I’ve been reading about The Drum Major Foundation. It has a web-site that scores legislators on how they vote on pro middle class legislation. The Foundation gives Mike Turner, OH-3, a grade of 50% , Steve Austria, Oh-7, a grade of 25%, John Boehner, OH-8, a grade of 0%, and Dennis Kucinich, OH-10, a grade of 94%.
The Foundation has a great name and a great history. Wikipedia says: “The Drum Major Foundation (later Institute) was founded in 1961 during Civil Rights Movement by Harry Wachtel, a New York City lawyer who was an adviser to Martin Luther King Jr..
“Dr. King often used the phrase “drum major instinct’ meaning the instinct to be a leader. In his sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on February 4, 1968 he said: ‘If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice, say that I was a drum major for peace, say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter… I just want to leave a committed life behind.’”
The primary focus of the Foundation is “on the economic issues of the middle class and the idea that government can be a force for good.”
The Drum Major Foundation has a web-site that I just discovered today. At Middleclass.org it analyzes congressional votes and grades representatives and senators on how their votes helped the middle class. I was not surprised to see the Dennis Kucinich made a grade of “A”, but I was surprised to see that Mike Turner has a grade of “C”. I had guessed it would be “F”.
According to the Foundation’s scoring, over the last couple of years, Turner has really turned his grades around. His grade for 2003 was “F”, for 2004 his grade was “F”, then another “F”, another “F”. Then in 2007, he made a “D”, then, in 2008, he made a “C”. And according to the Foundation, in 2009 his current score is 50%. Turner is the highest scoring Republican in the Ohio Delegation The Foundation evidently grades on the curve — it gives a score of 50% a grade of “C”
Here are Foundation’s scores for the Ohio Delegation:
Austria, Steve(R-OH, District 7) 25%
Boccieri, John(D-OH, District 16) 100%
Boehner, John(R-OH, District 8) 0%
Driehaus, Steve(D-OH, District 1) 100%
Fudge, Marcia(D-OH, District 11) 100%
Jordan, Jim(R-OH, District 4) 0%
Kaptur, Marcy(D-OH, District 9) 100%
Kilroy, Mary Jo(D-OH, District 15) 100%
Kucinich, Dennis(D-OH, District 10) 94%
LaTourette, Steven(R-OH, District 14) 38%
Latta, Robert(R-OH, District 5) 0%
Ryan, Timothy(D-OH, District 17) 100%
Schmidt, Jean(R-OH, District 2) 13%
Space, Zachary(D-OH, District 18) 100%
Sutton, Betty(D-OH, District 13) 100%
Tiberi, Pat(R-OH, District 12) 40%
Turner, Michael(R-OH, District 3) 50%
Wilson, Charles(D-OH, District 6) 93%
This doesn’t look partisan at all. All the wealth redistributionalist D’s scored above 90%. The pro free market, personal responsibility, R’s all scored 50% or less.
Can a survey so blatantly partisan be worth noting?
The Foundation looks at specific legislation. These are the bills, the Foundation considers pro middle class, that, in this session, Turner voted against:
H.R. 2454
American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
H.R. 1664
Pay for Performance Act of 2009
H.R. 1
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – House Version
H.R. 1
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – Conference Report
S. 181
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
H.R. 11
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 – House Version
H.R. 12
Paycheck Fairness Act of 2009
What is it that is pro-middle class about the ARRA or Pay for Performance act? Any idea what these bills do or why they might benefit the middle class?
I’m sure that the Foundation has a rationale to explain why it considers the passage of these bills in the interest of the middle class. I am going to do some more research.
Everything political is justified in the name of the middle class. I may agree with this rating but I doubt any conservatives or Republicans do. They claim, as mcohio did, that their agenda labeled “free market”and “personal responsibility” is the essence of the middle class.
This discussion can be useful, but only if we look at the bills and analyze them, what they mean and who they benefit.
A deeper question is what is the role of the middle class, particularly given the statistics on the increasing transfer of wealth to the rich and divisions between rich and poor, as well as some of these social and values issues that probably are spread among the middle class. Or have middle class people essentially adopted the values of the rich?
What does personal responsibility mean anyway? And whose personal responsibility are we talking about? To do what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009
Above is the link for the Lily Ledbetter act. Basically it extends the timeline that employees have to seek out damages against employers for pay discrimination. I will provide my opinion of this bill, which I will then extrapolate into my opinion of the drum major foundation.
To understand this act we must first examine the principle attributes of Equal employment opportunity commission. In short stating that men and women must be paid equally. This has several impacts, a few I would like to examine.
1) It negates the liberty of the individual. It removes our ability and freedom to contract with with people as mutually agreed. A private company owner may no longer independently negotiate wages with workers, he must have equal rates. Whether or not you would agree with an employer of this type, you cannot deny the negation of his liberty to hire and contract with an individual as he sees fit.
2) It negates the liberty of the potential hire to negotiate his wage. Should he negotiate his skill set to an employer, that employer could not offer payment exceeding anyone of the opposite sex.
3) Economically, it removed the competitive advantage of women in the market place. If a woman was seeking a job, an economic advantage would be a lower pay rate. Taking a lower pay rate is attractive to potential employers and this bill limited women’s entrance into the market place.
4) It limited the competitive advantage of company cultures that recognized quickly that women could maintain the same productive output as their male counterparts.
Examining the economic impact, not hiring a qualified woman could be detrimental to a companies competitive advantage in an industry. So, one has to ask oneself why was the law put into place originally?
Extrapolating that the particular law really had no effect and that wages would reach their correct market levels in time, we utilized the vote and the negation of liberty to achieve a closer equilibrium in wages.
In relation to Lily, it simply states that employee’s have a greater amount of time to sue for this perceived offense. That offense being the mutual agreement to X amount of pay for Y amount of work analyzed over time to be deemed incorrect by the government and allowing one party of the contract to seize assets from the other.
I am arguing that this expansion of the law set continues to limit womans entrance to the work force and is most likely to expand the wealth of lawyers and bureaucracy which are not of the middle class.
It is with the economic walk through that I would ascertain that Drum Major is likely emotional and surface based without much thought to true economic impact. No representative in my opinion should receive a negative mark for voting against this bill.
Now go ahead ask me my opinion of Mike Turners vote on cash for clunkers and I will give you scathing review of his irresponsibility.