Pelosi Reiterates Call For GOP To Cancel Recess

By Gabriella Landeros

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reiterated her call on Speaker of the House John Boehner (R- Ohio) Thursday to cancel next week’s congressional recess in order to focus on legislation pertaining to student loan rates and highway funding.

“Don’t run out the clock on the economy,” Pelosi said during a press conference.

Citing the need to restore middle class stability and prosperity, Pelosi said that Congress should work around the clock to ensure the bills move forward.

Pelosi drew closer attention to the transportation bill, primarily that it holds support from both Republicans and Democrats, can save more than two million jobs and will ultimately help one of the hardest hit industries of the recession– construction.

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Jesse Jackson, Jr. Pushes New Minimum Wage Legislation

By Gabriella Landeros and Luke Vargas

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-III) made the case for an immediate increase in the federal minimum wage to $10.00 an hour during a press conference on the Hill Wednesday.

If passed, the “Catching Up To 1968 Act of 2012″ would be the first law focused on increasing the minimum wage since the Fair Minimum Wage Act was enacted in 2007,  raising the wage to $7.25. The thrust of Jackson’s bill – and the origin of its name – is to return to a time when inflation and purchasing power were adequately accounted for in minimum wage calculations, and Americans were making enough to make ends meet and support family households. Although the federal minimum wage hovered at $1.60 in 1968, that year’s rate remains the highest on record in inflation-adjusted terms, and would be the equivalent of $10.04 in 2010 dollars.

According to Jackson, “The bill will affect more than 30 million workers and give the economy an immediate boost by significantly increasing the economy’s number one problem…aggregate demand.”

Joining Rep. Jackson were Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Robert Wiseman of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, and activist Ralph Nader. Nader noted that at a time when there are few unifying political issues, raising the minimum wage is something that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on.

“I don’t think a conservative Republican worker at Walmart making $7.75 an hour will say that their ideology prevents them from supporting a $10.00 minimum wage,” said Nader.

The most recent attempt to introduce minimum wage legislation was included in the “Rebuild America Act” sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Bruce Braley (D-IA) in March. The bill was referred to committee on May 10, 2012, but due to provisions for infrastructural investment and the implementation of the “Buffet Rule” on high-income taxpayers the bill is likely to face stiff Republican opposition in Congress.

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Actress America Ferrera Promoting The Power Of The Latino Vote

By Gabriella Landeros

During a press conference on Capitol Hill, Actress America Ferrera and Co-Founder and President of Voto Latino Maria Teresa Kumar  introduced the “America4America” campaign, an online and offline effort to promote the importance of the American Latino vote across the U.S. through media and civic engagement.

“I’ve been on the ground in Alabama and in Arizona, where laws are pushing our communities into the shadows. Campaigns are marginalizing us, leading many Americans feeling demoralized and defeated, and ‘America4America’ is a campaign to empower every single American voter, with a truth about their own goal in our democracy,” Ferrera said. “That’s a role that is a right, that is invaluable, and it is a right that I’m fighting to protect and to promote, and to make absolutely clear that it belongs to each and every one of us.”

When asked what specific issues she has seen in her hometown that is affecting the Latino community, Ferrera stated, “What’s really striking, is what’s happening in the public school system. I think that the Latino community has a lot to lose when the school systems in California not being properly funded and very important programs in early education and adults continuing education is not made a priority, our community has a lot to lose from that.”

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Hoyer: New Abortion Act Putting Lawmakers In Tough Spot

By Gabriella Landeros

As the House of Representatives considers the “Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act” to ban sex-selection abortions and require doctors to report a woman to authorities if they suspect her of doing so, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) spoke for many Democrats by warning that it puts lawmakers in a sticky situation.

With most proponents of the bill being against abortion no matter what, Hoyer stated, “I think this has come up because someone has decided politically that it was a difficult place to put people in, because again, any interpretation in voting against this bill is therefore for abortions for the purpose of selecting gender would be wrong, period.”

Although Hoyer is against abortion based on gender, he feels that when it comes to abortion alone, “a woman and her doctor gotta have the choice of what alternatives she wants to choose.”

It puts medical personnel in a difficult position as well, Hoyer warned, with a five year penalty if they don’t report a sex-selection abortion. Hoyer explained that doctors have to base their assumptions on the woman’s reasoning for an abortion, but if found out later they were lying, doctors are the ones getting penalized.

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White House Unveils Multimillion Dollar Effort To Help Hard-Hit Manufacturers

By Gabriella Landeros

The Obama administration Tuesday unveiled a $26 million, multi-agency effort to spur job growth in the manufacturing sector.

14 various federal agencies and funding partners, such as the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, U.S. Small Business Administration, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, “will assist the development and implementation of regionally driven economic development strategies that will remove obstacles and/or promote advanced manufacturing growth, thereby helping to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers in the global marketplace,” Acting Assistant Commerce Secretary for Economic Development, Matt Erskine said during a conference call with reporters.

The initiative is “designed to strengthen high potential regional clusters across the country that accelerate innovation, strengthen capacity in advanced manufacturing, and foster innovation fueled job creation through public-private partnerships,” added Erskine.

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Drug Prohibition Holds Hidden Dangers, Warns Harvard Economist

By Gabriella Landeros

Jeffrey Miron, Harvard University’s Department of Economics Undergraduate Studies Director, told the National Economists Club Thursday that drug prohibition is likely causing more harm than good.

“Opponents of drug prohibition would argue that it actually increases crime and corruption, rather than reducing crime, that it reduces the health and productivity of drug users, rather than making people who use drugs better off, and it has a bunch of other side effects unintended for consequences,” Miron said.

“In an underground market, people can’t resolve their disputes with courts, lawyers, ballot initiatives, and so on. They are likely to resort to violence instead, that’s the obvious substitute for non-violent dispute resolution mechanisms,” added Miron.

Having to find other sources for income, such as theft or prostitution, increases overall, Miron noted, pointing out that prohibition also reduces quality control.

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Coburn Calls For Tax Repatriation Holiday

By Gabriella Landeros

Sen. Tom Coburn M.D. (R-Okla), writer of “The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting America,” spoke on his views that would steer politics in the right direction.

With the theme “principled leadership” as the core of his book, Coburn stated, “If you want to change Washington, you have to change who’s here. You have to have people here who actually have real world experience outside of politics.”

Coburn added, “It’s leadership individually, by making this sacrifice…leading by example, and we just do not have that today in our parties, and in our president, and in our country in the political level.”

Coburn believes in maintaining the independence of Americans by creating solutions to “fix our broken entitlement system…It needs to be spoken to the American people, Medicare has to change to save it, same with Medicaid, and same with Social Security.”

The second solution for Coburn involves tax reform. He said American companies should be encouraged to investing “200 trillion sitting on the sideline.” Doing so, he said, would prevent businesses here from spending their profits overseas.

“The way we tax it now is that the money is going to be invested over there, wherever that is, and not brought home because of our punitive tax system and the fact that we don’t have a territorial tax system,” he said.

Coburn also argued that the U.S. is not using its natural resources efficiently, causing slow economic growth and lack of jobs.

“We’re sending 300 billion dollars a year out of this country, for oil and gas that we can produce here, and yet we have a policy not to do that. So if you think about 300 billion not going out of the country, and 300 billion staying here and being invested here, you would see a large response.”

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