Speaker John Boehner hated raising the minimum wage so much that he threatened to commit suicide back in 1996 over the proposal.
Speaker John Boehner is so against raising the minimum wage that he once said he would rather commit suicide than vote for a “clean” increase.
The Ohio Republican and son of a barkeep has repeatedly opposed federally mandated hike increases, which have been a constant in the Democrats’ election-year playbook.
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Some Democrats are optimistic Boehner will cave and allow a vote this year, but the record shows there is little if any daylight between the pro-business Speaker and his conservative conference on this issue.
Boehner made the comments about suicide in an April 1996 interview with The Weekly Standard. “I’ll commit suicide before I vote on a clean minimum-wage bill,” Boehner, then the head of the House Republican Conference, said at the time.
President Obama just pitched the wage increase to $10.10 to Democratic Governors at the White House today:
President Barack Obama promoted his effort to raise the minimum wage on Friday, declaring in a meeting with Democratic governors that higher pay is not only "good policy, it also happens to be good politics." Gathering with Democratic allies at the White House, Obama sought to build momentum for his effort to gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016, part of a larger aim to address income inequality between the wealthy and the poor.
The president noted that many Democratic governors had outlined plans of their own to increase the minimum wage, citing recent pushes by the governors of Hawaii, Washington state, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois. "This is not just good policy. It also happens to be good politics," Obama said. "Because the truth of the matter is the overwhelming majority of Americans think that raising the minimum wage is a good idea."
My question is, will Speaker Boehner go through with his planned suicide if the minimum wage is increased?
