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Matthew Yglesias offers a sterling bit of logical analysis of the new overtime rules:
Now as I say, I have no particular expertise on this topic. I do know, however, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn't being run by idiots -- it's being run by smart people looking out for the interests of large employers. And I know that large employers would prefer to pay overtime to fewer people rather than more people. So I know the odds that the Chamber of Commerce is supporting some new overtime rules that will make more people eligible are rather low. Meanwhile, I know that the AFL-CIO, which represents employees, and wants more people to be eligible for overtime, says this law will make fewer people eligible.
So to believe the administration you need to believe that the AFL-CIO is lying about this for no reason, and that it hasn't occured to anyone at the Chamber of Commerce that these rules will be bad for its constituents. Isn't it a lot more likely that the Chamber knows exactly what it's doing, the AFL-CIO is telling the truth, and the Bush administration is trying to mislead people? I think it's pretty clear what's going on here. So why won't the Times tell us?
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Christopher Hayes is the host of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes. He is an editor at large at the Nation and a former senior editor of In These Times.
