
Now, to your points.
First, it is not true that Washington state tip-earners would have taken a pay cut -- the compromise Senator Frist offered Senator Cantwell would have specifically excluded Washington from the tip provision.
It is true that the exclusion depends on Washington not raising its minimum wage further. But Washington already has the highest minimum wage in the country.
Only six of the other forty-nine states have provisions similar to Washington's on tip-earners. It is true that they would not have been excluded. However, Cantwell's statements about the bill mention, nearly exclusively, the impact on Washington state workers.
On the other hand, according to this document, there were approximately 245,000 workers in Washington state earning the minimum wage in 1997. Assuming modest growth in those numbers, that means something a little less than half of workers are tip-earners. If that is typical of workers nationwide (I don't have data, so I don't know), that means at least half of the 6.6 million people who earn minimum wage can now forget about getting a wage increase, thanks to Maria Cantwell and the Senate Democrats.
Now, you mentioned that I did not discuss the estate tax. I consider the reduction of the tax to be a positive thing. I know that many regular readers of The Left Shue will disagree. At any rate, I don't believe that Cantwell has expressed her opposition to the bill on the basis of the estate tax. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
Finally, Steve, you mentioned (as did Chad) the desirability of putting these issues on the floor separately and letting them stand or fall on the merits. It seems to me, given the make up of Congress at this point, that you had a better chance of getting a minimum wage law passed by combining the measures. The House has tended to be more conservative than the Senate since the GOP took over in 1994; a minimum wage increase alone is much less likely to pass there. As I said before, politics is the art of the possible, and Democrats are still the minority party. The Senate Democrats have decided that they'd rather play politics than take what they could get in a minimum wage increase.
By the way, I'd like to point out that a majority of Senators did vote for this bill. The roll call vote was 56-42. Unfortunately, the vote was for cloture, which (by the Senate's peculiar rules) means that 60 votes are required.
Post a Comment