We care about this issue because young people (and many other groups) in Massachusetts need the services provided by our state budget. Yet elected officials frequently shy away from raising taxes, and when they do, they inevitably hurt the poorest among us.

It’s crunch time. A bill to raise New Jersey’s minimum wage is sitting on Governor Christie’s desk, and there’s only days left for him to sign it. The bill would raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50. Better still, it would raise the wage each year to keep pace with inflation. Raising the minimum wage will drive up wages for all workers, create jobs, and give New Jersey's struggling economy a much needed jolt. Governor Christie needs to listen to the 76% of residents who favor the bill and sign it now.

New York's minimum wage has risen only 10 cents since 2007, and today remains decades out of date. If the state's minimum wage had simply kept pace with the rising cost of living since 1970, it would equal more than $10.70 per hour today. Instead, the current minimum wage remains stuck at $7.25 per hour, which translates to just $15,080 per year for a full-time worker. Governor Cuomo called for raising New York's minimum wage to $8.75 per hour during his 2013 State of the State address. Now the legislature must deliver. The Independent Democratic Caucus must use its leadership power in the New York Senate to support legislation that raises New York's minimum wage to at least $8.75 per hour and indexes the minimum wage to automatically rise with the cost of living each year.

For too long the working poor and lower middle-class have suffered at the hands of businesses big and small,facing frozen wages,cut hours and few benefits if we were able to keep them! I have been very troubled at my job at a plastics factory with the lack of effort in getting new customers and thus,we are stuck with cutbacks and frozen wages for multiple years!!

American workers are tired of government changing social security retirement age because they raided the SS lockbox money for pet projects and pay backs to supporters.. Letting them retire at 50..and getting pensions after six years is nothing less than stealing...END THEIR DOUBLE DIPPING...CLEAN up the special priveleges in Washington ...make congress and government employees live, work, retire under the same rules we are given. Taxpayers should be voting on their wages, benefits and perks. End the lucrative budgets they our given ...spending $220,000 on a bathroom remodel for one congressional office is mismanagement of the taxpayer money. Making taxpayers pay someone $102,000 to walk the presidents dog is beyond ridiculous.

The ledger of every American government agency, at all levels of government, should be posted to internet at the close of business each day. The ledger should include all income and expenses.

This is long over-due, "The curse of proverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization.... The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the immediate abolition of poverty" Martin Luther King

Texas State Rep. Yvonne Davis has filed HB 535, the "Buy American" bill. This bill would require state agencies to give preference to purchasing goods made in Texas or the U.S. when the option is available. If products are not made in Texas at a comparable cost to other goods, the next preference would be to goods made anywhere in the United States. Millions will benefit by the Texas government investing in American jobs and America workers. Disabled veterans and farmers will be some of the first to benefit from such a law.

The United States Tax Code has increased to the point where no citizen, accountant or lawyer knows what is in the document(s). It currently stands at tens of thousands of pages and grows every year. People are powerless to try and understand the system and yet are responsible for being in compliance. Through lobbying, the system has also grown to benefit specific industries and companies without any way of policing the practice due to the excessive length of the code.

In 2006 President Bush signed into law the requirement that the postal service was required to prefund retiree health benefits 75 years into the future to the tune of 5.5 billion annually for 10 years. Before this bill became law, the postal service was completely solvent and completely self-sufficient with no taxpayer support.

Every time I see a position open to apply for,I am directed straight to a Temp. agency....Has our job market been monopolized to me submitting my personal info. to a mediator service to pimp my skills!!! Why would I need a mediator if my skills are in fact what is required of the position I am applyig for? I recently worked for a company that had 3 different services hiring for an 90-day to 120 day project labeled possible temp. to perm. employment...If the add would've been advertised "Hiring Possible Temp. - Perm. employees based on proformance and skill set for 90-120 day project,please apply at", I would've been in line to apply as I'm sure many others would have...But lately there are no company interveiws for potential hire only employment pools to be serviced as employment coordinators seem fit(employment pimps), according to the commission your hard labor can bring into their agency(similar to Brothalized employment right? You speak with the head Misterist and explain what you are looking for and she matches those skills to someone of that desire and skill set,yet the money only switches hands person to misterist,laborer's left with tired back and compensation at bay...).And if you are working for a temp.service and don't know when your last day of work may suprise you...Then you need to do something about this issue in Illinois...We are the people,our votes count!!!! We make the labor force not the other way around...Let it be known that there is employment avail. out there and you and I are not going to allow Temp. agencies to pool and sale the jobs avail. to us or our skills...That's what the human services' department is for!!!! That's what 90 day probation period is for!!! Why am I working for someone else in a company that has positions avail.,they get my check,dock their percentage and then give me my little pennies to the dollar??? I think it's high time to make a stand...Limit the Temp.Agencies from Monopolization of Illinois...I know most of you are going to say,"What can we do?", Sign this petition and let your voice be heard,even if your son,brother,relative,next door neighbor is being sold in this manor, make a stand!!!

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a new free trade agreement, the documents of which are being withheld from the American people and Congress itself. President Obama has been negotiating this partnership behind closed doors with 600 corporate representatives and multiple Asian nations. He has broken his campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA, and is now going as far as to create corporate-friendly deals behind the backs of the citizens who elected him. Any international agreement that will affect the body politic should be made accessible to the body politic, no questions asked.