McCain on the Minimum Wage
Straight Talk on the minimum wage:
| Chris Wallace: | If I may say Senator, the Democrats pointed out at the convention that you pointed seventeen times against against the raising the minimum wage, and that the only reason why you voted for it in 2007 was because it was linked to war funding. |
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| McCain: | Well the point is, that I voted to keep taxes low, and Senator Obama has voted to raise taxes considerably. |
The more astute among you may have noticed, that wasn’t the question the question ask. I guess we should give McCain some credit. At least he didn’t say, “9/11 changed everything.”
| McCain: | I’m for the minimum wage increases, when they are not attached to other high big spending bills. The practice in washington is attach a good thing to a bad thing. That way you have to vote yes or no. |
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Wait. So which was “the good thing” and which was “the bad thing” in the minimum-wage/war-funding bill? Worse yet, it implies a confirmation that he only voted to increase the minimum wage because it was tied to funding GWB’s Iraqapades.
McCain, then criticizes Obama for voting for the energy bill because it had pork in it for the oil companies. He then complains that if off-shore drilling is brought to a vote, it will have other things attached. He’s right, it will. You can complain about that, and I have many times. It’s a bipartisan dishonest tactic, but it is what it is.
| McCain: | The fact is that I’m for a living wage for all Americans. And I’d like to see them get, but the key is to get them jobs, and educational opportunities, and affordable healthcare. |
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But right when I’m starting to understand where he’s coming from and think, “Okay, let’s have a policy discussion about how to best achieve this. Can we grow the economy in such a way to increase the real purchasing power of low income people, without legislating a wage floor, and if so how?”
Of course that’s not what happened. The segment ended. McCain could have answered the question from the start with this tact, and it would have been honest and interesting. But no. Instead he chose random things in an attempt to criticize Obama and paradoxically paint Obama as a friend of Big Oil. If he had answered the question, then I could respect him, but that’s not what he did. He said, “Hey! Shiny! Look at the shiny!”, and then tried to turnaround and act responsible.
Tags: election2008, mccain, minimumwage, wtf