Minimum Wage

The topic this week is minimum wage. The information in this post comes primarily from the debate held on February 6th, in the second video, starting at 4:46, and ending at 21:00. I supplemented this with information from each candidate’s website, where possible.

Everyone says that minimum wage is too low. Even the business-friendly candidates say that it is too low. The table below sums up each candidate’s position. When there was nuance to their answer, it will be more purple. When their answer was more liberal, it will be more blue, and more conservative will be more red. Answers which showed a lack of knowledge or understanding will be more gray.

Name	Index to Inflation?	Raise?	Lower costs of living?	Business Friendly?
Chandler	Yes, to CPI	Yes	Yes	Yes
Das	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Trahan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
L’Italien	Yes	Yes	Yes	No.
Littlefield	Yes, not to CPI	Yes	Yes	No.
Matias	Yes	Yes	Yes	No.
St. John	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Ryan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Gifford	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Golder	Yes, not to CPI	Yes	Yes	No.
Koh	Yes, to productivity	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Malone	Yes, to housing	Yes	Yes	No.

Alexandra Chandler thought she sounded smart when she said that minimum wage should be indexed to CPI. She didn’t specify which CPI, and CPI is just another word for inflation. She was also the only person who specifically said that we should expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and then she mentioned apprenticeships.

Abhijit "Beej" Das pointed out that in addition to raising minimum wage and indexing it, we also need to keep the other costs of living down.

Lori Trahan also talked about affordable daycare and affordable healthcare to help reduce the income inequality gap.

Barbara L’Italien pointed out that Massachusetts raises minimum wage regularly. In fact, though she didn’t point this out, Massachusetts has raised minimum wage faster than inflation in the past 20 years. She gets some of the credit for her votes to increase the minimum wage here.
Unfortunately, she then said that we should index Social Security to inflation, not realizing that Social Security is already indexed to chain CPI. This shows a lack of understanding of Social Security on her part.

Patrick Littlefield doesn’t think that you should index minimum wage to inflation.

Juana Matias responded to this vehemently, and also pointed out that we need to address educational achievement gaps.

Keith St. John points out that while a $17.50 minimum wage in Massachusetts makes sense, it would be crippling in other parts of the country where living expenses are significantly lower.

Terry Ryan focused on his experience with the Small Business Association, pointing out that we should also give tax breaks to small businesses to counterbalance the minimum wage.

Rufus Gifford pointed out that we need to fix the relationship between business and labor, so that employers value workers more.

Leonard Golder wants to raise the national minimum wage to $15 first, before indexing it to something, and pointed out that the Chain CPI used for Social Security COLA adjustments does not grow fast enough. He recommended using Core CPI instead, despite the volatility of Core CPI.

Dan Koh pointed out that worker productivity needs to be reflected in worker wages

Bopha Malone tried to tie this to homelessness. She also wants to help families with childcare and transportation.

Steve Kerrigan has dropped out of the race.

Starting next week, I will no longer be covering any candidate who does not have a website. If you are running for congress, you need a website, or you aren't actually serious. Also, covering the views of 13 very similar candidates is a lot harder and a lot more time intensive than covering the views of 3 very different candidates in my previous blog. (During the 2016 election, I covered the candidacies of Clinton, Johnson, and Stein, the three serious candidates for president.)

The topic next week will be education policy.

February 6th Debate - Viewer's Guide

I do not recommend watching the February 6th debate unless you have a guide open to tell you who is talking. The moderator mumbles as he calls people by their first names, and about one third of the candidates on the stage are old white men who are hard to tell apart by face, voice, or policies.

For that reason, I am putting together a viewer’s guide to the debate. You can pause the video each time a candidate stands, to look up their name in this post, or you can use this post as a reference to only listen to the candidates or the issues which most interest you.

Video 1 of 3

First speaker, Lori Trahan, 44 seconds: Would you be in favor of overturning Citizens United by either statute or constitutional amendment? Which methodology would you prefer?

Alexandra Chandler, 1:50: Do you favor retention, modification, or repeal of the electoral college? What is your reasoning?

Keith St. John, 3:23: Do you align more with the efforts to legalize medical marijuana, [with efforts to] approve recreational marijuana, or with strict adherence to federal guidelines and enforcement procedures?

Abhijit “Beej” Das, 4:45: Would you be in favor or against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act? Why or why not?

Steve Kerrigan, 6:12: Would you be in favor or against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act? Why or why not?

Rufus Gifford, 6:55: What do you think about the marijuana [question]?

Bopha Malone, 8:21: Are you in favor of continuing the issuance of FISA warrants? (Bopha admits that she does not know what FISA is, and promises to learn.

Lori Trahan, 9:56: Are you in favor of continuing the issuance of FISA warrants?

Dan Koh, 10:55: What do you think about the marijuana [question]?

Dan Koh, 11:41: Would you vote to mandate Net Neutrality?

Juana Matias, 12:25: Would you vote to mandate Net Neutrality?

Barbara L’Italien, 13:08: Would you vote to shut down the government for an extended period of time to get a “clean” DREAMers bill passed?

Patrick Littlefield, 14:22: Would you vote to shut down the government for an extended period of time to get a “clean” DREAMers bill passed?

Juana Matias, 15:52: Would you support reauthorization of the Patriot Act?

Leonard Golder, 16:30: Would you support reauthorization of the Patriot Act

Alexandra Chandler, 17:28: Would you support reauthorization of the Patriot Act

Alexandra Chandler, 18:36: What are your feelings on Citizens United?

