CLINTONCOUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER

Democratic Priorities:  Jobs, Education and Personal Freedom

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August 1, 2005

PUBLIC SERVICE RETREAT

The BethelA.M.E.Church is sponsoring a retreat and brunch at the Frontier, Sunday, August 7, from 1:00 to 3:00 P.M.  The retreat will feature Carl E. Officer, former mayor of East Saint Louis, Mr. Officer is rooted in the values of generosity, compassion and civic duty.  For more information about the retreat call Vince Jetter or the Bethel A.M.E.

Church.

CAMANCHE DAYS PARADE

Saturday, August 13

Meet at the funeral home at 10:00 A.M.  The parade starts at 11:00 A.M.

SUPER EVENT

POLLY BUKTA?S ANNUAL CORN BOIL

August 13 from 4:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M.

The Bukta ?Ranch? 604 South 32nd Street

LABOR DAY PICNIC

Sunday, September 4  12:00 ? 4:00 P.M.

Free beverages!  Free food!  Free prizes!  Fun for the entire family!

EaglePointPark Lodge.  Sponsored by the Clinton Labor Congress.

THANKS to the volunteers who helped set up and staff the Democratic booth at the County Fair Saturday through Wednesday.  Their work gave the Democratic Party visibility with many voters.  The booth served as a center for handing out literature and as a headquarters for elected officials and candidates.

NEGOTIATE FAIR TRADE AGREEMENTS

?Growing worries over globalization and the effects of free trade on American workers threatened to scuttle the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) (which passed by a very narrow margin).  ?We?re opening up a market with a very low-wage economy that has no tradition of worker protections.  The consequence will be another exodus of American jobs.??

(Alabama Congressman Artur Davis in U.S. News & World  Report)

RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE

Everyone wants to build an Iowa economy based on good jobs with good wages.  Almost everyone wants to raise the minimum wage.  Surveys repeatedly find that about 80 percent of Iowans want to raise the floor for Iowa wages by increasing the minimum wage.  Doing so would directly benefit almost 200,000 Iowa workers currently earning the minimum wage or slightly more.  As employers adjust differences between entry-level workers and other workers, a minimum wage increase will indirectly benefit tens of thousands more Iowans.  The Republican Party has consistently opposed any attempt to raise the minimum wage both at the State and National levels.

THIS JUST ISN?T FAIR!

Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage of 1968 would be $7.49 an hour today. That is almost $2.50 more than today's actual minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. If you work full time at the minimum wage, you?ll be earning just

$10,712 a year.  Working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year still puts you nearly $5,000 below the poverty level for a family of three.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, about 40 percent of minimum wage workers are the sole wage earners in their families.  These are the people who not only serve our food at local restaurants; they also take care of our children, our parents and our grandparents. Isn't it right that they should earn enough to take care of their own families?

Studies have found that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no effect on job levels. Princeton economists David Card and Alan Krueger found that after the minimum wage increase in the early 1990s, employment actually increased.  (Based on material from the Iowa Democratic Party) Democrats are the champions of wage earners.

THE BUSH ECONOMY

With all of the debate about taxes, the economy and domestic spending, it

is hard to imagine anyone supporting the notion of taking money from

programs like Medicaid and college-tuition assistance, increasing the tax

burden of the vast majority of working Americans, sending the country into

crushing debt - and giving the proceeds to people who are so fantastically

rich that they don't know what to do with the money they already have. Yet

that is just what is happening under the Bush administration. Forget the

middle class and the upper-middle class. Even the merely wealthy are being

left behind in the dust by the small slice of super-rich Americans.

David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of

available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of

earners more than doubled, while the share earned by everyone else in the

top 10 percent rose far less. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.

CONGRESSMAN JIM NUSSLE SHOULD READ THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

I sent an appeal to Congressman Jim Nussle asking him to vote for the

amendment (co-sponsored by Jim Leach) to restore $100.million that had

been cut from National Public Broadcasting funding. I received a very

cordial reply from Mr. Nussle expressing strong support for National

Public Broadcasting, children?s programming, cultural programs and

balanced news coverage.  He expressed support for Federal funding, but

then he voted against the funding amendment.  The Republicans want to turn

theUnited   States into an exclusively ultra-conservative (intolerant)

Christian nation with their version of the Ten Commandments prominently

displayed on public property. They should be required to read the

Commandments and follow them in their public and private lives?

Jay Leno:   "A bill was recently introduced in Congress that required 10

million illegal aliens to leave the country. Now, opponents of the bill

say these immigrants are important to our economy because they only take

the jobs Americans don't want.  Which is true. See, they can't take the

jobs we want. Those jobs are already in India."