Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Capitol Hill staff and interns need "living wage"

Maybe she can quit bitching about Republicans long enough to look at her own party.

“It is unjust for Congress to budget a living wage for ourselves, yet rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff just bc Republicans want to make a statement about ‘fiscal responsibility,’” Ocasio-Cortez added. “If that’s the case, they can cut down on staff to pay them well. Or raise the MRA.”

Most Capitol Hill interns are not paid for their work. According to a 2017 study by the non-profit Pay Our Interns, only 6 percent percent of House offices paid their interns. The same report found that a higher percentage of Republicans in the Senate were compensating their interns. Fifty-one percent of Republican senators and 31 percent of Democratic senators paid their interns.

I think she is going to be singing a different tune when she has to start budgeting her own staff salaries.

She hasn’t even begun the hard work yet.

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I didn’t read where her criticisms were directed toward republican interns.

It was directed to Republicans. Unfortunately for her more Republicans than Democrats pay their interns .

I still think she is Trump’s bastard child. :smile:

Same unfiltered mouth belching out a constant stream of non-sequiturs and stupidities.

She is free to use her Members’ Representational Allowance to pay her staff however she chooses. She has the ability to put her money where her mouth is on this one.

Time will tell how that plays out. :blush:

She’s gonna be president by 2030. Show some respect.

On a side note, anyone else have the phrase “wise latina” come to mind whenever you see a new story about her??

No. She criticized the republicans – who have had the majority for two years – not appropriating the funds while talking about “fiscal responsibility.” She did not single out republican interns.

Why? She’s arguing that all interns should be paid, not just hers.

Here’s a thought. The intern para was to show that for all her criticizing of the Republicans, more of them pay their interns than Dems do. That was used as an illustration of her stupidity on this subject, not what the entire article is about.

You are the one throwing that out there as if it really means something just because you need to support her on an issue she really doesn’t seem to understand.

She wants her staffers to have a “living wage”? There is nothing stopping her from using her allowance to do so.

So now you’re arguing the article is about interns and their pay? That’s not what she is arguing at all.

She doesn’t get to decide what other Congressmen pay their staffers, just her own. She has the perfect set up to walk the talk.

Chances are she will not. She will use the excuse that the mean Republicans wouldn’t increase the MRA therefore she can’t pay her staffers more, when the reality is she can pay them whatever she wishes within her allowance. She could take her own advice and cut her staff in order to pay the others more, but I’m thinking she will not.

And? She said she wants all interns to be paid. She seems to understand just fine.

Where did she say that she want all interns to be paid?

In the OP.

quote where she made the statement that she wants all interns to be paid.

:popcorn:

Is this one of those supposed “gotcha” moments where you go on to say that she doesn’t say “all interns everywhere” even though we are only talking about interns on the hill? Wow, that was so clever.

I think you need to read the article again.

We are not only talking about interns on the hill or even everywhere. That is not what is talked about in the article, at all.

This isn’t a “supposed gotcha moment”, this is a moment that shows you aren’t even in the ballpark on what the article is discussing because you were so intent on getting a dig in that you really didn’t take the time to understand what she was talking about.

Again, you made this claim about what she said.

She made no such claim about wanting all interns paid.

Did you read your own OP?

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