Earlier this month, President Obama vowed to circumvent Congressional gridlock with his phone and his pen. This morning, the White House announced one of his first executive orders of the New Year – raising the minimum wage for new government contractors to $10.10 an hour. The President is expected to further elaborate on the plan during tonight’s State of the Union address.
“Tonight is the state of the union address. It's a circus, and I think everybody in the country knows it,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “The President is going to be talking about increasing the minimum wage because he cares so much. Really? If you really care so much, why don't you just increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour and then tie it to inflation… Could we just get somebody honest in Washington D.C.?”
TheBlaze reports the increase from the current national rate of $7.25 will not benefit existing federal contractors. Instead, it will be a benefit enjoyed by new hires only, and according to the Associated Press, contract renewals will not be affected by the increase unless “other terms of the agreement change.”
As Glenn explained, if the President really cared about bettering people’s lives via the minimum wage, he would raise it much higher and tie it to inflation for all workers, but he will never do that because such an act would greatly reduce the power of the federal government.
“If you really believe that the minimum wage is the way to fix things, and it doesn't hurt the economy, all you have to do is sign – through executive order – a new minimum wage that is $15, $20, $25 an hour and then slave it to inflation. But they won't do that,” Glenn said. “You know why they won't do that? Because then you no longer need them. They can no longer trot that out as a very popular solution to all of our woes and our problems. And if you know anything at all about the minimum wage and how it works, you know that it is a job killer. They are now going to take and kill even more jobs.”
Tonight’s address will be filled with vague promises and hyperbolic rhetoric that will undoubtedly appeal to the President’s base. The TEA Party and the Republican Party will each deliver rebuttals that will similarly appeal to their own base. Glenn warned against taking anyone at his or her word this evening.
“Tonight you will hear a president that will act as though he is the most righteous man on the planet. He is not going to tell you the truth,” Glenn concluded. “And I don't believe the Republicans will tell you the truth, either. The truth is we are a nation on the verge of moral, social, and economic collapse.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP