July 14, 2006 5:56 AM

Being a Republican means never having to worry about appearances

Top White House Staffers Pocket $4,200 Raise, Fight $2 Minimum Wage Increase

This year the highest paid staffers in the White House – including Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett and Steven Hadley – got a cost-of-living adjustment of $4,200, boosting their total salary to $165,200. Meanwhile, the White House is backing Congressional efforts to beat back a modest increase in the minimum wage for the lowest paid Americans for the first time since 1997.

Interesting, isn’t it? I never cease to be amazed by the degree of hypocrisy that Republicans are capable of displaying. The highest-paid staffers in the White House will gladly pocket their $4200 raise, all the while working hard to deny Americans making the minimum wage a fair, much-needed, and long overdue raise from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour.

If you don’t see the issue in play here, how about trying a little experiment. Try living for a month on $5.15 per hour, and see how far behind you fall in meeting your obligations? Can you feed yourself and your family? Pay your mortgage? Put gas in your car? I think you’ll find that there’s no possible way to do ANY of those things…and yet people like Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett and Steven Hadley continue to work toward keeping those Americans on the lower end of the economic spectrum desperate and hungry. No, $7.25 per hour is hardly the path to wealth and power, but don’t American workers have the right to earn a living wage? Must the outsized lifestyles of the wealthy be built on the backs of the poor?

Congress has not raised the minimum wage since 1997…and yet Karl Rove will be pocketing an extra $4200 this year. Justice? Only if you’re a Republican.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on July 14, 2006 5:56 AM.

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