Something Washington Needs to Realize

Politicians just don’t get it. I could be talking about any number of things, (rants for other times) but I’m talking specifically about their insistence on pushing forward without regard to consequences.

Take the Stimulus Plan: Several HUNDRED pages of spending, and I’m not sure if anyone in Congress actually read the whole thing! I hope I’m not alone in thinking that actually READING legislation is most of what legislating is about. I’m not saying that, as a whole, the Stimulus Plan was a bad one, but the fact remains that voting on something you haven’t read is just a bad idea. This country and its lawmaking process are not so simple.

And that’s my main point; our country is much more dificult to run than I think most politicians understand. Some do, to be sure, but they’re in the minority. Another example: we just raised minimum wage by (I believe) seventy cents. For a full-tme employee that’s another twenty-eight dollars a week. About the price of your average tank of gas. Great, right? I mean, we’re in a recession, so people need more money! I’m sure this is what Congress was thinking when they passed this…

But they’re dead wrong! People don’t have money because they either don’t have jobs or their hours have been cut. These have happened because businesses can no longer afford to pay them what they used to. Now we’re making businesses pay them more? Not such a good idea now, eh? I would get a raise out of this, but I won’t work as much. Businesses, especially chains that pay minimum wage to a majority of their employees, will work people who don’t get this required raise more because it’s easier for them to calculate labor cost that way. They will still, most likely, cut everyone’s hours, so the raise will end up being more of a wash.

I anticipate very few people actually making more money because of this, and I also expect businesses to hire less. That is not a winning combination. Did anyone in Congress think this through or ask these questions? Sure doesn’t seem like it.
-jw