A friend of mine from Michigan, who I can't name because of the organizational post s/he holds, writes:
It’s been delicious – and a bit hilarious -- to watch Michigan Republicans spin in ever-contradictory circles as they attempt to justify their vote this week in favor of raising the state minimum wage by 44%, to $7.40 an hour by 2008.
They didn’t want to do it, of course -- “Jobs will be lost because of the vote we took today,” said GOP House Speaker Craig DeRoche. But their hand was forced by a labor-backed ballot proposal, crafted with an eye toward boosting Dem-friendly turnout in November, which would have raised the minimum wage to $6.85 an hour and indexed it to inflation.
The ballot measure was obviously going to win big, as similar measures have in Florida and Nevada. So the GOP –which controls both the Michigan House and Senate in this purple-tinged state – decided they would rather switch than fight.
The tactical turnaround provoked some serious hyperventilation by Detroit News columnist Daniel Howes, who tried to blame the whole thing on Dem Guv Jennifer Granholm. She has the unenviable task of running for re-election at time when the state’s manufacturing base is in a state of collapse, and Howes wondered aloud if Granholm is “insane” for backing a pay hike at a time when the state is losing jobs.
Isn’t it a shame when right-wingers let their irrational hatred of their opponents get in the way of reasoned political debate?
What’s really nuts, of course, is the industry argument that low-wage workers are harmed when they get paid more, because then employers will want to hire less of them. In case you come against this claptrap, the Economic Policy Institute usefully deconstructs the debate here.
Now that we’ve won, what’s next? There’s some sentiment for pushing ahead with the ballot proposal, since a minimum wage indexed to inflation is a mighty nice thing to have. Personally, I think a debate about the *law* raising the minimum wage vs. a slightly different *ballot proposal* will be confusing.
So we’re better off declaring victory and starting a new ballot initiative -- for universal health care. Maybe we can get the GOP and the Guv to be in favor of that, too!"
Thanks, Michigan! Keep on writing...
You say "EPI deconstructs the debate here" -- was there supposed to be a link there?
Posted by: GeoffK | March 20, 2006 at 11:42 AM