Mitt Romney
PO Box 149756
Boston, MA 021149756
Rick Santorum
PO Box 247
Verona, PA 15147
Tim Pawlenty
600 13th Street, NW, Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20005
May 30, 2014
Dear Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty:
Over the course of ten days earlier this month, the three of you all 2012 Republican Presidential candidates provided some sanity for Congressional Republicans.
On April 30, Tim said: “For all the Republicans who come on and talk about, ‘we’re for the bluecollar worker, we’re for the working person,’ there are some basic things that we should be for. One of them is reasonable increases from time to time in the minimum wage.” Rick followed up on May 5 with: “Let’s not make this argument that we’re for the bluecollar guy but we’re against any minimum wage increase ever.” On May 9, Mitt joined in, saying of the minimum wage: “I think we ought to raise it, because frankly, our party is all about more jobs and better pay.”
You must know why, in polls and declarations, a majority of Americans have supported raising the minimum wage for years:
- ● Raising the minimum wage is good for workers, lifting millions of hardworking Americans over the poverty line.
- ● Raising the minimum wage is good for businesses, boosting consumer spending, lowering turnover, and boosting productivity.
- ● Raising the minimum wage is good for taxpayers, ending the subsidization of low wages that comes when public assistance programs pay for the wellbeing of the workers instead of the profitable megacorporations that employ them, like McDonald’s and Walmart.
However, opinions that differentiate you from the pack are just that… opinions. What the 30 million Americans who are to be helped by a minimum wage increase need now are not more opinions, but
calls to action to your Republican friends in Congress. We need 19 Republicans to sign Rep. Tim Bishop’s discharge petition to bring a minimum wage raise to a vote in the House of Representatives. The true measure of your commitment to “Blue Collar Conservatism” (as Rick has called it in his recent book) is how many signatures of Republican Congresspersons you can turn out on Rep. Bishop’s petition.
Tim: Can you encourage Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who endorsed your Presidential campaign, to sign the discharge petition, helping the 24.1% of South Carolinian children who live in families that would be aided by a higher minimum wage?
Rick: Can you encourage fellow Pennsylvanians and Congresspersons Lou Barletta, Glenn Thompson, and Tom Marino who endorsed your Presidential campaign to sign the discharge petition, helping set in motion a bill that could stimulate the Pennsylvania economy by over $1 billion a year?
Mitt: Can you encourage your former campaign committee advisors and Congresspersons Ileana RosLehtinen and Mario DiazBalart to sign the discharge petition, helping bring $2.17 billion a year in aggregate wage increases to over one million of their fellow Floridians?
The three of you spent your campaigns criticizing President Obama for being all words and no action. Prove that you are different by turning your words into action through leaning on Republicans in Congress to bring the minimum wage to a vote now!
Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
P. O. Box 19312
Washington, D.C. 20036
TimeForARaise.org