Congressman: ‘I Would Vote To Repeal The Minimum Wage’

BY BRYCE COVERT/Think Progress

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) told the National Journal that he thinks the country should get rid of the minimum wage. “I think it’s outlived its usefulness,” he said. “It may have been of some value back in the Great Depression. I would vote to repeal the minimum wage.”

Barton’s not the only lawmaker to hold such a view. In June, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told a meeting of the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee to mark 75 years since the signing of the Federal Labor Standards Act, which guaranteed a minimum wage, that he “do[es] not believe in it” and that he would abolish the minimum wage. And while he hasn’t called for the full repeal of the minimum wage, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) has said, “I don’t think a minimum wage law works.”

The minimum wage historically helped many families stay out of poverty. Up until the early 1980s, making the annual minimum wage income lifted a family of two above the federal poverty line. At its peak in 1968, it was enough to lift a family of three out of poverty. Yet despite rising inflation and worker productivity since then, the minimum wage has failed to keep up. It would be over $10 an hour today if it had risen with inflation since that high, and if it had kept pace with gains in productivity it would be more than $20 an hour.

As it is, however, working a 40 hour week at minimum wage won’t bring in enough money to afford a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country — workers would have to put in at least 80 hours a week. Working 40 hours a week for 52 weeks each year at the minimum wage only brings a worker $15,080, below the federal poverty line for a family of two or more. But bringing the wage in line with inflation by increasing it to $10.10 an hour would lift nearly 6 million people out of poverty, many of them women and people of color.

While critics of raising the minimum wage, like Rubio and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), claim that it will cost jobs, there’s little evidence to back that up. Several academic studies have shown that raising the wage doesn’t hurt employment, and one even found that states that raised their wages had slightly above average job growth. Perhaps that’s because a higher wage canbenefit businesses through increasing demand, lowering turnover, and increasing employee performance.

Republicans may have once recognized this, as they weren’t always against a raise. At least67 Republicans who are still serving in Congress today supported an increase under President George W. Bush, including Alexander and Ryan. Yet House Republicansunanimously voted down an increase in March.

Report attacking climate change science was plagiarized, experts say

By Eric W. Dolan

A congressional report used by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) to question the validity of the science behind global warming in a 2006 hearing was highly plagiarized, according to experts who reviewed it.

"The report was integral to congressional hearings about climate scientists," Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientists explained. "And it preceded a lot of conspiratorial thinking polluting the public debate today about climate scientists."

The report was requested by Barton in 2005, when he was the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a position he is currently trying to reclaim. In 2006, he said that global warming science is "pretty weak stuff."

Plagiarism experts told USA Today that the report, which was authored by George Mason University statistician Edward Wegman, copied material from textbooks, Wikipedia, and other sources.

John Mashey, a retired computer scientist, conducted a year-long analysis of the Wegman report and found that 35 of the report's 91 pages "are mostly plagiarized text, but often injected with errors, bias and changes of meaning."

The Wegman report was highly critical of the "hockey stick graph," a chart of temperature variation over the last 1,000 years that showed a sharp increase during the last 100 years. That graph was first published in a 1998 report authored by climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymon Bradley, and Malcom K. Hughes. A version of the graph was later used in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

Wegman and his colleagues relied heavily on a report by two Canadians with no formal education in climate science, mining consultant Stephen McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick, who criticized the graph, but did not bother contact the authors of the graph, Mann and Bradley, for information. Although the McIntyre-McKitrick paper did catch some statistical errors in the "hockey stick graph," it did not completely invalidate Mann and Bradley's research.

"Subsequent studies have found while there was some valid criticism of the statistical methods in the original graph, the McIntyre-McKitrick paper introduced some of its own errors and reached a flawed conclusion," Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones explained. "The paper does not, in fact, invalidate the hockey stick—particularly since numerous other studies have reinforced the Mann-Bradley findings. Moreover, Mann and his colleagues acknowledged in the original paper that there are uncertainties and that further study was needed on the subject."

One of the textbooks plagiarized by the Wegman report was Bradley's Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary.

A spokesman for George Mason University, where Wegman is employed, says the "matter is under investigation."

"I will say that there is a lot of speculation and conspiracy theory in John Mashey's analysis which is simply not true," Wegman said Monday. "These attacks are unprecedented in my 42 years as an academic and scholar. We are not the bad guys and we have never intended that our Congressional testimony was intended to take intellectual credit for any aspect of paleoclimate reconstruction science or for any original research aspect of social network analysis."

Robert Coleman, who chairs Ohio State University's misconduct committee, said "the plagiarism is fairly obvious when you compare things side-by-side."

"It's nothing personal. I don't want these guys fired or anything," Bradley said. "They should just retract or withdraw the report as you would any scientific publication that has these sort of problems."

