AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
As Republicans continue to block a minimum wage increase, the president of the AFL-CIO has challenged the president of the Heritage Foundation to
debate the issue. "On behalf of the twelve and a half million men and women of the AFL-CIO," Richard Trumka suggested the debate with Heritage's Jim DeMint, a former senator whose organization now pressures congressional Republicans to move even further to the right:
But according to Josh Goldstein, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, DeMint’s office has said he doesn’t have the time to do the debate. Goldstein adds that the AFL-CIO told DeMint’s staff that Trumka would be happy to do this wherever and whenever DeMint wants to, but to no avail. Now the AFL-CIO will seek to draw attention to DeMint’s unwillingness to debate, with a new Facebook page and other social media, as a way of making the broader point that even those who are most ideologically committed to opposing the federal minimum wage know it is a very hard position to defend.
Of course DeMint doesn't want to debate Trumka on the minimum wage. DeMint has nothing to gain by it, since the media will always come to him or someone else on the far right for a quote on the minimum wage, no matter how unpopular his position is. Having all the press he wants, why would he expose himself to the possibility of being directly out debated? Also, DeMint's mission isn't particularly to convince the public of anything like opposing a minimum wage hike. It's to convince elected Republicans to do so even though a majority of their constituents disagree. Publicly engaging a well-informed and eloquent advocate for working people who enjoys rising to meet a confrontation is in no way in DeMint's interest.