Bush gets Palasted

Greg Palast, who I must say has one of the best senses of humor I've ever seen in a reporter, gives us the rundown on Bush's new overtime laws. You won't believe what this administration's Federal Register suggests.

Now I should say that, according to [Labor Secetary] Chao's press office, the changes will actually extend overtime benefits to 1.3 million burger flippin' managers. How does that square with the billion dollar "benefit" to business owners? Simple: The Chao hounds at the Labor Department suggest that employers CUT WAGES so that, added to the new "overtime" pay, the employees won't actually take home a dime more.

I can hear the moaners and bleeding hearts saying this sounds like the Labor Department is telling Big Business how to evade the law. Yep, that's what the Department is doing. Right there on page 15,576 of the Federal Register it says,

"Affected employers would have four choices concerning potential payroll costs: ... (4) converting salaried employees' basis of pay to an hourly rate that result in virtually no changes to the total compensation paid those workers."

And this just wouldn't be a Bush law without veterans getting the shaft.

My favorite of Chao's little amendments would re-classify as "exempt professionals" anyone who learned their skill in the military. In other words, thousands of veterans will now lose overtime pay. I just can't understand why Bush didn't announce that one when he landed on the aircraft carrier.

I betcha $100 the Swift Boat Vets for "Truth" won't touch that one. Oh, remember all that new comp time these new laws were supposed to give us?

President Bush announced in his convention acceptance speech this week that he was changing overtime rules to give workers "comp time" off instead of pay. He forgot to mention that a couple of days before, on August 23, his Labor Department had already put in half the plan -- eliminating overtime pay for millions -- while failing to put into the regs one word about comp time. In the pre-September 11 days, we used to call that, "lying."

Indeed.