Friday, November 21, 2003

It's your money, the president regularly says, and you should keep more of it ... except when he wants you to keep less of it:

Foes of the Bush administration's proposed rules changing which workers would qualify for overtime pay abandoned their fight Friday in the face of unrelenting pressure from the White House and the House.

...Critics of the new rules said they could lead to 8 million Americans losing eligibility for overtime pay, largely white-collar workers earning more than $65,000 a year. Administration officials say more than 644,000 such employees would lose the time-and-a-half pay now required when they work more than 40 hours in a week....

The end of the overtime battle spelled a legislative and political victory for President Bush, whose aides had repeatedly threatened a veto for any legislation attempting to kill the proposed regulations....


--AP

Yeah, lower-wage workers who were formerly not eligible for overtime will now get it. But why does this require higher-wage (but not at all rich) workers to take a permanent, government-mandated pay cut?

No comments: