http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/22/fox-news-poll-voters-say-addressing-income-inequality-is-not-government-job/
This article is about a poll from Fox news saying that President Obama doesn't see eye-to-eye with Americans about income inequality. According to the article 62% of Americans think that income inequality is basically part of life. Yet President Obama has said that fixing it is one of his biggest priorities. The article also says that much more americans are concerned with jobs (40%) and with government spending (36%) than they are about income inequality (12%).
I am disappointed with the President. I would put myself in the 36% of Americans worried about government spending. It's not like the President has never spoken about the other two issues but it worries me that he is putting more emphasis on income inequality. It appears that perhaps he doesn't think that government spending is a problem or that he has no idea what to do about it.
I think perhaps he feels that he can more efficiently win people over with talking about income inequality. It's not too hard to craft an argument with that some large percentage of money is held by a small percentage of people (logos). He'll happily quote Warren Buffet on how his secretary pays a lower tax rate than he does(Pathos). He can tell the story of how some struggling person from Ohio, Florida, or Colorado, trying to increase their opportunities(Ethos). It's hard to win over someone's emotions with the phrase "quantitative easing."
And he hopes that he can somehow persuade enough of that 62% to join the 13% who feel that the government should do something about income inequality. It seems that he is trying to get support by doing something that is not practical but will hopefully appeal who don't understand that his idea is bad.
I think he is doing something similar thing with the minimum wage. The Federal minimum wage is 7.25$. He and the democrats want to raise it to about 10.00$. The highest state level minimum wage in the U.S. is in Washington at 9.32$. So even for them it would be a pretty large increase.
And I'm very doubtful that raising the minimum wage is really the best way for people to be better off. For example a lot of the people earning between 7.25$ and 10.10$ (the proposed new minimum wage) are college students. Many of them might loose their jobs if their employers were not able to afford those wages. But even if everyone all those students had more money they would then have more money to spend on groceries, other food options, second run movie theaters, rent, gas, recreation, etc. If they had more money to spend on those things then those who are selling this and that would charge more money. And before too long people are basically back where they started. I've taken a college class on economics. But not everyone has. Not everyone understands that raising minimum wage can actually hurt the low wage workers and it seems to me that Obama is trying to take advantage of people's ignorance. If they loose their jobs it won't be too long before Obama is trying to make the case for more stimulus spending.
Some of my thoughts on the State of the Union. I thought it was kind of boring. I was on a website where you could click whether or not you agree. But the entire speech was crafted so that you could never really disagree with the words coming out of his mouth. I did like the Republican response and even the TEA party response wasn't bad either. But Obama said one thing that I thought was kind of pathetic. He said something like "let's not take another 40 something votes to repeal Obamacare." I'm thinking, "so you can pass unpopular massive reform through and obscure back door (reconciliation) that nobody has ever heard of, but taking a vote of repeal is somehow out of the norm of policy making." He seems to think that he is authorized to do such things but the republicans are somehow not.
This article is about a poll from Fox news saying that President Obama doesn't see eye-to-eye with Americans about income inequality. According to the article 62% of Americans think that income inequality is basically part of life. Yet President Obama has said that fixing it is one of his biggest priorities. The article also says that much more americans are concerned with jobs (40%) and with government spending (36%) than they are about income inequality (12%).
I am disappointed with the President. I would put myself in the 36% of Americans worried about government spending. It's not like the President has never spoken about the other two issues but it worries me that he is putting more emphasis on income inequality. It appears that perhaps he doesn't think that government spending is a problem or that he has no idea what to do about it.
I think perhaps he feels that he can more efficiently win people over with talking about income inequality. It's not too hard to craft an argument with that some large percentage of money is held by a small percentage of people (logos). He'll happily quote Warren Buffet on how his secretary pays a lower tax rate than he does(Pathos). He can tell the story of how some struggling person from Ohio, Florida, or Colorado, trying to increase their opportunities(Ethos). It's hard to win over someone's emotions with the phrase "quantitative easing."
And he hopes that he can somehow persuade enough of that 62% to join the 13% who feel that the government should do something about income inequality. It seems that he is trying to get support by doing something that is not practical but will hopefully appeal who don't understand that his idea is bad.
I think he is doing something similar thing with the minimum wage. The Federal minimum wage is 7.25$. He and the democrats want to raise it to about 10.00$. The highest state level minimum wage in the U.S. is in Washington at 9.32$. So even for them it would be a pretty large increase.
And I'm very doubtful that raising the minimum wage is really the best way for people to be better off. For example a lot of the people earning between 7.25$ and 10.10$ (the proposed new minimum wage) are college students. Many of them might loose their jobs if their employers were not able to afford those wages. But even if everyone all those students had more money they would then have more money to spend on groceries, other food options, second run movie theaters, rent, gas, recreation, etc. If they had more money to spend on those things then those who are selling this and that would charge more money. And before too long people are basically back where they started. I've taken a college class on economics. But not everyone has. Not everyone understands that raising minimum wage can actually hurt the low wage workers and it seems to me that Obama is trying to take advantage of people's ignorance. If they loose their jobs it won't be too long before Obama is trying to make the case for more stimulus spending.
Some of my thoughts on the State of the Union. I thought it was kind of boring. I was on a website where you could click whether or not you agree. But the entire speech was crafted so that you could never really disagree with the words coming out of his mouth. I did like the Republican response and even the TEA party response wasn't bad either. But Obama said one thing that I thought was kind of pathetic. He said something like "let's not take another 40 something votes to repeal Obamacare." I'm thinking, "so you can pass unpopular massive reform through and obscure back door (reconciliation) that nobody has ever heard of, but taking a vote of repeal is somehow out of the norm of policy making." He seems to think that he is authorized to do such things but the republicans are somehow not.
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