Jeb Bush: "People Should Work Longer Hours"

Like so many others born with a silver spoon in their mouth who have NEVER known the financial struggles and what life is like without a financial safety need has a message to hard working Americans: you need to work longer hours.  Many of us are maxed out time wise and don't have the luxury of finding jobs falling into our laps because of who are daddy or granddaddy are/were.  The man is an asshole - not to mention hostile to gay rights, including employment non-discrimination protections. Message to Jebbie: Americans already work longer hours than citizens of advanced countries and we have crappy health care coverage and now less social mobility than in Europe.  Talking Points Memo looks at Jebbie's statement which I hope will go down with Mitt Romney's 47% remark as symbolic of how clueless Bush and his entire family are to the concerns and neeeds of regular working Americans.  Here are story highlights:

In an interview with the Manchester Union-Leader, the first-in-the-nation primary state's most-read paper, former Florida Gov Jeb Bush insisted “people should work longer hours", as a key part of his plan to drive higher economic growth.

The comment is already being treated as a gaffe. But it is actually an accurate if perhaps over-candid explanation of his economic plan, which seeks to combat stagnant or declining wages by getting people to work more hours.

Bush has argued that his economic plan could allow the US to achieve average growth rates of 4% "as far as the eye can see", a figure most economists believe is unrealistic for a mature economy like the United States. The "longer hours" comment was in reference to the historically low labor force participation rates the United States has seen in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis.

But numerous public opinion surveys and economic studies have shown that US workers log more hours than workers in any other industrial economy. The majority of Americans already work more than 40 hours a week. In fact, a 2014 Gallup poll found that 40% currently work more than 50 hours a week. The average American worked 11 hours per week more in 2006 than they or the equivalent worker did in 1979.

In response to criticism from Democrats, Bush's spokesperson replied: "Only Washington Democrats could be out-of-touch enough to criticize giving more Americans the ability to work, earn a paycheck, and make ends meet."

Under Bush's plan we will be further along the way on the GOP plan of returning America to the evils of the Gilded Age when the few had fabulous wealth and the rest of us worked our asses off to scrape by.  The Sun-Sentinel has this on target quote from the DNC chair:

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, said Florida knows Jeb Bush best, having watched him as governor.  

 "Jeb Bush only looks out for himself and people like him. He never has, and never will, fight for middle class families,'' she said, portraying him as an uncompromising political bully who "always thinks he's right'' and would be incapable of breaking the logjam in Congress.

"We used to call him King Jeb,'' said Wasserman Schultz, who served in the state Legislature during part of Bush's governorship.  "No matter what the voters, or the Legislature, or the courts say, at the end of the day Jeb Bush is going to get things his way, come hell or high water.''

Scott Walker’s War on the Middle Class

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has made a mess of Wisconsin's economy.  His next mission?  To create a similar mess on a national level and to continue the GOP's war on the middle class.  Walker, like most in the GOP feigns concern over the declining prospects of middle America yet continues to push policies that will accelerate the downward spiral for most of us.  A piece in Salon looks at the damage wrought in Wisconsin that Walker wants to take national.  Here are excerpts:

The Washington Post returned to Wisconsin this past weekend to empty union halls and a depressed workforce. The public employee union law – which barred contract negotiations on everything but base wages and limited annual salary increases to the rate of inflation, forced most unions to collect their own dues rather than having them deducted automatically by the state and mandated annual recertification of affiliates – has been more successful than even its supporters hoped.

In the state where public employee unions got their start, public workers see no need to stay enrolled, since unions cannot by law effectively advocate on their behalf. Membership in the Wisconsin affiliate of the National Education Association is down one-third; the American Federation of Teachers dropped by one-half; the state employees union fell 70 percent.

There are fewer public employees working, too, even though Gov. Walker claimed that the passage of the anti-union law would save jobs. The Wisconsin Budget Project finds that the ratio of public employees to total population is at its lowest level in at least two decades.

That will only continue if Walker gets his wish to turn Wisconsin into a right-to-work state, an effort being undertaken right now in the state Legislature.

[A]ccording to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, median household income in Wisconsin is $51,467 a year, nearly $800 below the national average. And it has fallen consistently since the passage of the anti-union law in 2011, despite a small bounce-back nationally in 2013. The Bureau of Economic Analysis puts Wisconsin in the middle of the pack on earnings growth, despite a fairly tight labor market with a headline unemployment rate of 5.2 percent.

This actually undercounts the problem a bit, because it doesn’t cover total compensation. For example, in the wake of the anti-union law, public employees lost the equivalent of 8-10 percent in take-home pay because of increased contributions to healthcare and pension benefits.

Moreover, the meager earnings growth that has come to Wisconsin has mostly gone to the top 1 percent of earners.  

[A]s Larry Mishel wrote in the New York Times yesterday, “the erosion of collective bargaining is the single largest factor suppressing wage growth for middle-wage workers over the last few decades.” And Wisconsin provides a salient example of that.

[Walmart] like most businesses, makes changes that benefit workers only when its reputation is threatened and poor publicity ensues. That means that worker voices play a powerful role in wage growth.

Scott Walker has taken that voice away from public unions, and effectively the entire Wisconsin labor movement, which finds itself crippled. That has real consequences for middle-class wages. Since Walker wants to bring this policy menu to the rest of the country in 2016, people on Main Streets outside of Wisconsin should take note.