What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Is it possible that DLC co-founder Al From is insane?
I think so, based on this interview with my favorite stenographer, Chuck Todd. It's quite clear that the talk about income inequality and living wages that began with the Occupy movement and has moved all the way up to the White House has the Villagers feeling very nervous and needing the settle down the masses.
So Al From dutifully appears to tell Chuck that yes, raising the minimum wage would be nice...but let's not let those uppity progressives get too ahead of themselves. It benefits far more people to give them tax cuts, donchaknow?
“I think that the minimum wage is an important fight that needs to be raised, but we have to be realistic, too,” From replied. “If, to me, the progressive position and liberal position is that no American who works full time year around to support a family ought to have a wage under the poverty level, even the numbers were talking about raising the minimum wage won’t get you there.”
“That’s why we have always support, and I believe we still need, a greater expansion of the earned income tax credit,” From continued.
He said that this targeted tax cut disproportionately benefits lower and middle class working Americans. He added that Democrats in the 1990s do not get enough credit for expanding access to that tax credit, which he said has been “the greatest anti-poverty program in the history of the country.”
Of course, if Chuck Todd had even an iota of journalistic inclination, he could point out that we already have the lowest tax rates in a generation and it hasn't helped the poverty at all in the last ten years. If anything, it's gotten worse. But we know that raising minimum wage has an immediate effect on the economy:
Raising the minimum wage would help workers still reeling from the effects of the recession. The resulting impact on the overall economy would be demonstrably positive, as minimum-wage workers would spend their new earnings immediately, generating a positive impact on GDP and related modest employment growth.
Now it is true that Earned Income Tax Credits does help the working poor and families, but are progressives being "unrealistic" to fight for a living wage?
