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Bush to Ledbetter, ‘Tough Luck’; Veto’s in Store for Fair Pay Bill |
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It was probably just a matter of when, not if, President Bush would threaten to veto the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The when came this afternoon as the Bush administration announced its intentions to say “no” to strengthening equal pay laws.
The legislation seeks to remedy the kind of pay discrimination Ledbetter suffered for two decades at an Alabama Goodyear tire plant, where she was paid less than men doing the same job. The U.S. Supreme Court in May ruled against Ledbetter, saying she should have initiated her lawsuit no more than 180 days after she received the first short paycheck, even though it took her years to discover the difference—and longer to dig up the proof. The decision tossed out a lower court’s award of $3.8 million for her for two decades of pay discrimination.
Says Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, which heard from Ledbetter in June:
The president has issued enough veto threats to paper the walls of the U.S. Capitol Building. But this legislation is going to pass with bipartisan support, and it is going to become law, because it is the right thing to do. It would be unconscionable for us to permit this discrimination to continue. Workers should not be treated differently from their colleagues on the basis of their gender, their skin color or their religion. This is a basic value that Americans cherish, and it is a shame to see the president of the United States fight against it.
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It is time that we elected politicians that do not use our jobs as a bargaining tool that works against us. I’m sick of these Republicans sending our jobs over seas so they can help the rich that got them elected.
President Bush and most of those supporting him at the top appear to be without conscience. There is no point to low for them to go, manufacturing false intelligence to present to Congress and the American people, packing not only the Supreme Court but the Federal Courts as well thus deliberately destroying the balance of power our Constitution established, talking about our brave soldiers while cutting their benefits and undermining help for their families-no place is to low for these people to go.
I does not matter that children in America are going to bed hungry, suffering malnutrition and dying from lack of medical care; he will veto that SCHIP law. People have to stand up for themselves except when it involves a country that holds oil or other things important to the wealth and power of him and his friends, then he can spend trillions of tax payers dollars, a bill that will burden generations yet unborn.
I am ashamed of the members of Congress who have and continue to stand behind this President. They ought to be thrown out of office come next election if for no other reason than to teach all politicians that, yes, they can be held accountable and yes they can be kicked out of office and kept out, no matter how much money they have or how much media lies and spin they control. It takes a firm, tough stand by the people of this nation making it clear that they want a clean election process and a clean government and will accept nothing less.
Easy? No. Possible? If we want it badly enough. It is preferable to act in votes and demonstrations than in violence. Yet, we have seen violence over such things in America before and worse violence throughout the course of history. It would be better to learn the lessons of history than to have to repeat them.