Rep. Ribble says higher minimum wage would hurt poor

Source: The Post-Crescent, Appleton, Wis.迷你倉出租Aug. 30--APPLETON -- As workers nationwide protested outside stores and restaurants, U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble said Thursday that a $15 hourly wage for fast-food workers would "devastate" the poor.Ribble said he respects the right of workers to organize and make their voices heard, but said the massive wage increase is unreasonable."There's a finite amount of money any business has to meet its payroll," Ribble said on Newsmakers, Post-Crescent Media's online issues show. "Will there be enough customers going to McDonald's paying $10 for a hamburger?"Ribble also tackled developments in Syria, national security and the federal budget during the interview. Here's an edited transcript:Given the protests, should we raise minimum wage?An increase from $7 to $15 would devastate the poor. There's an elasticity of price in the market place. You'd see a rapid increase in goods and services and the people impacted the most are the poorest. If this happened at grocery stores, the people that need low-cost food wouldn't have it available because the cost of labor would be passed on in the marketplace. The intent of minimum wage was to provide a point for employers to find employees, and the gap between minimum and top wage scale was to provide for that training period and investment so they can move up the ladder. If we take that away, there will be a stretch on government services related to training. We wanted businesses to provide training and opportunities in their career.How should the decision be made about Syria?I was signatory to Congressman (Scott) Rigell's (R-Virginia) letter requesting the president to follow the Constitution and War Powers Act and come to the Congress first to get permission. For me, that means coming to Congress, it doesn't mean coming to a committee chairman or speaker. He also needs permission from the citizens of the 8th District of Wisconsin. He should come to Congress with briefings we need. Right now, I'm getting my news the way you're getting news like everybody else. We're seeing it unfold on television and the travesty of a gas attack and a weapon of mass destruction used on the Syrian people.Did you oppose strikes on Libya?Yes, how in the world can you say it's not hostilities when you're launching cruise missiles and spending billions of dollars. We were in an offensive mode in Libya. You can ask, what was the result in Libya and what did the American taxpayer get in the form of national security. We ended up getting an ambassador murdered, two Navy SEALs murdered and another embassy official murdered.What do you need to see before a strike?I need to see there's an imminent threat. I think I personally would like to know the classified information on the conversations and whatever he has told Assad that he was going to do. When he created his red line about using gas and chemical weapons, he basically made a statement on behalf of the American people on what we're willing to accept. But that line was passed months ago. If he goes in with military force without going to Congress, he can't say it was imminent.Do you worry about being drawn into a conflict or having a situation like Iraq?Sure, the citizens are getting war weary. Polling data says 75 percent of the people are opposing military action in Syria. I'm not saying we shouldn't use military action, but come and tell us the plan. How are we going to get out? How will you protect the deposits of weapons, what's the long-range deal? I don't need to know you'll toss a cruise missile in to make a point. I want to know about the result.Do you support the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed by the Senate this summer?I support parts of it. I would hope we can get immigration reform done. The best pathway forward was to break the immigration complexity into its individual 迷你倉omponents. Rather than passing a 2,000-page bill with poison pills, pass them by their individual titles. If you did it sequentially with border protection, then working on interior enforcement and highly skilled workers, then low-skilled workers and finally the tougher step with what to do with those that are here in an undocumented fashion. Legal immigration is a net plus for the U.S. economy.What's the priority when you're back in D.C.?We don't have a concurrent budget resolution or appropriations. At the end of September we have to do a continuing resolution to fund the government. I'm pleased the Senate finally passed a budget, but they've not passed an appropriation bill since I've been in Congress. I hope we don't get into this brinksmanship game, the economy is too fragile. American job creators and business owners and the middle class deserve some type of certainty on how government functions.What would your flexibility act do? Is that a solution?It may not be a 100 percent perfect solution. In the absence of appropriations ... and sequester is going to stay in place, it seems to me we should give the administrators in these departments their top line sequester number, and tell them to root out low-priority items and wasteful items. That's the idea of the sequester -- to eliminate waste -- but it's done as a uniform cut, and that's a silly way of management. No business would do it that way. I wrote a piece of legislation that would authorize the agencies to manage the money they're given and prioritize.Are higher taxes a nonstarter for you?We have higher taxes from the deal in January. At some point we're going to break promises to the American people on our social safety net with Social Security and Medicare. They're going to have to be reformed. Whether now's the time with enough political will, I'm not sure.What do you think of the president's college plan based on a rating system?It doesn't get to the heart of the problem. We're undergoing dramatic societal changes in this country. I spent 35 years in commercial roofing. A lot of jobs were created in construction, agriculture and manufacturing that don't require college degrees, but there's an overemphasis in our society about college degrees. As a result of that, we're shoving up demand. As that goes up, why wouldn't a college or university respond to that? You're going to see prices go up, as the government has gotten more involved since the 1960s, we're seeing dramatic, over 200 percent increase over inflation on college cost. We're penalizing low- and middle-income families. The fix is to give them money, but they graduate with $100,000 in debt -- we haven't helped them at all. We need reforms that drive their costs down by encouraging more young people to look at the trades and find other opportunities within our economy that are high-paying, good jobs they could have today.You voted for restrictions on the National Security Administration. Why?I voted to send the NSA a message, that if you chose to snoop on the American people without a warrant and without their permission, you can't do that. If they believe there's a national security interest in it, they have all the tools necessary to get the information they need.What do you make of Edward Snowden? Is he a leaker, whistleblower, criminal, traitor?All of those things apply. I think he's more traitor than friend for sure. I find it very suspect that someone who wants to defend liberty in this country flees to communist Russia where there's very little liberty at all. He may be questioning that choice now.-- Nick Penzenstadler: 920-996-7226, or npenzenstadler@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @npenzenstadlerCopyright: ___ (c)2013 The Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.) Visit The Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.) at .postcrescent.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存倉