>> people watch for in the state of the union address every year is not what the president has to say specifically about what the state of the union is. president pretty much always says its great. the other thing people watch for is what the presidents speech says about the state of the president. hows the president doing? can you tell from the speech how the president is doing in this point in his or her presidency? one notable feature of this years state of the union from our famously cool, calm and collective president barack obama is at that speech the state of him, the state of the president, seemed kind of psyched. at least he definitely seemed happy to be there. >> tonight i ask every american who knows someone without health insurance to help them get covered by march 31st. help them get covered. moms, get on your kids to sign up. kids, call your mom and walk her through the application. that will give her some peace of mind, plus shell appreciate hearing from you. >> pause for extra laughter. did you like that one? i thought that one up myself. call your mom. i dont know why it feels like a surprise to say, but it seems notably like president obama was having fun up there at the state of the union. he was loose. he was joking around. and it wasnt just that night. in the two days since he gave that speech, president obama has been out traveling around the country and still hes just sounding like hes having a whale of a good time being president right now. >> at the state of the union, i was going to start out by saying the state of the union is cold, but i decided that was not entirely appropriate. now, i only finished 12 hours ago, so these remarks will be quicker. and i need some time to pick up a snow shovel and one of those 50 pound bags of dog food for bo. i was told id get a big screen tv, too, for the super bowl coming up. the 80 inch. 60s not enough, huh? got to go 80. it is funny, though, i was looking, you know -- you can buy a sofa, a chocolate chip cookies and a snorkel set all in the same -- the sofa didnt surprise me, but the snorkel set, now that was impressive. although i do want to ask, whos snorkeling right now? how many of those are you guys selling? >> president making jokes about the weird stuff you can buy at costco in very large quantities. he went on to say he was thinking about buying a ten pound bag of pretzels and 500 golf balls while he was there. costco, of course, was one of the employers who the president shouted out by name at the state of the union address for having made their own private decision as a company to raise the wages that they pay people who work at that company. the company benefits from having reduced employee turnover and so reduced training costs for new employees in part because they pay a lot. because they start their cash years and people who stock their shelves at $11.50 an hour which is not a ton of money. youre not going to get rich on that but its better than your average grocery store. and it works for costco as a business. the president at the state of the union also shouted out a little company called punch pizza in minneapolis. he invited to the speech the owner of punch pizza on the right there who raised his employees wages and one of punch pizzas young employees who the president said helps makes the dough. only now he makes more of it. get it? dough. like both ways. yes. whether or not you like a happy president, or whether or not you think the president is good at this kind of humor that hes been doing a lot of this week, he does seem to be in a good mood. specifically when he was talking about this whole minimum wage thing which was unexpectedly the focus of the state of you the union address and has been the focus of his remarks since and maybe the reason the president is over the moon when hes talking about the minimum wage issue is because what the democrats have decided to do on this issue, what the president announced at the state of the union on this issue is kind of a killer political move because, yeah, its politically advantageous for democrats to pick a fight with republicans in congress over the minimum wage. americans generally like the idea of raising the minimum wage. so they will side with democrats if democrats and republicans are having a fight about that. but in a fight between democrats and republicans in congress, any fight about any subject, we know how it ends, right? if it has to happen through congress, nothing happens. weve been seeing that for two years now. just being on the right side of that fight is never going to be resolved, right? that only gets you so far. what the democrats have decided to do differently this year on this issue, this year, what the president announced the at the state of the union this year and what he is now going around the country campaigning on is the idea that the fight over what people get paid at work, the fight over wages, the fight over the minimum wage, is not just a federal fight that happens in congress. turns out its a fight that happens everywhere. its a decision for every businessowner, from punch pizza-sized businesses in minneapolis, up to costco sized, up to the biggest employers in the country. the president defined himself as essentially an employer when he announced his executive order to raise the minimum wage for people who work for federal contractors. if you want to contract with the federal government, the head of the federal government, the president, says you can have that contract but in order to get that contract, youre going to have to pay your workers at least $10.10 an hour. every ceo, every employer now has that decision to make. also every mayor, every governor, the head of every agency that has control over how much its people earn an hour. the political fight over the minimum wage is now everybodys political fight. and it is already starting to work. in missouri, in the city of st. louis, the mayor responded to the presidents state of the union by announcing a rise in the minimum wage for people who work for the city of st. louis. he released a statement saying i hope other employers will follow the presidents example. the city of st. louis will. tomorrow i will ask the personnel director in the civil service commission to amend