I guess Ted Kennedy has just figured out how politics work in Washington. At least, how it works when you are the minority in the Senate.
Kennedy threw a delicious temper tantrum on the Senate floor because Republicans in the minority are acting like--gasp!--Democrats in the minority acted. That is, bottling up legislation and demanding that their amendments get voted on.
The legislation is the minimum wage bill, that feel-good P.R. release Democrats love even though it will have almost no effect whatsoever on the working poor. Republicans have been filibustering it and tacking on amendments that Democrats hate...like tax breaks that will make it easier on small business who will bear the biggest part of the cost of a minimum wage hike.
"We have now had amendments that have been worth over 200 billion dollars… Amendments that have been offered. We've had amendments on education of 35 billion dollars. We've had health-savings amendments that will benefit people with average incomes of $112,000… We've had those kinds of amendments and we're looking at the Kyl amendment at 3 billion dollars. But we still cannot get two dollars and fifteen cents -- over two years. Over two years!
"What is the price, we ask the other side? What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more, are you asking, are you requiring?
It's interesting that Teddy Kennedy, who never worked a day in his life and keeps most of his family money safely tucked in offshore accounts away from the IRS, always whines about the little people. I'd love to see how much Kennedy actually donates of his wealth, how much charity he does, and compare that with the life of Riley he lives.
Yet Kennedy considers anyone making $112k to be rich. I guess that's what happens when you haven't been in the real world in 40 years where two educated people can make that much and certainly wouldn't think they were rich (this isn't even touching the qualifier "average incomes of," which means the tax breaks help people with considerably less). Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to describe it.
Now that I've become the civility police, I particularly loved Kennedy's mask slipping here:
"We don’t want to hear any more from that side for the rest of this session about permitting or not permitting votes in here when you're denying it on the most simple concept of an increase in the minimum wage," said Kennedy. "We don’t want to hear any more about that."
No, I'm sure he doesn't want to hear about blocking debate on legislation. Because that would mean Democrats couldn't ram through stupid enemy morale boosting resolutions. But don't question their patriotism, remember. Now you can't question their promised civility, either.
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