Page 25 - Flathead Beacon // 2.25.15

FLATHEADBEACON.COM OPINION CLOSING RANGE Dave Skinner
Fifty Bucks
ROCK YOURMOP
OF MANY BILLS COURSING through our state legislature, some are pretty silly, like Rep. David Moore’s (R-Missoula) now-dead bill to ban yoga pants. Even if it had passed, I suspect it would have been blown out of the water on First Amend- ment grounds – one good look is worth a thousand words, ya know.
Then there was Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy’s (D-Box Elder) proposal to raise Montana’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. That bill is now tabled, after a hearing in which Sheena Rice from the left-wing Montana Organizing Project cited a “study” claiming a single person in Montana needs $14.10 per hour.
As of 2013, Montana’s mean hourly wage for all jobs was $18.79 an hour, with about 2.9 percent of Montanans earning minimum wage. Montana’s minimum wage is already indexed to inflation thanks to a ballot initiative passed in 2006. It’s now at $8.05, somewhat above the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Well, I was snarking about Windy Boy’s bill with my pal Evil Logger, and Evil sarcastically grumped: “Let’s just raise the minimum wage to fifty bucks an hour! That’ll fix everything!”
Hmmm. Over in Pugetopia, Wash- ington, the city of Sea-Tac (the airport) raised minimum wage to $15. But air- ports are a special case, enjoying a cap- tive market of starving, parched layover zombies stripped of sustenance by secu- rity regulations: Monopoly!
In the real world, however, a pesky concept called “basic economics” comes into play. In the private sector, at least, employers can only pay what you pro- duce. If your production doesn’t cover the cost of hiring you, you’re unem- ployed. Furthermore, employers can’t print money to pay their greedy credi- tors and suppliers. To pay you more, they’d have to raise their prices – unless of course you work harder (or smarter) to earn your higher minimum wage.
As for folks now making better than minimum, how long until they notice their “big bucks” got smaller? Let’s be “fair” and give them a raise, too!
Obviously, a minimum wage serves a social role in keeping bad employ-
ers from shafting employees. But if you raise the bottom rung of the ladder, ev- eryone on the ladder claws up another rung, leaving those on the bottom rung, still on the bottom.
Let’s face it – too many Americans lack the skills and knowledge (like ba- sic economics) to make a decent life. Worse, too many kids escape school with the same darn problem. If it were up to me, I’d rather general education demand more from students, to prepare them fully for what is a tough, mean, competi- tive world.
Instead, President Barack Obama wants to make the first two years of “community college” free. But Uncle Sam is already backing around $1 tril- lion in student loans to 37 million bor- rowers, with 14 percent being at least past due if not in default. That risky debt is a clear signal that the ability of “col- lege” to improve long-term earnings is already oversold. If college was a sure ticket to a better life (and picking a use- ful major DOES matter, kids), the level of default would not be so ridiculously high – and threatening.
Obama’s “solution” (Pay As You Earn, 10 percent of your income for 20 years, with the remainder written off) has already brought a $21.8 billion loss to taxpayers (so far), a budget hit bigger than NASA, EPA and the Department of Interior combined, according to Politico. Now – to avoid making loans that won’t pay off on either end, let’s send everyone to community college for free? Brilliant!
First, whenever something becomes “free,” users use too much. You will find lots of seat-warmers competing for too- few seats against those who might actu- ally benefit from further education.
Second, college ain’t free. Heat, lights, books, professors ... while FVCC instructors may work cheap, they aren’t going to teach for free.
Third, and most important, if “ev- erybody” gets a “community college” degree, then of course, what’s the real value when “everybody” will need to go to a four-year institution to get a leg up on the competition?
Yeah, that makes about as much sense as fifty bucks minimum wage.
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Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on op- posite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
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