Reince Priebus
Reince Priebus apparently thinks he's a better salesman than he is. Appearing on a right-wing radio show, the Republican National Committee chair
tried to sell the notion that Democrats don't really want to extend emergency unemployment aid or raise the minimum wage, they're just trying to score points on Republicans. Really. That's not a glib distillation, it's what he said:
“All of this kind of stuff is ridiculous because we’re spending all of our time actually talking and perpetrating what the Democrats actually want. They don’t want this to pass, Lars, what they want to do is they want to talk about these things, they want to talk about minimum wage and what they want to do ultimately is create a campaign issue, this sort of rich vs. poor, the same old thing they can do and avoid Obamacare. That’s what they want.”
A quick review of the facts shows that in 2007, when Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress, increasing the minimum wage was one of their top priorities; we can conclude that, after the last step increase included in that 2007 bill happened in 2009, they should have raised it again before losing the House in 2010, but you can't say the minimum wage didn't go up under Democratic control and get stuck under Republican control. Repeatedly. Additionally, while Democrats don't currently have the power to get a House vote to raise the federal minimum, quite a few
blue states have raised their state minimums.
Similarly, Democrats have fought repeatedly to extend emergency unemployment aid, and so far they've won, with Republicans digging in their heels, demanding concessions, and cutting benefits in states they control. And this is an issue that used to be bipartisan!
But facts aside, Steve Benen outlines the obvious strategy if Republicans actually believe Democrats aren't sincere in wanting to extend unemployment aid and raise the minimum wage:
If this were true, wouldn’t it make sense for Republican leaders to pass the measures and undermine the Democratic plan? Wouldn’t the head of the RNC want his party [to] take the popular issue Democrats want to run on off the table?
Of course, we all know Reince isn't serious. He's just trying to fool the more gullible among the Republican base and give the right-wing media something to get worked up about.
Email your member of Congress now and demand that they restore benefits to the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.