Someday we're going to have to discuss the reason the Bush Administration doesn't seem to fear all the blowback from their utterly failed policies and ruinous reputation (although this may go a long way toward explaining some of it) in the nation and around the world. Whatever that reason is, it is perfectly clear they don't give a damn what we think or how angry we are because they go right on as if it was still 2003 and the country was enveloped in pro-Bushian war fever.
As if to prove how little they care and how eager they are to kiss corporate ass, Bush is today (Equal Pay Day in the Senate) threatening to veto a discrimination bill because he claims it "would make it easier for victims of discrimination to sue their employers over unequal pay."
The measure, which is scheduled for a vote today in the Senate, aims to reverse a controversial Supreme Court decision from last spring. That ruling held that Lilly Ledbetter, the lone female supervisor at an Alabama tire plant, could not sue her employer over unequal pay because the alleged discrimination that cut her wages occurred years before she filed a complaint.
The House approved the bill, dubbed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, last summer. Senate leaders are now bringing it to the floor in part to acknowledge Equal Pay Day, the date on which the average woman's wages catch up to what the average man earned during the previous year. The day was established in 1996 by civil rights advocates to call attention to a persistent wage gap that leaves women earning 77 cents on average for every dollar earned by men.
Most Republicans, meanwhile, oppose the legislation, taking the side of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other business groups, which are lobbying hard to defeat the measure. The presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has yet to state his position.
The White House, however, has been quite clear. Yesterday, officials reasserted a veto threat issued in July, saying that the Ledbetter ruling was fair and that the bill "far exceeds the stated purpose of undoing the Court's decision."
Ya-da ya-da. Yet another nonsensical argument dredged from the deepest sludge to defend the indefensible. The bill, of course, does precisely what it was intended to do - undo the Court's decision - and that's the problem Bush has with it. But he can't say that so he claims it "goes too far".
Right. In BushWorld, any bill that makes corporations act like good citizens or requires accountability for their illegal actions "goes too far".
So what else is new?
Update: For once, WaPo editorial writer Fred Hiatt seems to agree with me.
Business leaders argue that the paycheck trigger would allow employees to "sit on their rights" and wait to file suit until years have passed in order to make it more difficult for companies to defend against old allegations. This argument is utterly without merit. In the first place, those who know -- or have strong suspicions -- that they're being discriminated against are unlikely to stay silent and continue to receive what they believe are unjustifiably and illegally low paychecks. Second, the new legislation would allow a paycheck to trigger a new opportunity to file suit only if that paycheck continues to reflect discriminatory pay. The Congressional Budget Office concluded that it's unlikely that many more claims of pay discrimination would be filed under the legislation than were filed before the Supreme Court eliminated the paycheck trigger in 2007.
(emphasis added)
Of course, Fred would like to see a couple of "loopholes" closed, like the one that would allow someone other than the employee to sue on their behalf (in case they, like, died before the case was heard; the company would be off the hook otherwise), but overall he seems to have finally grasped the concept that corporations aren't always, I don't know, fair.
Every journey starts with but a single step, Fred.
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