Yes, I am affected, we need a raise. We work hard for our students and have not had a raise in 5 years. Please help us.

TOBACCO should pay for the health problems, including, deaths that it causes in the State of California every year.

Western Massachusetts does not have mass transportation, most people commute long distances to work. The TAXES already paid on our vehicles are: Sales Tax when we purchase the vehicle, Excise Tax-yearly, State & Federal Tax on each and every gallon of gas/diesel that we purchase. We have NO OTHER OPTIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION. ENOUGH! Our Massachusetts Governor wants to now TAX us for the number of miles we drive on our vehicles each year. Example: if they impose even a small amount of $.10 cents per mile, and you drive 10,000 miles a year (which is not a lot) that would mean and additional mileage tax of $1000. which equals $83.00/month and that is at only 10 Cents per mile. Wake up!!!!!!

The LGBT community needs to be protected from discrimination in the work place. Employers in most areas of the country can refuse to hire - or even fire - someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. ENDA needs to be passed to protect us.

State laws permitted by section 14(b) of the taft-hartley act that provide in general that employees are not required to join a union as a condition of getting or retaining a job. Therefore, when a state passes a right-to-work law, it prohibits both mandatory union membership and initiation fees and dues obligations of agency shops, and permits employees who do not voluntarily pay dues and initiation fees to receive the benefits the union provides. Unions call such people "free riders." This law breaks the foundation of the unions, and sets apart further the pay gap between the now uber rich and working poor. This law has nothing to do with " rights at work" but a ploy with a twist of words to break unions. The last resort for a fading Middle Class, that was set by unions.

Our country is drowning in debt and it's nobody's fault but our own, somebody with legal expertise please take this, edit it into the proper format for a petition and run with it !

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.