One of the most consistent core Republican principles is the importance of lowering your income. From destroying unions, to making the minimum wage irrelevant, to fighting new overtime rules, the Trump-Party politicians who pretend to represent you are leading the charge to limit your take-home pay.
The latest affront to the income of Wisconsinites has come from our own Senator, Ron Johnson. In May, President Obama announced updated overtime rules that will raise the income level below which "salaried" workers must be paid time-and-a-half. When introduced in the 70's, the law covered 62% of salaried workers. With no adjustment for years, the percentage of covered workers has fallen to 7%.
The updated rule will give an estimated 80,000 Wisconsinites a well-deserved pay increase. The response by our two US Senate candidates makes the difference between the two parties crystal clear. Russ Feingold says that the change is long overdue. In contrast, Ron Johnson is totally against it. His office stated that he is working on ways to block the rule and that he "will seek additional opportunities to prevent its implementation".
House Speaker Ryan has also vowed to keep money out of your hands. Speaking-out against the new overtime rules, he warned, "We are committed to fighting this rule and the many others that would be an absolute disaster for our economy."
But this is not the first time that the Trump-Party-majority in the US Congress has sought to repress the pay of working Americans. Under Speaker Boehner, a minimum wage increase was never allowed a floor vote. It was filibustered every time it reached the Senate. Paul Ryan has consistently spoken-out against any increase. And Ron Johnson goes even farther, saying that there should be no federal minimum wage at all !
So short of executive orders by the President, there is little chance of Washington politicians doing anything to increase your paycheck. Any action must be taken at the state or local level. A 2015 study revealed that Wisconsin's middle class shrank more than that of any other state over the 2000-2013 period. During that time, the proportion of state households considered middle-class dropped from 54.6% to 48.9%. About 220,000 Wisconsin families fell out of the middle-class.
Surely, our state politicians would do something about that. Surely, they would do everything possible to get more money into the hands of Wisconsin workers and to rebuild our middle class, right? Wrong ! Rather than enact laws to put more cash in our pockets, our Trump-Party governor and corrupt legislature have done everything possible to lower the paychecks of working Wisconsinites. Everything possible to shove even more people out of the middle class.
Twenty nine states have instituted minimum wages higher than the current federal standard. Wisconsin is not one of them. Like many Trump-Party extremists, Walker doesn't even think that there should be a minimum. In a 2014 interview, he said that a minimum wage "doesn't serve a purpose". In another interview, he called a minimum wage "a lame idea". And the entrenched legislature Trumpites have kept all minimum wage proposals bottled up in committee for years.
Not content to keep low-end workers down, state GOP politicians have kept the middle class down, too. Hidden in the last state budget was a repeal of much of Wisconsin's Prevailing Wage law. The statute was designed to ensure high-quality work by well-trained workers on public projects. However, according to Rep. Dan Knodl (Trump-Party, Germantown), the repeal didn't go far enough. In a press conference he said, "The road to full repeal is the road that I've been on." and "...it (repeal) will drive down the wage."
And another success for the Wisconsin Trump-Party was the infliction of Right-to-Freeload on state workers. A 2014 study found that workers in the then-24 RTF states made16% less than those in states where workers pay their fair share of union representation. Implementation of RTF doesn't just affect union workers, either. Weaker union representation drives-down salaries for everyone. By jamming this law through in an emergency session, Trump-Party legislators have payed-off corporate donors like WMC at the expense of the rest of us.
At both the national and state levels, Republican office holders are working tirelessly to hold-down the wages of those they claim to represent. Through tactics like preventing minimum wage increases, weakening unions, and working against updated overtime rules, the GOP is systematically destroying the American middle class. One must ask the question-why are these politicians purposely and systematically working to hurt their own constituents? Just who do they really represent?
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