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 The Liberal Patriot Blog is dedicated to collecting and sharing information about National and State [New Hampshire] Political Action, News, and Events.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Multimillionares against minimum wage

After repeated delays by conservatives, the Senate voted 87-10 today to end debate on legislation that will raise the minimum wage for the first time in a decade, from $5.15 to $7.25. The bill will move to a full vote in the next several days.

Ten right-wing senators stuck together and voted to further delay raising the minimum wage:

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)

As ThinkProgress detailed in a report last year, at least two of those 10 senators — Gregg and Isakson — are multimillionaires with a combined fortune of up to $35.5 million. Despite their enormous personal wealth, they refuse to grant even a small raise to the nearly 8 million Americans who live on $5.15 an hour:

gregg.JPG Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)

TOTAL HOLDINGS: Between $3,402,000 and $10,055,000

HIGHLIGHTS: In Oct. 2005, Gregg won $853,000 in the Powerball lottery. He owns between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 in Fleet Bank, as well as between $250,000 and $500,000 in Bristol Myers stock and between $50,000 and $100,000 in Exxon and Verizon stock.

KEY QUOTE: “If you start losing jobs because you raise minimum wage too quickly, too fast that small employers can’t afford it, that’s going to have an effect on peoples’ opportunity to work.” [Gregg, 6/21/06]


from thinkprogress

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