Corruption as an issue in the 2006 US elections

Really? Do you have a link? I heard the Abramoff flap was off the front pages.

Abramoff-linked Rep. withdraws from re-election bid

RAW STORY
Published: Monday August 7, 2006


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A Congressman from Ohio linked to convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff has withdrawn from his bid for re-election, RAW STORY has learned.

In a statement issued by his campaign office, Bob Ney, Representative from Ohio's 18th district, said "Ultimately this decision came down to my family. I must think of them first, and I can no longer put them through this ordeal."

Although Ney has not yet been charged with any crime, a story from this morning's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review showed Ney facing financial ruin as his legal defense consumed funds to be used in his campaign for re-election. Ney's former chief of staff Neil Volz pleaded guilty in May on corruption charges.

The congressman will be replaced on November's ticket by Ohio State Senator Joy Padgett.

Ney's statement from his campaign website is provided below.

#
Statement By Congressman Bob Ney

Ohio, Aug 7 -

Congressman Bob Ney (OH-18) made the following statement today that he is withdrawing from the 18th Congressional race:

"After much consideration and thought I have decided today to no longer seek re-election in Ohio's 18th Congressional District. I am extremely proud of my 25 years serving the people of Ohio. We've accomplished many things to make this state better and I will always be grateful for the trust my constituents put in me. Ultimately this decision came down to my family. I must think of them first, and I can no longer put them through this ordeal."

"I am deeply grateful for all of the trust and support my family, friends and constituents have given me over the past two years. I look forward to serving out the rest of my term and serving the constituents of the 18th District."

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia ruled that Mr DeLays' name must stay on the ballot in Texas. As I understand it, each justice is assigned a region of the country where he/she can make quick decisions on behalf of the court. That is what Scalia did today. The GOP can try to find another Supreme Court member to appeal to. But that option doesn't look too promising.

It only makes sense that once the Texas GOP under DeLay disenfranchised a large portion of the Democrats and Hispanic voters by gerrymandering that the same Supreme Court that ruled it was legal here but illegal in Colorado would also stop his name from being removed to further muddy the waters come the November elections. Maybe the Supremes have been enjoying their 'off' days a little to much.

Welcome reddragon

Well, DeLay has stated that Scalia's decision was "stupid".



Three states now are pushing for voter ID cards. All sorts of legal maneuvering going on to stop or to forward such policies. In none of these jurisdictions is there any substantial or compelling evidence of significant fraud (more to be found in absentee balloting, which doesn't gain such legislative effort). In all cases, this push comes from Republicans. In all cases, the people who will be disenfranchised are mainly poor and black and likely to vote Dem. Voter suppression tricks will not be uncommon this election.

Exactly how will the "poor and black" be disenfranchised if everyone is required to have ID to vote?

Are you saying that the "poor and black" dont have ID?
Several people keep saying that the "poor and black" will be disenfranchised,but I have yet to see anyone explain how that will happen.

What really worries me is the usage of hackable electronic voting machines that do not have a paper trail.
The latest article I read has now found that Diebold {the most popular of the electronic voting machines} machines final vote results can now be changed by the insertion of a USB Flash Drive, after flipping an easily reached internal toggle switch, without leaving any trace whats-so-ever that the original results have been changed.
It really makes one wonder if this was not the whole reason why the GOP controlled Congress passed the law requiring that all precincts be converted to electronic voting by 2008.
Even the U.N. has publicly stated that the 2000 and 2004 elections were probably rigged based upon the vast differences between the exit polls and the final tally of votes.
Most of the discrepancies occurred in either precincts that utilized electronic voting machines without paper trails or ones that were in heavily democratic districts.

Do you have even one link to a UN website that states this?
I have never heard this claim made by anyone before.

The ruling concerning voter ID cards was not suggesting that poor people and minorities did not have Identification but that the price the Government wanted to charge to require a specific voter ID card amounted to an unconstitutional Poll Tax similar to the one that stopped Blacks and other minorities from voting in the past when it was legal to charge someone a fee to vote and by doing so it would disenfrancise poor people who would have a difficult time coming up with the needed funds to purchase the ID

How much did the govt want to charge?
How is it unconstitutional if the law affects EVERYONE,not just a specific group?

