Gordon Smith: Making Oregon Less Competitive
By John Calhoun of Portland, Oregon. John is an active Democrat and the CFO of a biomedical company.
A proposal to raise the national minimum wage to $6.25 per hour from the current $5.15 was defeated 51-47 today. Gordon Smith voted with the majority of Republicans to defeat the proposal. No Democrats voted with Smith.
Since the minimum wage in Oregon is currently $7.25 per hour and headed higher, Senator Smith's action is a vote to make Oregon less competitive with the rest of the country and to foster a race to the bottom. His vote is in step with Bush's decision to suspend Davis-Bacon in the Katrina reconstruction.
In addition to all the evidence that raising the minimum wage is the best solution to reducing poverty and that the Republican rhetoric about lost jobs from minimum wages has been debunked, Smith is clearly not looking out for Oregon. This is another example where he cares more about Republican ideology than the welfare of Oregonians. There were several Republicans who did support the increase. Mr. "Moderate" Republican was not one of them.
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Oct. 19, 2005
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Oct 19, '05
SEC. 3. APPLICABILITY OF MINIMUM WAGE TO THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS.
(a) In General- Section 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206) shall apply to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
(b) Transition- Notwithstanding subsection (a), the minimum wage applicable to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands under section 6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206(a)(1)) shall be--
(1) $3.55 an hour, beginning on the 60th day after the date of enactment of this Act; and
(2) increased by $0.50 an hour (or such lesser amount as may be necessary to equal the minimum wage under section 6(a)(1) of such Act), beginning 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act and every 6 months thereafter until the minimum wage applicable to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands under this subsection is equal to the minimum wage set forth in such section.
Why only the commonwealth of the NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS with sub-standard wages? Why not the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or the possessions of US Virgin Isles or Guam?
The idea of raising the min. wage is great--but section 3 is classism at its worse. So bad on Sen. Smith voting no on this bill for not help out all the working US citizens—but maybe good for Sen. Smith voting no for not allowing a sub-standard wage to prevail in a US commonwealth and to keep going.
Oct 19, '05
One more reason to vote him out in '08. He's giving Oregonians plenty campaign fodder.
Oct 19, '05
So is this a tacit admission that having a high minimum wage hurts Oregon's competitiveness?
When did this moment of clarity occur?
Gonna have to stick your heads back in the sand if you still wanna call yourselves "progressives".
Oct 20, '05
"So is this a tacit admission that having a high minimum wage hurts Oregon's competitiveness?
When did this moment of clarity occur?
Gonna have to stick your heads back in the sand if you still wanna call yourselves "progressives"."
Oh, boy! That undercut hurt bad.
Raising the minimum wage is good for all. PERIOD. It helps to raise those in poverty higher up and gives them more money to spend on other things. Pretty basic economics. If you want to pay people substandard wages, go work for Walmart.
The progressive movement is here to stay. Conservatives have nothing better to do than attack our values. I guess that it is easier to do that then defend a failed party with so many of its Republican leaders under investigation. Look for Delay's "mugshot" to come up during his reelection campaign. I intend to have it framed... no pun intended.
Oct 20, '05
Senator Smith voted in favor of a ban on same-sex marriage to be put into the US Constitution, then after I wrote him about it he said that he was "FOR gay rights". Interesting... but you can't have it both ways. He knew that the amendment would never pass, but voted in favor of it just to please his FAR RIGHT constituants.
Smith is a pantsy of the special interests. He is a flip-flopper and I suspect will face a hard fight in '08.
Oct 20, '05
This is a very dangerous argument!
Oregon having a higher (and indexed) minimum wage than other states does not make us less competitive. A higher minimum wages help and make Oregon's economy stronger. When we start talking like this we are only fanning the flames of those who point don't think Oregon's working poor should have a chance to keep up with soaring gas prices and housing costs (indexing).
I am not saying Gordo did the right thing but your argument is not one most progressives can agree with.
Oct 20, '05
Raising the minimum is good for all. PERIOD.
and
A higher minimum wages help and make Oregon's economy stronger.
There that's more like it. Now that we've established that, why don't we do something really "good for all" and "make Oregon's economy stronger" by raising the minimum wage to $50 per hour?
What can you buy with $7.50?
11:11 a.m.
Oct 20, '05
Orygun Phil and Pancho,
The minimum wage issue is always a question of where on the price-demand curve for labor we are and what are the alternatives. Clearly an absurdly high minimum wage would stop all economic activity. On the other hand a minimum wage carefully set prevents workers from exploitation. If the competition has to pay the same wage, businesses don't suffer. The classic case is a local gas station. One station is competing with others and if they all have to pay the same wage no one is able to get ahead by paying less.