GOP Rep. Joe Barton Admits Republicans’ Agenda Is ‘A Little Bit Short On Specifics’

By Ben Armbruster

On his Fox Business show this week, host Neil Cavuto appeared worried that Republicans may be too confident about their chances of taking control of the House and/or Senate this November. “Allay me of that anxiety that Republicans are getting ahead of themselves,” Cavuto told climate change denier and former BP oil spill apologist Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX). While Barton agreed that the GOP may be measuring the drapes a bit prematurely, Cavuto wondered what the GOP would actually do if it won control of Congress. However, the Texas Republican admitted his party doesn’t have much to offer:

CAVUTO: I get a sense from Republicans collectively that they’re just already starting to dine on a feast three weeks early. And…when I get a sense from them about what they’re going to be doing day one without offering many specifics about the day one, besides getting back to 2008 spending levels, without addressing how you’re going to go back to those levels, I think they realize the better part of valor, is no specifics?

BARTON: Well, you know, we may be a little bit short on specifics.

Watch it:

Of course, Barton eventually offered up the standard GOP platitudes about repealing the new health care reform law. “Well, have you bounced that off John Boehner?” Cavuto asked, adding, “because he has not been very clear on this repeal effort.”

Fact Checking Sarah Palin: Joe Barton Reflects The Philosophy Of Over 115 Republicans

By Tanya Somanader

When asked yesterday on ABC’s This Week about Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) accusation that the White House engaged in a “shakedown” of BP, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel noted the remark was “not a political gaffe,” but rather a statement based on “prepared remarks.” He linked Barton’s comments to the GOP’s “larger philosophy,” saying it “is an approach to what they see. They see the aggrieved party here is BP, not the fisherman. And remember, this is not just one person.”

Conservative pundit Sarah Palin quickly blasted Emanuel’s comments on Twitter, calling them “shallow” and “irresponsible.” Parroting Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) rant against Obama, Palin said “Rahm, u lie”:

The right-wing echo chamber was quick to back Palin’s assertion. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said Emanuel’s statement that Barton reflects GOP philosophy “couldn’t be more wrong.” On Fox News this morning, conservative pundit Andrea Tantoros said “Palin is absolutely right” that Emanuel “has not a leg to stand on.” Watch it:

Despite the conservative howls, some in the media have failed to note that Emanuel’s assertion is evidenced by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). Composed of over 115 Republican congressional members, including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Chairman of the House Republican Conference Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), the RSC presented a collective view of what it saw as a White House “shakedown”:

BP’s reported willingness to go along with the White House’s new fund suggests that the Obama Administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics. These actions are emblematic of a politicization of our economy that has been borne out of this Administration’s drive for greater power and control. It is the same mentality that believes an economic crisis or an environmental disaster is the best opportunity to pursue a failed liberal agenda. The American people know much better.

If a chorus of over 115 Republican members agreeing with Barton isn’t a reflection of GOP philosophy, what is?

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and member of the RSC, even described how he would put that philosophy into action. As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent notes, Issa said in a recent speech to fellow conservatives that, were the GOP regain a majority in the House and should he get the power of subpoena, he “won’t use it to have corporate America live in fear that we’re going to subpoena everything. I will use it to get the very information that today the White House is either shredding or not producing.”

Fox host defends congressman’s ’shakedown’ comment

By David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Congressman Joe Barton hasn't had many defenders since his apologized to the CEO of BP at a Congressional hearing on Thursday. But Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney believes the Texas Republican had a valid point in describing White House pressure for BP to establish a $20 billion escrow fund as a government "shakedown."

"In that White House meeting," Varney dramatically told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday, "reportedly Vice President Biden says, 'Pay up or else we'll bring the full court press of the United States government to bear on you and you will pay.'"

"It bypasses the courts," Varney added. "Liability claims should go through the courts. This time they didn't."

As it happens, a fear of precisely the kind of prolonged litigation that occurred after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 was one of the major considerations prompting the creation of the escrow fund. Last week, the Huffington Post's Sam Stein wrote, "The lessons of the Exxon Valdez disaster have made members of Congress increasingly insecure about the promises made by BP to cover the total cost of the damage it's caused in the Gulf of Mexico."

"Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) told the Huffington Post that he wants the oil giant to sign a pledge committing itself to covering economic damages that would be legally binding," Stein continued. "Doing so would fulfill the promises BP has already made, the North Dakota Democrat argued. It would also effectively remove the possibility that the company could drag out questions of liability through decades of litigation -- much like Exxon did following its spill in Alaskan waters.

Varney, however, appeared to see no motivation for the escrow fund besides political posturing by a federal government that has been unable to deal with BP's disaster. "The administration wins politically by beating up on BP and taking $20 billion off them," he stated indignantly. "It also diverts attention from the administration's own failure to clean up this mess."

