Taking a break from being silent about President Trump’s racism, Congressman Cline joined virtually every other Republican in the House of Representatives to oppose an increase in the federal minimum wage from the current poverty-level $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour by 2024.
The bill, passed by the Democratic majority, now goes to the Senate, where the Republican majority will make sure it dies.
Of course Cline would have voted against any increase in the minimum wage.
Cline has a long record of opposing laws designed to protect and enhance the rights of working people. As a member of the House of Delegates he voted against a bill to increase Virginia’s minimum wage (pegged to the federal level) to $10 an hour. He opposed legislation to require employers to allow full-time workers to accrue paid sick days. He voted to prohibit state agencies from requiring contractors to pay the prevailing wage to construction workers, undercutting wages and putting the interests of out-of state contractors ahead of local businesses. He unsuccessfully opposed expansion of Medicaid to insure up to 400,000 low-income working Virginians, create up to 30,000 jobs and save rural hospitals.
He supported an effort (rejected by voters) to enshrine Virginia’s anti-union “right to work” law in the Constitution.
Cline is an advocate of “deregulation” of private business on the dubious theory that this will create jobs and boost wages. That those regulations may actually protect the workers he professes to care about is apparently of little concern to him.
Cline Watch 
Ben Cline is an ass hole, an enemy of every working person. Heartless, without empathy for any other than the wealthy racist minority. I hope that his reign is brief.
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