On the other hand if you happen to be on the border of a state with a lower minimum wage, the businesses in the neighboring state will have advantages. That is the case between Oregon and Idaho. Both Washington and California have minimum wages not much different from Oregon so there is not a problem there. The Oregonian had an great article about the Oregon-Idaho border around Ontario and how people wanted to live in Oregon, but many service businesses were across the border in Idaho because of this differential. If Senator Smith had voted to raise the national wage, some of this differential would have disappeared. Frankly this is not a Portland issue. Once again in the name of ideology, Smith has hurt the Eastern Oregonians he claims to represent.
Oct 20, '05
"What can you buy with $7.50?"
Considering that I am one of the many people that fell below poverty level during the Bush II Administration I have learned that you can buy quite a bit with 7.50. And, you can do it without shopping at your favorite store, Walmart!
Is it enough, no... but better than what you and other conservatives might prefer... .10 cents an hour. That can't even make a phone call.
Oct 20, '05
Not to change the subject too much, but this is hard to resist:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1020051delay1.html
Delay looks sooo happy in his mug shot.
Oct 20, '05
I think Neal Boortz says it best:
"In the debate over the minimum wage, we will hear people time and time again say that it is impossible to raise a family on the minimum wage. Well ... duhhhhh! Of course you can't raise a family on the minimum wage! This is a wage that is usually paid to teenagers who are bringing the bare minimum of job skills to their very first job. Beyond that .... losers. Oh yeah, it's insensitive ... and you might even find it offensive. That would be your problem. Face facts. The minimum wage is for losers. Baring some physical or mental disaster ... anyone living in this country who has not managed to acquire enough education and job skills to earn more than the minimum wage is a complete failure ... a loser. These are not the kinds of people who should be having children. Not only can't you raise a family on minimum wage, you shouldn't even be trying to. If our child welfare agencies were really doing their job they would be classifying every child in a household where their parent or guardian can't earn more than the minimum wage as endangered ... and promptly remove them. "
Classic.
5:27 p.m.
Oct 20, '05
no republican can act independent of the party powers and survive. this is why jeffords bailed ship on the bastards. those who'd like to be more moderate are continually having to sell their souls, although i doubt a lot of them lose sleep over it. i am sure that smith votes against his own beliefs, and certainly against the needs of oregon, simply so he's not punished by his party's leaders in congress -- the party of delay and rove, remember (and even if they are going to prison, there are others who think they've learned the lesson of a scorched-earth, no-prisoners policy).
the easy solution, of course: get rid of smith. with a strong Dem candidate for president in '08 (Clark in a mano a mano with McCain), i think an increasingly blue Oregon can replace him with one of a number of excellent candidates.
Oct 20, '05
John Calhoun's contension is neither self-contradictory nor critical of the value of minimum wage standards. The advantages of a floor under wage rates are many and well documented. One problem is the competitive disadvantage for businesses using large numbers of low wage workers with respect to businesses in other juristictions with lower wages. This is not a problem for Oregon restaurants, which do not compete with restaurants in other states [except in Vancouver, WA, which also has a relatively high minimum wage], or landscape contractors, but it can be a problem for farms that compete with out of state producers as well as for low wage manufacturers.
As in international trade, the answer to this problem is not lowering our standards, but including wage [and environmental] standards in transjuristictional regulations - federal minimum wage laws in this case and trade agreements in the international arena.
Oct 20, '05
I'm sure Neal Bortz would agree with E. Scrooge's opinion of folks who would not avail themselves of the local poorhouse:
``If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Along with poor people, maybe the obese and homely should also forgo reproduction, do you think, chris McMullen?
7:48 p.m.
Oct 20, '05
If raising the minimum wage does not cost jobs then Sen. Smith's vote should have no effect. No?
Or does it cost jobs if other states in the union decide they are going to be more competitive than Oregon?
Or... Could the angry mob that insists on telling employers how to run their business have actually made Oregon less competitive?
Truly you have a dizzing intellect.
Oct 21, '05
"This is a wage that is usually paid to teenagers who are bringing the bare minimum of job skills to their very first job. Beyond that .... losers."
I find this incredibly insulting and ignorant. Only someone blinded by wealth, previledge and a total ditto-head would even suggest such a thing.
There are people with doctorate degrees working for at or near minimum wage! They lost their jobs due to outsources and Bush economic "compassion". There are those of us that have a Bachelor's Degree and are graduate students that can only get work if we "volunteer". There is a great disparaty between the isolated "haves" and those real Americans that are fighting every day to put food on the table.
I think that a certain degree of mental illness accomanies conservatives that do not possess empathy to understand others. I don't believe that it is genetic, but rather learned.
Oct 22, '05
The malady that 'dmrusso' describes is moral turpitude, not mental illness per se. It comes from ascriing to the values of the corporate plutocracy: the only relevant line of reasoning is the bottom line. If one makes enough money at it, mostly any transgression can be forgiven.
Speaking of transgressions, was Delay really wearing an "RNC" lapel pin in the pic you posted?
Nov 18, '05