Beyond that, Varney sees in the fund a threat of creeping socialism.

"What happens if BP can't come up with this $20 billion?" he asked. "Let's suppose that the administration does, indeed, drive them into bankruptcy. ... Essentially, BP becomes nationalized, because part of this $20 billion deal is, 'If you can't pay, we get your assets.' ... That $20 billion deal essentially contained a lien on BP North America. Collateral. If you don't pay, we get the pipeline."

Varney's nightmare scenario does not appear highly likely to occur. Currently, BP appears in online listings as having $240.64 billion in assets, ranking second in its industry only to Exxon Mobil, and its profits for the first quarter of 2010 were $6 billion. Although speculation was rife ten days ago that the Gulf disaster might drive BP into bankruptcy, analysts quickly concluded that BP has the financial flexibility to deal with its liabilities unless "we're still talking about this in 2011 and the price tag has reached $75 billion or $100 billion."

Varney, however, warns direly that BP "could yet be forced into bankruptcy. And if they are, then BP is semi-nationalized by the American government."

This video is from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast June 18, 2010.

Joe Barton to BP: ‘I apologize’ for the White House ‘shakedown.’

By Brad Johnson

During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) “apologize[d]” to BP CEO Tony Hayward, accusing the White House of an illegal “shakedown” of the foreign oil giant to secure a $20 billion escrow fund for Gulf Coast damages. Barton repeated the Republican attack that the escrow fund is a result of a White House “shakedown” that contravenes “due process,” saying that he was “ashamed” and would “go to jail” if he abused his elected powers similarly. Although he admitted that BP was liable for the billions of dollars of damages to the American people caused by its catastrophic oil disaster, Barton said “I apologize” that BP had to establish this “slush fund,” which he called “a tragedy of the first proportion”:

BARTON: I’m speaking totally for myself, I’m not speaking for the Republican Party, I’m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself. But I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown — with the Attorney General of the United States who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people — participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that is unprecedented in our nation’s history, that’s got no legal standing, which I think sets a terrible precedent for the future.

If I called you into my office, and I had the subcommittee chairman Mr. Stupak with me, who was legitimately conducting an oversight investigation on your company, and said if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my congressional district, I could go to jail and should go to jail. Now, there is no question that British Petroleum owns this lease, that BP made decisions that objective people think compromise safety. There is no question that BP is liable for the damages. But we have a due process system where we go through hearings, in some cases court cases, litigation and determine what those damages are and when those damages should be paid.

So I’m only speaking for myself, I’m not speaking for anybody else, but I apologize, I do not want to live in a country where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.

Watch it:

The “slush fund” will not be managed by the federal government or BP, but an independent third party, funded over four years with a small fraction of BP’s annual revenues. Barton has taken $1.4 million from the oil and gas industry, including $27,350 from BP. In Barton’s world, it seems that the small people have to pay for their mistakes, but companies don’t.

Update White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded to Barton's comment, calling it "shameful" that he "seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a ‘tragedy’, but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments."

Update By calling the Gulf Coast relief money a "slush fund," Joe Barton was following the lead of conservative thinker Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing pundits, Media Matters notes.

Update Nate Silver points out that Barton's top corporate donor is a partner of BP on Deepwater Horizon.

Update The New York Daily News adds:

Barton is also one of Big Oil's biggest boosters and once touted off-shore drilling as so advanced it can function around the clock "without so much as losing a gum wrapper over the side of the platform." Before his election to Congress, Barton was an executive with ARCO, which was later acquired by BP. He has taken $1.4 million in campaign contributions from the industry since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Barton's backers have been political action committees and employees of Anadarko Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Valero Energy, the watchdog group reported.

Senior Republican promises to repeal health reform

Here's another reason to take your butts to the polls in 2010 and if you want real social change you gotta further weaken the Republican party. By John Byrne In little-noticed comments Sunday, a senior Republican declared that Republicans will repeal Democrats’ efforts to reform healthcare once they retake Congress if it passes.

“If they somehow manage to get the votes and get enough Democrats to walk the plank and commit suicide, in the next Congress, I’ll be chairman Joe Barton of the Energy and Commerce committee, and we’ll repeal it,” ranking House Energy chairman Rep. Joe Barton said.

Analysts say that Republicans don’t have much of a chance at retaking the House. Fivethirtyeight.com’s Nate Silver put the odds of a House GOP takeover at somewhere between 25 and 33 percent.

The Energy and Commerce Committee was among the three in the House that had their hand in crafting healthcare reform. Republicans have grown increasingly intransigent in compromising with Democrats’ proposals, seeing a potential political windfall in public concern over the healthcare debate.

“Take the current bill and just tweak the public option and call it a ‘deal’ — you put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig,” Barton quipped. “I think this bill’s dead on arrival.”