thanks to state ballot initiatives, local laws or scheduled raises. president obama and democrats are trying to raise the federal minimum wage to $10 .10 an hour. more than washington state s $9.47. the highest state wage in the country. republicans and business groups siting a report saying an increase of that much would cost the economy a half million jobs over the next decade as paying workers more means businesses would hire fewer of them. supporters of a higher minimum wage point to the same report claiming worker s income would increase by $2 billion over that period. still, there s enough opposition in congress to leave raising the wage to local governments. a lot of the states with higher minimum wages have more liberal legislatures. they have more liberal governors. the federal at the federal level if neither the senate nor the house want to take up a bill to boost the minimum wage, they
now on president obama s watch. and i ll tell you, going back to you, doug. homelessness in the last week on this show. saw a lot of stories of people who because the minimum wage is so low in cities where the costs of living are rising, are in shelters even though they re holding jobs. so this would be a god send to those people. they talked a lot about this minimum wage issue. it resonates with that crowd. what do you say to those people? it would be a god send to them. this is one of the reasons it s very popular. one thing i want to agree with is the public loves the idea of a higher minimum wage. it has for a long time and there will be many state ballot initiatives and i think many of them will pass. but it s the job of the policymakers to look past what s popular and easy and get it right. and the problem with this is the money has to come from somewhere. and so if you take a fast-food industry, you raise the minimum wage and suddenly the customers are going to the same fast
josh, let me ask you. pot has a higher acceptance level than gay marriage. and yet the politicians don t seem ahead of the curve, not embracing that social change the way that they did same-sex marriages or unions. what accounts for that? i think it s a little bit harder for a politician to defend. in the case of same-sex marriage, you have a clear disparity between heterosexual couples who enjoy the right to marry and homosexual couples who historically have not. and that obviously isn t fair and there s no reason for it. in the case of pot, you don t have one subset of americans who get to smoke pot and it s regarded as a good thing and then another group that doesn t. and i think politicians who are naturally risk averse want to steer away from that kind of issue. and that s why i think this has been driven really by the grassroots and by state ballot initiatives rather than taking the lead either president obama or the democrats or the democratic governor of colorado john hicke
pot has a higher acceptance level than gay marriage. and yet the politicians don t seem ahead of the curve, not embracing that social change the way that they did same-sex marriages or unions. what accounts for that? i think it s a little bit harder for a politician to defend. in the case of same-sex marriage, you have a clear disparity between heterosexual couples who enjoy the right to marry and homosexual couples who historically have not. and that obviously isn t fair and there s no reason for it. in the case of pot, you don t have one subset of americans who get to smoke pot and it s regarded as a good thing and then another group that doesn t. and i think politicians who are naturally risk averse want to steer away from that kind of issue. and that s why i think this has been driven really by the grassroots and by state ballot initiatives rather than taking the lead either president obama or the democrats or the democratic governor of colorado john hickenlooper who also wasn t
laboratories for federal government. let s see how those experiments go before making judgment. i think it s on safe ground to be for medical marijuana exemption. josh, let me ask you. pot has a higher acceptance level than gay marriage. and yet the politicians don t seem ahead of the curve, not embracing that social change the way that they did same-sex marriages or unions. what accounts for that? i think it s a little bit harder for a politician to defend. in the case of same-sex marriage, you have a clear disparity between heterosexual couples who enjoy the right to marry who homosexual couples who historically have not. and that obviously isn t fair and there s no reason for it. in the case of pot, you don t have one subset of americans who get to smoke pot and it s regarded as a good thing and then another group that doesn t. and i think politicians who are naturally risk averse want to steer away from that kind of issue. and that s why i think this has been driven really by t