{"id":132,"date":"2007-01-12T12:35:40","date_gmt":"2007-01-12T16:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/2007\/01\/12\/draining-the-swamp-pelosi-style\/"},"modified":"2007-02-05T21:07:28","modified_gmt":"2007-02-06T01:07:28","slug":"draining-the-swamp-pelosi-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=132","title":{"rendered":"Draining the swamp, Pelosi-style [UPDATED]"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

According to the Washington Times<\/a> and Congressional GOP members, these two are related in yesterday’s passage of the minimum wage bill. Pelosi’s constituent, Starkist tuna, benefitted by having it’s plant in\u00c2\u00a0Samoa exempted from the minimum wage hike the Democrats have been whining about for a decade. If it’s OK for employers as far away as the Mariannas to be subjected to the hike, and if the hike is needed for all Americans, what’s wrong with Samoans? Is this how Pelosi intends to “drain the swamp” in Congress? Can you imagine if a Republican had done this?<\/p>\n

UPDATE (7:16 AM 1-13-07): According to the Washington Times<\/a>, Pelosi is moving to close the Samoan loophole now that she’s been busted on it. The most important part of the story, though is the reaction of non-voting Rep. Eni Faleomavaega of Samoa;<\/p>\n

A “decrease in production or departure of one or both of the two canneries in American Samoa could devastate the local economy, resulting in massive layoffs and insurmountable financial difficulties,” he said in a statement provided to The Times.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“The truth is the global tuna industry is so competitive that it is no longer possible for the federal government to demand mainland minimum wage rates for American Samoa without causing the collapse of our economy and making us welfare wards of the federal government.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Melissa Murphy Brown, vice president for Del Monte, warned in a statement yesterday that applying the minimum wage at the tuna packing plants in American Samoa would “severely cripple the local economy.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now the Democrats have claimed that raising the minimum wage wouldn’t hav an adverse effect on our economy, but here they are defending NOT raising the minimum by warning of the impact it would have on the economy. So which is it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Washington Times and Congressional GOP members, these two are related in yesterday’s passage … Draining the swamp, Pelosi-style [UPDATED]<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}