Terry Ryan, 19:58: Do you support Citizens United or its repeal?

Barbara L’Italien, 20:54: What are your feelings on the retention, modification, or repeal of the electoral college?

Rufus Gifford, 22:27: In ten years, when you look back at your first bill, what will that bill have achieved?

Abhijit “Beej” Das, 24:04: What bill will they name after you?

Video 2 of 3

Bopha Malone, 0:36: What will your first bill achieve?

Keith St. John, 1:48: What is your feeling about FISA warrants?

Lori Trahan, 3:03: What are your feelings on the electoral college?

Would you support indexing the minimum wage to inflation?
• Patrick Littlefield, 4:45
• Alexandra Chandler, 6:39
• Abhijit “Beej” Das, 7:49
• Rufus Gifford, 8:50
• Leonard Golder, 9:50
• Steve Kerrigan, 11:07
• Dan Koh, 12:15
• Barbara L’Italien, 13:09
• Patrick Littlefield answered a different question, see below.
• Bopha Malone, 15:43
• Juana Matias, 16:44
• Terry Ryan, 17:50
• Keith St. John, 18:58
• Lori Trahan, 20:09

Patrick Littlefield, 15:00: Do you believe that the president should be prevented by law from discharging anyone within the Attorney General’s office while they are under investigation?

Final Question before summary statements

There are only two nations in the world that have a debt limit ceiling: The US and Denmark. The Danish debt ceiling is astronomically high, and is intended to be used only in the event of natural catastrophes and war. The US debt ceiling was contrived as a budget control during the First World War, and recently has come into some disrepute. Do you favor repeal of the national debt limit ceiling?

(This vote was taken by a show of hands, and the camera did not show the entire stage before the hands went down, so the positions of Lori Trahan, Keith St. John, Terry Ryan, Juana Matias, and Bopha Malone are not shown.)

Yes	Chandler	Das	Gifford	Golder	L’Italien
No	Kerrigan	Koh	Littlefield
Not Shown	Trahan	St. John	Ryan	Matias	Malone

Summary Statements
• Alexandra Chandler, 22:17
• Abhijit “Beej” Das, 23:25
• Rufus Gifford, 24:31
Rufus is cut off in the middle of his summary statement, and Video 3 starts with a question about climate change.

Video 3 of 3

Assuming all democratic candidates in the third believe that climate change is not a myth, what steps would you take to encourage federal, state, and local governments to reduce their respective carbon footprints?
• Keith St. John, 0:28
• Abhijit “Beej” Das, 2:44
• Barbara L’Italien, 4:59
• Rufus Gifford, 6: 58

The transition to video three is pretty jarring, and video 3 ends with the moderator saying “Next Question”, so if someone is aware of more videos somewhere, I would love to know about them.

Next week, I will talk about minimum wage. I will tackle this by first stating the general position of all the candidates, and then going through each individual candidate and addressing what they said which was different.

Candidates to Fill Nikki Tsongas' Seat for the House of Representatives

For those of you who also live in the highly Gerrymandered district which is about to be vacated by Nikki Tsongas, I just attended a party where I got to meet seven of the candidates vying for her seat. These are my thoughts:

Keith St. John has no experience and just wants pot to be legal.

Leonard Golden doesn’t know about party politics and is gonna get destroyed.

Rufus Gifford quoted The Statue of Liberty when our discussion created an opening for him to do so. He wants to bring a lot of what he saw as Ambassador to Denmark back to the USA, but recognizes that our country doesn’t have enough trust in government to do it all. He is one of my top 3.

Dan Koh left early, and I arrived late, so we didn’t get to talk, but I talked to one of his staff. He has been chief of staff for Marty Walsh, and is responsible for a lot of good things that Walsh has done for Boston. One of the other candidates said that she thinks he's very moderate, not very progressive.

Barbara L’Italien has gotten stuff done in the state senate. She has a child with autism, and her child inspired her to pass some of the laws which allow my school¹ to exist. She is one of my top 3.

Alexander Chandler was a naval intelligence officer for 14 years, from Bush 2 through the early days of Trump. Because she is trans*, she left shortly after Trump’s announcement about trans* people in the military. She stands too close to people when she talks, which didn't seem to bother the army of old women who think she's awesome. She is one of my top 3.

Lori Trahan basically just talked about being working class. She didn’t seem to be very well educated on the issues that she talked about. She has apparently been a bureaucrat for a long time, like Dan Koh, but she contrasted herself with him by pointing out that she went to public schools and only made it into Suffolk because of the scholarships she earned.

It is my intention for this blog to cover as many of the candidates as possible in this race, and discuss their positions, issue by issue, as specifically and directly as I can. Many of them have websites which will make my life easier, but some do not, and I will need to directly call or email them to ask for clarification on their positions. As I did in 2016 with the presidential race between Clinton, Stein, and Johnson, I intend to look at one issue per week, and analyze each candidate on their own merits.

I have a little under six months between now and September 4th, and I will not be able to publish every week, so I hope that I can get to eighteen issues in that time. For a preview of my values and what issues I will cover, look at my previous blog threepartyrace.blogspot.com/. Please be aware, my sanity was damaged by the election of a man who used a KKK slogan, talked about his genitals on stage during a primary debate, and laughed about sexual assault, so the last several months of my previous blog were me pretending to live in a fantasy world where the electoral college did its job and did not allow a monster to be elected.

^{1. For those of you who don't know where I work, I work at a school for kids with above average IQs and with emotional challenges, such as autism and bipolar disorder. ↩}