Chad’s Morning Brief: Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis Announce Campaign Donations, Raising the Minimum Wage Could Cost Over 1 Million Jobs, and Other Top Stories
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of January 15, 2014. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.
Campaign Donations
Yesterday Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis both released fundraising figures for the last 6 months. The first numbers released by the Davis campaign seemed big but then the details came out. According to the Texas Tribune, Davis brought in $8.7 million dollars while Abbott brought in $11.5 million.
Democrat Wendy Davis pulled $8.7 million into her campaign coffers in the last half of 2013, and another group committed to her election as governor raised $3.5 million over the same period, the Davis campaign announced Tuesday. Minutes after she announced the combined $12.2 million haul, her expected Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, announced he had raised $11.5 million over the same time frame.
Both had bragging rights: Abbott outraised Davis when it came to their actual campaign accounts. But Davis had more when counting the joint "Texas Victory Committee" that splits its resources between her campaign and Battleground Texas, a group working to drive up Democratic turnout and make the GOP-ruled state politically competitive.
The Abbott campaign said it was misleading to combine the two pots of money in describing Davis' total for the last half of 2013.
"It's more fuzzy math from the Davis campaign," Abbott spokesman Matt Hirsch said.
But Davis spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña said the money is all going to the same purpose: to help Davis become the first Democrat elected governor since Ann Richards won in an upset in 1990.
"The committee is a joint effort between Wendy Davis and Battleground Texas," Acuña said. "The campaign has asked donors to contribute to the TVC, and that money goes to support the work those organizations conduct in making Wendy Davis the next governor."
Separately, Battleground Texas will report an additional $1.8 million for its field operations. The group was founded by former field operatives for President Obama. Jenn Brown, executive director of the group, said the money that comes in from the joint committee would "absolutely" be used to support Davis' efforts. She said Abbott's campaign criticized the structure of Davis' fundraising operation because he's worried.
“That’s what I would say, too, if I had raised less," Brown said. "I think this shows the excitement Texas has for Wendy, and they’re trying to discredit it and it's terrible for him.”
Besides unveiling the combined $12.2 million haul, Team Davis also said that the Fort Worth senator had collected donations from 71,000 contributors from Texas and around the United States.
One thing to remember about the Wendy Davis/Battleground Texas fundraising figures. WFAA reported last night that the funds raised by Battleground Texas can be used by any Democrat.
So if we are looking at head to head numbers, the Davis campaign is behind the Abbott campaign. Davis also fell short of expectations as many thought her campaign would raise over $10 million dollars.
1 Million Jobs Could Be Lost
What would happen to jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10? According to the Daily Caller, a study shows that over one million jobs could be destroyed.
The Obama administration’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour could result in as many 1,084,000 jobs eliminated from the work force, according to a new study conducted by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI)
“No amount of denial by the president and his political allies — and no number of ‘studies’ published by biased researchers — can change the fact that minimum wage hikes eliminate jobs for low-skill and entry-level employees. Non-partisan economists have agreed on this consensus for decades, and the laws of economics haven’t changed,” Michael Saltsman, research director at EPI, said in a statement.
He offered an alternative to the president’s plan: “Instead of raising small businesses’ labor costs and creating more barriers to entry-level employment, the president and the Senate should focus on policies that help reduce poverty and create jobs.”
The study was released in the wake of an expected vote on a Senate bill that aims to raise the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour — a nearly 40 percent increase.
Many Democrats argue that increasing the federal minimum will reduce poverty without having an adverse effect on unemployment.
EPI’s report, which used analysis from economists at Miami and Trinity University, reached a different conclusion.
Researchers used recently updated Census Bureau data from 2012 and 2013 to calculate how each individual state would be impacted by the proposed wage hikes. As a lump sum, Americans would see a loss of at least 360,000 jobs, and perhaps even over one million if hourly wages are increased to $10.10.
The number of job losses would be the most dramatic in large states, such as California and Texas. Economists found that California could lose as many as 100,016 jobs and Texas could see up to 128,617 jobs disappear from its economy.
Other Top Stories:
Today’s Guests:
9:35am- Larry Williams, Williams Brake, Tune, & Tire
These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.
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