Smith Filibusters Minimum Wage

After griping for the last three years about Democrats occassionally filibustering things, the Senate Republicans have already excersized their right to filibuster, demanding that any increase in wages for the lowest paid workers must be coupled with tax cuts for those higher up on the income ladder.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) — Senate Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats to pass minimum-wage legislation without breaks for small businesses on Wednesday, setting the stage for a potential impasse with the House, where lawmakers are demanding a “clean” bill.

The Senate vote of 54 to 43 was six votes short of the 60 needed to move ahead with a wage measure that does not include tax benefits for employers. Earlier this month, the Senate Finance Committee voted to add $8.3 billion in tax breaks to the bill.

And who joined this cynical Republican filibuster? None other "moderate" Republican Gordon Smith. That's your "moderate" Republican from Oregon, working hard in the Senate to stick it to workers every day. And if it takes a filibuster to make sure he can stick it workers, Gordon Smith will filibuster.

The Effects of Higher Minimum Wages

The New York Times ran a good story today on the way minimum wage law acts on the Idaho-Washington border where the highest minimum wage in the country meets the lowest. They pointed to the relationship between Post Falls and Liberty Lake. But the story was the same where I grew up in Moscow Idaho/Pullman Washington.

But instead of shriveling up, small-business owners in Washington say they have prospered far beyond their expectations. In fact, as a significant increase in the national minimum wage heads toward law, businesses here at the dividing line between two economies — a real-life laboratory for the debate — have found that raising prices to compensate for higher wages does not necessarily lead to losses in jobs and profits.

Idaho teenagers cross the state line to work in fast-food restaurants in Washington, where the minimum wage is 54 percent higher. That has forced businesses in Idaho to raise their wages to compete.

With a lowball minimum wage, Idaho businesses who pay minimum wage sacrifice more committed workers who cross the State line to Washington and is stuck with the bottom of the barrel labor at least in town near the border. One of my good friends in High School who commuted to Pullman to work every day made the comment once to me "why would anyone in this town want to work in Moscow, yes you pay a little more for gas to commute but its more than made up for by the difference in wage." Idaho businesses near the border, this article pointed out excellently are at a huge disadvantage if they fail to pay close to Washington's minimum wage to their employees.

George Will: The Working Class Arent Human

Sounds pretty rediculous eh? But I've read it twice and that clearly seems to be what George Will is saying, that low wage workers are not in fact people. In a bad article opposing the minimum wage, one of the worst such article I've read not for its position but because it isnt well written or well argued, George Will ended with the following:

But the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly. But that is a good idea whose time will never come again.

Labor is a commodity? Now I know a lot of economists like to talk in this language, even a lot of liberal economists do it, but lets think about the assumption being made to make that statement. You don't hear Will or anyone else talking about entrepreneurs as a "commodity," in part because they arent a commodity just as labor isnt, but also because they understand that to treat a person as a commodity is to make them something non human, something that is merely bought and sold, not something to be engaged with, not something to concerned for the well being of. At best maybe the "commodity" argument contends that labor is like a dairy cow, something whose health and life need to be protected only because production stops without it.

Please Mr. Will, you wrote a shitty article to begin with, but please dont reduce your fellow human beings whose well being and general welfare need to be defended to a mere commodity. They are far more important to our country and to our economy than a mere cow. Our fellow human beings have value to us far beyond any capital good, or any good at all for that matter, please dont demean their existence by reducing them to such an unimportant social status, it just shows your readers that you're self concerned and antisocial, and I'm sure you dont want them knowing that.

General 2007 Discussion

Without looking arround very specifically I'm sure nearly every blogger in the universe is doing something similar to this, but I retired for the last week and need to get back in the game, and it strikes me as a good idea to get the first post of 2007 off my chest. This is just a general, uninsightful, semi-meaningless discussion of what awaits us in the coming year.

Iraq
About 5 American soldiers a day have been dying recently, and it sure seems like every day we find a pile of 50 bodies somewhere in Iraq of the recently murdered. A recent informal panel of academics assembled at 12:10 AM today seemed only able to conclude that its a total mess. Josh Marshall has a good observation, as it seems all there are regarding Iraq are good observations and no good solutions.

If you watch the video of the moments leading up to Saddam Hussein's execution, am I wrong that it bears a certain resemblance to the terrorist snuff films we've watched out of Iraq over the last three years? A dark, dank room. The executioners wear not uniforms of any sort, either civilian or military, but street clothes and ski masks. We now learn that the executioners were apparently taken from the population of southern Iraq, the country's Shi'a heartland, where Saddam's repression was most severe. And in an apt symbolic statement on what the Iraq War is about, two of the executioners who saw Saddam off started hailing Moktada al Sadr in Saddam's face as they prepared to hang him. Remember, al Sadr's Mahdi Army is the force the 'surge' of new US troops is meant to crush next year. That's where we are.

economy
Paul Krugman recently argued that when economists cant agree on which way the indicators are pointing we're probably shifting directions. At the very least it seems we're at risk of a significant downturn. That said, things are looking up for working people relative to how things have been for the last 6 years as Democrats seem prepared to increase the minimum wage, pass an expansion in workers rights to unionize, and to examine possible solutions to the health care crisis.

sports
USC will defeat Michigan today. The PAC 10 will send Arizona, UCLA, UW, Oregon, and Washington State to the NCAA tournament in basketball. I have no clue who will win the World Series except to say that Detroit looks good again and that Santana and Liriano are one hell of a 1-2 punch. The Mariners will finish with roughly a 0.500 record as they produce runs and Felix Hernandez begins to look like a top pitcher, however a lack of depth in the pitching staff creates too many problems for them to be a real contender.

Oregon
The Democratic Legislature will allow Kulongoski to accomplish something, a nice change from his previous term. It looks like Kulongoski is preparing an aggressive agenda on health care and gay rights, hopefully a coalition can be built to pass some meaningful legislation in these areas among others. The State will enact a plan to build a bypass road arround Dundee, they will toll both the bypass and 99W. Consequently revolution will break out in Dundee requiring the Oregon National Guard to quell the chaos. Unfortunately the Oregon National Guard is in Iraq and unavailable.

Russia
Putin will confirm the trend that Russia is currently headed on by declaring himself Czar after inviting the entire Duma to a buffet of polonium laced food. Its ok though because Bush looked into his soul.

Presidential Candidates
Barack Obama will decide not to run for President, towards the end of the year the primary campaigns for 2008 will be kicked into full gear. The Democratic field will include Kucinich, Hillary, Edwards, Biden, Vilsac, and Richardson. The Republican field will include Newt, St McCain, Huckabee, Brownback, and Romney. I wont comment in this post on who either Party will nominate because that happens in 2008.