the compensation regulation to ensure all part-time employees receive a minimum of $10.10 per hour. in the new york area, the presidents call for raising the minimum wage dovetails with an ongoing campaign to raise the wage thats paid specifically to people who work at the new york city area airports. there are two new york airports at laguardia and jfk, and one airport that is considered to be in the new york area, but its in newark. newark, new jersey. and you know who decides what the minimum wage is for people who work at those three new york-area airports? its these guys. remember them? the port authority of new york and new jersey. yes. same guys. its the port authority of chris christie bridge scandal fame. the new york daily news has been pressing and pressing recently for airport workers at the three new york-area airports to get a raise. pressing the port authority to do something about that because they can. well, after the state of the union, it worked. kind of. the executive director of the port authority, whos not appointed by chris christie, hes on the new york side who he was appointed by andrew cuomo, democratic governor of new york. the executive director of the port authority sent this letter calling on the airlines who operate at those airports to immediately effect an increase in the hourly wage paid to the lowest paid employees at the airport. with a phase-in to, say it with me, $10.10 an hour. the port authority is prepared to use every tool at its disposal. to achieve these goals the port will enforce the changes through revisions to terms and conditions of agreements with the airlines. earning good wages and proper training increases job loyalty, reduces turnover and improves customer satisfaction. this is something that cannot wait. i look forward to working with all of you in bringing the port authoritys airports into the 21st century. that went out basically simultaneous with the state of the union address. the new york daily news promptly declared victory in their fight for fair wages campaign. but now it is more than just this newspaper celebrating and the port authority taking action. now it is a huge political fight for new york and new jersey. because the port authoritys decision to raise the minimum wage for people who work at the airports was made by the new york side of the port authority. and it turns out they couldnt get the new jersey side to go along with them. so the new york side, the side appointed by andrew cuomo, the democrat, theyre the ones who are demanding people who work at the airports get a raise. so people who work at laguardia and jfk in new york, are probably going to get a raise. but the other local airport is over the border in new jersey. and the chris christie appointees at the new jersey side of the port authority have decided theyre not going along with this. so theres these three airports within a few miles of each other. theyre all under the same agency. the two new york ones, everybody gets a raise. the new jersey one, no. no minimum wage increase for you. and so, ergo, politics. the new york daily news posted this editorial this afternoon. chris christie says drop dead. governor christie is giving airport workers the shaft despite governor andrew cuomos timely push to raise their salaries. get lost says christie who is stomping on his own constituents. also from the daily news today, for thousands of low-paid airport workers in new york, help is on the way. the directive covers 8,000 workers at kennedy and laguardia airports but does not cover 4,000 employees in newark, new jersey. and why is that, again? theyre not going to let you forget, it is because of drop-dead chris christie. no wonder the president is joking about chocolate chip cookies and sofas and snorkel sets, right? because the white house and the democrats have figured out a way to make this fight not about barack obama versus john boehner. they figured out a way to make this everybody who wants a raise versus every republican politician who says no. everywhere in the country. in new jersey, famously, the night that chris christie was re-elected this past november, new jersey voters voted on that same ballot to override governor christies veto of a bill that would have raised the statewide minimum wage in new jersey. everybody says chris christie won by 22 points. you know what? same margin by which he was overruled by the voters of his state on that minimum wage issue. people like raising the minimum wage. people like raising the minimum wage almost more than they like any politician in the whole country. and now as the blessed port authority makes news for something other than purposely ruining the first week of school for thousands of ft. lee, new jersey, schoolchildren on orders from chris christies office, this minimum wage issue is becoming a big deal. both in new jersey politics and around the country. now the president has framed it as a decision not just for congress, but for every governor, every mayor, every agency head. expect everybody who has that decision to make in the country. now that thats happened, expect them all to be consulting the polling on this issue which hat happens to look like this. this is the most recent national polling on the popularity of raising the minimum wage. it is popular across the country, popular among democrats, popular among independents. its even popular among republicans. more importantly, look what this issue looks like when people vote on it. statewide in florida, raising the minimum wage won by 42 points. 2006, missouri was one of several states that voted on it statewide. missouri, its margin of victory was 52 points. it did not get 52% of the vote. it won by 52 points. 