Since most states issue state ID cards or drivers licenses for only a few dollars,and since many states accept those cards as ID for voters,is that unconstitutional?

If the law requires everyone to have photo ID to vote,then there is no way that any group can say they are being targeted by an unfair poll tax.
Nobody is charging someone a fee to vote,since most states require you to have some form of photo ID anyway.

Hey Mysteryman:
I will temporarily withdraw my statement concerning the United Nations public announcement about rigged elections until I can find the link to the article that I read stating this as I should have had a link ready before making it.
Bear with me, I will find it eventually but I have to go back through all the articles I have saved for the past couple of years.
Thanxs,
Reddragon696

Most states do except a Driver License or equivalent ID for voting such as here in Texas but some states tried to pass laws requiring that only a state issued voter ID card be used.
I personally have no problem with providing at least some form of picture ID for voting purposes but I can see where someone who makes minimum wage would have a problem coming up with the funds to purchase additional identification, regardless of the price, in order to vote especially in view of their annual salary being just a little less than $11,000.00.
It is next to impossible for one person to live off of this amount in today's world much less if they were married or had children.

Thats acceptable by me.
I have never heard the claim made,and you are the first person to mention it.



Most people making minimum wage are just entering the workforce (teenagers).
There are very few people trying to live on and support families on minimum wage,and many of those are getting income from another source.

MM, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Half the people making the minimum wage are adults.

And you are also ignoring facts that put some serious holes in your statement.

I refer you to...
http://www.epionline.org/mw_statistics.cfm

And just to pick a state at random,lets look at the minimum wage and Mass,ok.



And so you dont think I am using old data,here is the website...
http://www.epionline.org/mw_statistics_state.cfm?state=MA

On that page you will see this statement...



So,the claim that so many people are trying to support their families strictly on minimum wage is totally bogus.
Those that are can also get various tax breaks and other govt help.

Your stats don't back your contention. They don't say that the vast majority of recipients are children. Most are single or living with someone because even one person can't live on a minimum wage. Still, half are adults.

The people most likely to not have id cards are little old ladies.

Mystery Man-- The following backs up your contention:
quote-


Paul Kersey

Bradley Visiting Fellow

Before the House of Representatives; Small Business Committee; Subcommittee on Workforce, Empowerment, and Government Programs

Regarding

The Economic Effects of the Minimum Wage



Ladies and gentlemen, it is understandable to want to help out poor families, and toward that end it has been suggested that Congress increase the minimum wage, from the current $5.15 an hour to $6.65 an hour.



Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that increasing the minimum wage will do little to improve conditions for the working poor. This is because relatively few of the recipients of such an increase are living in poverty. The good news is that the working poor do not necessarily need government help. Research shows that the "dead-end job" is largely a myth.



This is not to say that the working poor do not have a hard road ahead of them, but for those who persevere it is a road that leads out of poverty. We should not block off that path by making low-wage jobs more scarce, which is a likely result of an increase in the minimum wage.



Our analysis of 2003 U.S. Census data shows that, of 7.8 million American workers receiving an hourly wage of less than $6.65 an hour?-the immediate beneficiaries of a change in the minimum wage?-only 15 percent are currently living in poverty. Nearly three-quarters of these workers, 72 percent to be precise, have a family income that is at least 50 percent higher than the poverty line, and over half belong to families earning double the poverty level. One fifth of low-income workers belong to families earning over $80,000 annually.[1]The average family income of the typical low-wage worker was a respectable $40,000 per year.



In other words, the typical beneficiary of a minimum wage increase will not be a poor father or mother scrambling to keep a family fed, clothed, and housed. The recipients of the pay raises demanded under this proposal are at least as likely, if not more likely, to already be solid members of the middle class.



