So the CBO report came out stating that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 would help 16.5 million people and lift one million Americans out of poverty, but at the temporary cost of 500,000 jobs.
Cue the Republican talking heads running with the one aspect of that report that fits their "Obama is a job-killer" talking points and running with it.
You won't hear a word of the 16.5 million it will help, just the 500k jobs that will be temporarily lost.
Which begs the question, which number is bigger? 16.5 million or 500k?
Yes, this debate is that stupid, and we should laugh in their faces for debasing this debate in such a way.
This has been a recurring theme with Republicans and CBO reports, just glom onto the one thing that supports your case and ignore all those other stupid numbers and facts and stuff. Who cares if this policy proposal would help 97% of the people effected by it. We all know Republicans don't believe in arithmetic.
Never mind how we could help 16,5 million Americans, 500,000 sure sounds like a big number, doesn't it? Scary, scary.
Now, we could go into a ton of details about how some of those 500k jobs might be people who only have a second job because they can't afford to get by on one minimum wage job, as David Dayen pointed out on his twitter feed, but math is hard and boring. Can you make this conversation more stupid and focus only on the negative things? Thanks.
Thus we get S.E.Cupp and the usual shills braying about OBAMA TOOK R JERBS! while totally dismissing the 16.5 million people we could help. No matter what Obama wants to do the cup is always at least half job-killing uber-tyrant.
And watch how our idiot media runs with that 500k jobs lost part in their title while leaving the 16.5M people helped to be mentioned in the third paragraph.
Cause we all know any money the working poor get because of a raise in the minimum wage will just get stowed away in their Cayman Island bank accounts, it's not like that money would become sorely needed disposable income that will go right back into the economy, boosting demand, or anything, you stupid commie.
But lets go a bit further into that talking point. So raising wages is bad? Getting a raise is BAD? It used to be Republicans would sell you on getting a good job, now you are just supposed to be grateful just for having a job, any job, no matter how crappy the pay is, even if that job pays so little you need food assistance to survive, which Republicans will take away while calling you lazy and saying you want a handout. If raises for the poor are bad, does that mean a raise for the rich is bad too? Are all raises bad, or just the raises that don't go to the "Job Creator" class of sneering one percenters? If a raise for the working poor doesn't trickle down why should I believe that a raise for the rich does? Listen, I never bought the whole trickle down malarkey anyway but it is breath taking to learn that the Republican party doesn't believe in trickle down either, not when that trickle isn't starting directly with the wealthiest among us.
And if conservative want to stick with the idea that giving people a raise is bad for the economy I'd love to see some Democrat propose a compensation freeze for the Fortune 500 CEO's of America, you know, cause getting a raise hurts the economy and all.
If Republicans want to run on "Nobody should get a raise" let them go ahead and run with that, but don't let them bullshit you into thinking that 500k is a bigger number than 16.5 million.
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