76% of people in missouri voted to raise the minimum wage. clear enough statement? statewide in nevada won by 38 points. statewide in arizona won by 32 points. statewide in montana won by 46 points. a 46 point margin of victory for raising the minimum wage. state year in ohio, same year, won by 12 points. of course, in new jersey in november it won by 22 points. while they were putting chris christie back in office. whenever you put raising the minimum wage on the ballot, whenever you give people a choice about whether or not they want to raise the minimum wage, the answer is yes, they want to raise the minimum wage. that makes democrats who support raising the minimum wage happy for a number of reasons. number one, if you want people at the lower end of the wage scale to get paid more money, just the raw impact of the policy is a positive thing. politically, though, people voting for the minimum wage, it tends to also encourage them to vote for candidates who support raising the minimum wage. so in 2006, when missouri was voting to raise the minimum wage and voting for it by a 52-point margin, they also voted into office claire mccaskill, a democrat to replace an incumbent relatively popular republican senator. he wouldnt say when he thought about the minimum wage for most of the campaign. she was very much in favor of it. people like the minimum wage, so they liked her and now shes the very popular senator from missouri. that same year, jon tester was on the ballot in montana. he was outspoken in favor of raising the minimum wage. montana voters liked raising the minimum wage by a 46-point margin and liked jon tester. in ohio, that same year, conservatives fought like heck to kill the minimum wage ballot initiative in ohio but it still won by double digits and so did ohios brand new democratic senator sherrod brown. and thats part of why a year like that in 2006 was such a good year for democrats. even in a really bad year for democrats like, say, the worst possible year for democrats, like 2010, the first obama midterm, where the republicans just ran the table. they won everything. you know where they didnt win? republicans did not win that year where they won everywhere else, but they did not win in west virginia. >> should there be minimum wage or not? >> absolutely not because minimum wage is something that franklin delano roosevelt put in during the depression. >> john raese, republican candidate for senate in west virginia in the very republican year of 2010 explaining to cnn he does not believe in the minimum wage. he did not win. republicans also did not win that year in the state of connecticut. >> since businesses are struggling as you all described would you argue for reducing the minimum wage? >> i think we ought to look at all of those issues in terms of what mandates are being placed on businesses and can they afford them? >> senate candidate linda mcmahon describing the minimum wage as a potentially unaffordable mandate for businesses that we maybe ought to look into getting rid of. linda mcmahon did not win. up in alaska that same year, tea party republican joe miller came close to unseating centrist republican lisa murkowski but this, unfortunately for joe miller was part of his pitch. this is part of why he said he should win. >> should the federal government be requiring a minimum wage? >> thats clearly up to the states. >> there should not be a minimum wage? >> that should not be. thats not the scope of the powers given of the federal government. >> that was joe miller. not a senator then and not a senator after that election. well now in 2014, its time for our next midterm year. and democrats and the president have succeeded in making the minimum wage an issue that has not just bottlenecked between the president and house republicans in washington, it is everywhere. including today becoming the latest headache for chris christie and the port authority in new york and new jersey. the person chris christie had to put in to replace the guy who got fired in the bridge scandal, bill baroni, the first thing the replacement had to get done was get a huge horrible round of press for what the daily news is calling her mele mouthed statement, excusing new jerseys decision not to raise the minimum wage when all the other airport workers across the bridges and across the tunnels in new york are getting a raise. doesnt look good when you do this at the local level. it doesnt look good when you do this at the federal level. and between now and november and beyond, democrats are going to try to play the popularity of this issue into not just their political benefit but into a political headache for any republican anywhere who finds themselves having to explain a la john raese in west virginia and joe miller in alaska what it is exactly they do not like about paying people enough to live on. pollsters are already looking at the most high-profile senate race of this midterm year and how the minimum wage may factor into that race. the highest profile senate race this year is mitch mcconnells re-election race in kentucky. a new poll out today aims to show just how badly the minimum wage issue may factor into that race. the other senator from kentucky, rand paul, today tied himself into a bow tie with a pretzel on top trying to gymnastically evade questions about his own views on minimum wage in an interview on cnn. >> he announced on increasing the minimum wage that federal contractors would get an inyees increase immediately to $10.10 an hour which is not a huge amount of money by any means but its a little more than the current minimum wage. are you with him on that? >> if you increase the price of something, youll get less of it, so all of the studies, vij virtually all of the studies show if you increase the minimum wage, you get higher more unemployment. particularly teenage unemployment -- >> do you believe in the minimum wage? >> all the studies show if you raise it, you get more unemployment. so really the marketplace does a better job at determining what this should be. >> so there shouldnt be any federal minimum wage? >> im not so sure im saying that. im not sure i have an answer as far as whether there is a right or wrong -- >> youre a united states senator. you thought about whether or not -- >> not necessarily. >> i havent thought about it. im not sure im saying that. im definitely sure i dont have an answer. is it okay if i say ive never thought about this before? the minimum wage has suddenly become one of the years more challenging questions, and if history is any guide, that question comes with big, big political consequences. no wonder the president seems so happy. hold that thought. more ahead.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 05:42:50 +0000
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