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bluesinG on 25 October 2012
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gergroy said:
bluesinG said:
gergroy said:
bluesinG said:
gergroy said:

Wow

Ok, starting out the interview

Larry Kudlow, "A lot of conservatives, led by the wall street journal editorial page, were horrified when you said you want to index the minimum wage for inflation, and they said look, thats just going to raise the minimum wage, thats going to raise the unemployment rate, especially for young people, especially for minorities, it sort of a little bit of unfinished business.  Why do you want to raise the minimum wage, why do you want to index it for inflation?"

Mitt Romney, "Well actually when I was governor, the legislature passed a law raising the minimum wage, I vetoed it.  I said look, the way to deal with minimum wage is this.  On a regular basis, in the proposal I said every two years we should look at the minimum wage.  We should look at whats happened to inflation, We should also look at the jobs level throughout the country, the unemployment rate, competetive rates in other states or in this instance nations.  So, certainly the level of inflation is something you should look at and whats the right way to keep america competitive.  

Larry Kudlow, "There hasn't been any inflation or at least very minimal so far."

Mitt Romney, "Yes, so that would tell you that right now there probably isn't a need to raise the minimum wage.  What I can tell you is had one indexed the wage back to say 1990, the minimum wage would be lower now than it actually is.  Democrats make big hay of this every few years, oh, we are going to raise the minimum wage and get a lot of hooplah for it.  Uh, frankly the right way to process this is to look at the minimum wage, look at how unemployment rates are, make adjustments as time goes on based upon our need to compete, the need of the job market, and of course what has happened to inflation.

 

You see, you seem to be ignoring huge parts of this conversation.  The question initially asked is why does romney support indexing minimum wage for inflation.  That is Romneys state position in this interview.  He then talks about how as governor he vetoed a bill that just wanted to raise the minimum wage without looking at outside factors like inflation and unemployment.  He doesn't support just increasing the minimum wage, he wants to set up a long term goal of gradual increases over the years to match inflation.  

When he says there probably isn't a need to raise minimum wage, to you see what he is responding to?  Do you see why that statement is being taken out of context?  Romney has had this position of raising the minimum wage to match inflation since he ran for senate in the 1990's, it hasn't changed.  He doesn't have any statements on minimum wage after this because this is actually the last time minimum wage has been brought up this election cycle.  

I am not ignoring any of the conversation. I've listened to it twice, and now I've read your transcript of it. I see that Romney explains why he *doesn't* support raising the minimum wage right now. But your original claim was that Romney has *consistently supported* raising the minimum wage: that he has supported raising the minimum wage in the past, and that he continues to support raising the minimum wage now.

Here's the key statement that I pointed out from the interview: "Right now there probably isn't a need to raise the minimum wage." So, again, please point out the key sentence from that interview where Romney says "I support raising the minimum wage right now."

No, my original claim was that romney consistently supported raising the minimum wage to match inflation.  As in change minimum wage to change every year based off of inflation.

you evidently didnt read my original statement very well.

Ok, in that case the US inflation rate was 3.2% last year, and is averaging about 2% this year. So if Romney were being consistent, he would have said that, right now, he supports a 2 or 3% increase in the minimum wage--from $7.25 to $7.45 per hour. Or, since the current minimum wage was set in 2009, he could have said that supported increasing it to $7.72, to account for inflation since 2009. Instead, he said "Right now there probably isn't a need to raise the minimum wage."

That isn't being consistent.

Source: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/

It's consistent when somebody says to you, but there is no inflation, or at least it is very minimal, and you say that PROBABLY means minimum wage doesn't need to increased.  You see, you are falling victim to politicanese.  The language politicians use to express opinions that conflict with their base.  What romney is doing in this whole interview, is just qualifying his position, but not abandoning it.

Here is an article from the NYtimes that is pretty good about explaining romney motives and ideology on the matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/us/politics/mitt-romney-pulled-in-2-directions-over-economy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Here the key section of that article:

When he endorsed inflation indexing during his 2002 campaign for governor, he said it would let businesses plan better than they could with intermittent minimum wage increases at the whim of politicians. “I do not believe that indexing the minimum wage will cost us jobs,” he said. “I believe it will help us to retain jobs.”

He said that again in 2008, during his first presidential campaign, and in January while campaigning in New Hampshire.

But under fire from conservatives, he modified his position, saying that automatic increases in the minimum wage should be suspended in some circumstances, like periods of high unemployment.

So Romney has "modified" his position. You think that modification isn't big enough to say he's been inconsistent. I think it is. I guess we'll have to leave it at that.

One other note: I agree with you, and with the Mitt Romney of 2002-2011, that indexing the minimum wage to inflation is a good idea. And I bet Obama would agree, too.