Remember the one about the man who killed his parents, then asked for mercy because he's an orphan? Well, chutzpah has a new definition. On Labor Day, the Republican National Committee tweeted the following claim: "This #LaborDay, the White House & Democrats believe paying women less than men is an acceptable practice." With the following graphic:
Staggering. Stunstonishing. Mind-blowing. I mean, if tweeting that graphic means that the RNC is ready to line up every Republican in or running for Congress and seriously press them to talk about equal pay, great. Because so far what we've got does not seem to support this statement even a little bit. Take the Republican senator who was
worried the Paycheck Fairness Act would be unfair to men. Or the other Republican senator who
claimed it was about pay for trial lawyers, not women. Or the Texas governor and likely presidential candidate who vetoed a state version of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and
called equal pay concerns "nonsense." Take the Republican Senate nominee running on his record as a CEO—a record that includes
a $15 million pay discrimination settlement. These things and many others would seem to suggest that, in fact, all Republicans do not support equal pay.
For that matter, even if Republicans weren't constantly running around mocking the idea of equal pay legislation, we'd have pretty solid evidence they oppose it in the fact that Republicans filibustered the Paycheck Fairness Act. Oh, they'll try to argue that they support equal pay even if they don't support legislation that would make it more likely to happen, but if you don't support doing anything to achieve the goals you claim, those aren't really goals, now are they?
Meanwhile, Democrats are the ones who've brought the Paycheck Fairness Act up for repeated votes. And the president? Since Republicans were blocking congressional action on equal pay, President Obama went ahead with two executive orders strengthening equal pay protections at federal contractors.
