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Details are sketchy about the new retirement plan that President Obama proposed in the State of the Union Address last night, so it's too early to offer any verdict. What causes concern, though, is that the Obama administration has previously floated retirement schemes that would double down on America's failed experiment with individual private accounts that are the cornerstone of the 401(k).
Republicans didn't just respond to the State of the Union, they responded four times. The problem is that a lot of their talking points don't stack up with reality.
1) Taxes Are Too High on The Rich
In fact, taxes have become less progressive since 1960:
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama announced a “Good Jobs” Executive Order requiring government contractors to raise the minimum wage for their lowest-paid workers to $10.10 fo
President Obama's promised executive order to raise the minimum wage for some government contract workers would likely affect less than half a million people and may face legal challenge.
What Obama is hoping is that his relatively narrow move will spur Congress to follow suit for all low-wage workers in the country.
During his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will announce plans to issue an executive order giving a raise to low-wage workers on new federal contracts, a move that affects thousands of people in the Washington area, the White House says.
Dem Rep. Keith Ellison has been one of the leading proponents of the executive action that President Obama will announce tonight boosting the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors. In an interview this morning, he argued that this move has broader significance than it first appears.