For those low-wage earners who are members of poor families, we should not overstate the effects that an increase in the minimum wage will have. Our review of the Census data indicates that fewer than one-quarter of those affected by the proposed new minimum wage work full-time. There is no reason to believe that this percentage is higher for poor families. In fact, last year Heritage scholars Robert Rector and Rea Hederman looked at the average hours of work performed by adults in poor families, and found that a little more than one quarter, 27.8 percent, reported 2,000 hours or more. Two thousand hours would be equivalent to one parent working full-time year-round. Nearly as many families, 27.4 percent, reported no work at all. Median hours worked by adults in families with children were lower than 1,000 per year, or less than 20 hours a week.[2]



Consequently, the value of a minimum wage increase for poor families is limited by the low amount of hours that parents in poor families actually tend to work. Increasing working hours would have a far greater benefit for these families, both immediately and in the long term than increasing the minimum wage. Although the minimum wage increase currently proposed may raise family income by as much as 30 percent in the short term, Rector and Hederman showed that increasing work hours to the equivalent of having one adult working full time nearly doubles the average income of these families, even after accounting for lost government benefits and increased taxes.



Over the longer term, minimum-wage or near-minimum wage work can serve as a springboard to better jobs. Unskilled workers may gain new skills, or gain a record of reliability, that allows them to move on to better-paying positions. Low-wage earners frequently see their wages rise quickly: Researchers at two universities, Florida State and Miami of Ohio, found that full-time workers hired at the minimum wage received a median pay increase of 13 percent within their first year, which shows that low-wage employees are able to work through minimum wage jobs into better ones.[3] The schedule of increases currently under consideration, first to $5.90 then $6.65 an hour a year later, is not all that much greater than the pay raises that occur naturally.



Simply finding full-time work, including jobs at or near the minimum wage, provides the poor with the means to escape poverty. Research by the Employment Policy Institute shows 47 percent of families living below the poverty line in 1997 managed to make it over the poverty line in 1998. The authors of that study concluded that "earnings from minimum wage work and the Earned Income Tax Credit both significantly reduced the number of working poor in the 1990s."[4]



Artificially raising wages will cut off this difficult but direct path to greater prosperity for many poor families, and will delay the entry of other workers, including youth, into paid work by needlessly increasing the cost of unskilled labor. Employers will not be able to afford to hire as many unskilled workers, and will respond by cutting back services or replacing workers with machinery.



Labor economists refer to the "elasticity" of demand for labor to describe the ratio of jobs gained or lost when wages change. Estimates of this "elasticity" vary, but the average estimate by labor economists is that for a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, employment among those affected drops by 5 percent.[5] If the minimum wage is increased from $5.15 to $6.65 per hour, demand for unskilled labor could drop by as much as 15 percent in jobs that earn the minimum wage, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and making it more difficult for poor families to take this escape route out of poverty.



One final thought about poverty. While it is natural to have sympathy for our fellow citizens who work at low-wage jobs and still live in poverty, we should remember that our notion of poverty is relative. Using U.S. Census data, Heritage Foundation scholars examined the living standards of poor Americans and found that the average poor American has a car, air conditioning, at least one color television along with cable or satellite TV, a home that is in decent condition and enough food in the refrigerator.[6] Poverty in America, especially for those who do not work, is less a matter of material deprivation than of emotional and spiritual loss, the pervading worry that comes from knowing that one is dependent on the arcane determinations of state and federal bureaucrats, and the loss of self esteem that comes from knowing that one is not self-sufficient.



But for the working poor, this type of poverty is largely abolished. They are able to face the future with optimism and confidence, however modest their income, precisely because it is earned. They know they are contributing to the national economy and have taken control over own lives.



Increasing the minimum wage will do little to improve the conditions of poor Americans. Relatively few of those workers who receive wages at or near the minimum are members of poor families. For those poor who are working, wage increases are substantial and come quickly as they accumulate job experience. Increasing the minimum wage will, however, eliminate entry-level jobs for unskilled workers, making it more difficult for those who want to work to find jobs.



There is no such thing as a dead end job. Low-wage jobs provide the poor with an escape route from poverty. It would be a shame if, in the name of helping the working poor, we made this escape route more difficult for them to follow.


end of quote-

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTS IS THE ONE WHICH SAID--
72% OF THE PEOPLE EARNING THE MINIMUM WAGE COME FROM HOMES WHICH ARE 50% ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE!!!

Nothing Bernard quotes contradicts my statements.

"Half of the people on minimum wage are adults" is an extremely misleading statement.
While it is technically true,it relies on the readers ignorance of the workforce.
Since most people in the workforce are adults,then the statement is true.

But,I can also say that half the people in public schools are adults,and that would be a true statement,if you count colleges and universities.
However,if we are talking about elementary schools,then the statement is false.