2019 minimum wage increases by state, via National Employment Law Project/USA Today.
No time left for you, 2018
by Tom Sullivan
2019 minimum wage increases by state, via National Employment Law Project/USA Today.
Yes, it's time for year-in-reviews, but there is too much to do in the year ahead to bother right now. The New York Times Editorial Board this morning summarizes what Democrats have in store beginning later this week: Reform.
"Americans are fed up with feeling that the system is rigged against them — to coin a phrase — and itching for leaders who will unrig it," the Times proclaims:
Enter H.R. 1, a comprehensive package of revisions to current political practice that House Democrats are looking to introduce in the opening weeks of the next Congress. While the details are still being hashed out, H.R. 1 will attempt to: establish nationwide automatic voter registration; promote early and online voting; end partisan gerrymandering; expand conflict-of-interest laws; increase oversight of lobbyists; require the disclosure of presidential tax returns; strengthen disclosure of campaign donations; set up a system of small-donor matching funds for congressional candidates; and revive the moribund matching-fund system for presidential campaigns. A plan for repairing the Voting Rights Act will move along a separate track.I can see the states' rights lawsuits filed to stop Washington from preventing gerrymandering and automatic voter registration now. Except the sitting president is still named Trump and Republicans still control the U.S. Senate, as the Board acknowledges:
One reason H.R. 1 can be so big and bold is that it is mostly an expression of what Democrats would like to do rather than what has any real shot at moving through this divided government. Even staunch fans of the measure expect the Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to jam it up in the Senate. The phlegmatic Mr. McConnell may not get worked up about much, but over the years he has consistently displayed a fierce passion for strangling anything resembling campaign finance reform.Not to mention his party's general aversion to expanding access to voting. The H.R. 1 package may be more of a "medium- to longish-term legislative goal" for Democrats, but passage in a House led once again by Nancy Pelosi would be a declaration, even if it stalls in the Senate, that when it comes to "draining the swamp," Democrats are more than just talk (at least in the House). So far, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act (S.3357) has no co-sponsors.
In introducing her Accountable Capitalism Act last August, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts wrote:
There's a fundamental problem with our economy. For decades, American workers have helped create record corporate profits but have seen their wages hardly budge. To fix this problem we need to end the harmful corporate obsession with maximizing shareholder returns at all costs, which has sucked trillions of dollars away from workers and necessary long-term investments.All well and good. Addressing political and corporate corruption could be a full-time undertaking in 2019. Somehow and against opposition, lawmakers still need to fix America's teetering health care system and make immediate and urgent progress on curbing climate change before there is no time left.