Archive → May, 2007
Time for a meaningless Federal minimum wage hike
It doesn’t take anything as fancy as a grandfather clock to know what time it is in Washington, DC this week. The Democrats finally caved to the inevitable this week, passing a relatively clean war funding bill that contains no timetables, no deadlines and no benchmarks.
Common sense and military logic finally prevailed, as well as plummeting approval ratings for the Pelosi-led Congress and Reid-led Senate. Unable to offer any sort of War On Terror victory to their MoveOn.org puppet masters, Democrats fled to less controversial territory by attaching a significant minimum wage increase to the war funding bill, so that at least they had something to brag about.
While attaching unrelated riders to bills in this manner is always a disgusting practice, it could have been a lot worse: it could have been a timetable for leaving Iraq.
The federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour will be boosted to $7.25 per hour if Bush signs the bill into law, which he is expected to do. While pure conservatives might balk, it’s time to face facts: it doesn’t matter what the federal minimum wage is.
The federal minimum wage is almost irrelevant anyway. $5.15 per hour is a pittance and hasn’t been updated for over a decade, mostly because virtually no employer can pay that little and get any kind of qualified employee to fill a job anyway. Even at $7.25, most employers have to pay more than that these days to fill jobs, so who cares if it’s $5.15 or $7.25? It’s not like any employers … even fast food chains … pay that low anymore anyway.
Heck, most states have a higher state minimum wage than $7.25 an hour, so the federal change means nothing throughout most of the country. And if it’s enough of a victory to get the Democrats to pass a clean war funding bill with no timetables, deadlines or benchmarks, well… fine. It’s a pretty meaningless victory for them, and a big win for Bush, who proves that he’s no lame duck … not yet, anyway.
Is Edwards enough of a grown-up to be president?
Dismissing everything from September 11 to present – the entire War of Terror – as a “bumper sticker, not a plan,” Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has displayed a shocking lack of maturity, and possibly a need for pet supplies rather than campaign contributions.
It opens up the question of whether Edwards, despite his age, is enough of a grown-up to be president of the United States. It’s fine to be opposed to the war, to suggest there’s a different way to conduct it, even a preference for ending it before the war is won. Folks can debate the merits of such proposals and base their voting decisions of it.
But to deny six years of actual history as a campaign slogan is to display such a shocking lack of maturity and temperament as to make one wonder if Edwards has the gravitas to serve. Certainly, the comment drew a response from the current president, George W. Bush. On Thursday at the White House, in a news conference, Bush took a swipe at Edwards, indirectly, when he said, “This notion that this isn’t a war on terror is, in my view, naive.”
Naive, immature and dangerous, in the Wonderful Pessimist’s assessment. Of course, Edwards’ entire party is burying their heads in the sand of late, wanting to wipe out the very term “War On Terror” from official government use.
Sure… the war is like a bad dream. If you ignore it, it’ll go away. Just keep believing that through the 2008 elections, Dems. You’ll be doing the GOP a big electoral favor. Thanks!
MN edges closer to public school insurance monopolistic deal
Local hometown insurance agents better hold tight or prepare to see their businesses either damaged to eliminated entirely, if Minnesota DFLers get their way. That’s because a bill that proposes eliminating most competitive agents from the loop of bidding for school district health insurance has taken another step forward, winning approval today in the Minnesota House.
While hometown insurance agencies in outstate Minnesota have historically had to submit to a bidding process to win the health insurance and other insurance business of their local school district, the bill being considered would cut local bidding out of the process entirely, awarding only a handful of six “superagents” the vast bulk – if not all – of the Minnesota public school district insurance contracts in the state.
While family policies and private business group policies will still be up for grabs, this power-grab by state officials to eliminate true competition in the school insurance industry. While the surviving policies will be marginally more affordable, what is certain to suffer are areas like personalized customer service, the “hometown touch,” and the ability of local agents to customize policies to local district needs.
While most people believe the insurance business is a red-carpet-lined path to easy street, the agents who do well only do so after surviving several years – sometimes a decade or more – that it takes to build up a new practice and gain a reputation for dependability and customer service. It’s not a get-rich-quick industry with every agent owning Tuscany Villas that they visit six times a year.
In place of local agents and options will be a sparse plate of six benefits package options that most education professionals will be restricted to. And in the final analysis, the loss of all those education contracts could be enough of a hit to put a significant number of independent insurance agents and other small, local insurance offices, out of business for good.
Bloomberg a dangerous wildcard
Current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is a dangerous wild card in the upcoming 2008 presidential election. He is especially dangerous toward the hopes of GOP candidates for office, a danger made more real by a recent online report suggesting Bloomberg is willing to spend up to one billion of his $5.5B personal fortune in a third-party bid for the presidency.
The popular media take is that Bloomberg is a change of pace from far-left Democrats and far-right Republicans, because he is socially liberal, fiscally conservative and from the East Coast. Yet that holds no water as a viable difference from at least two, and possibly three, current top presidential contenders.
First of all, Bloomberg is a virtual carbon-copy of top GOP presidential contender Rudolph Giuliani, who has the benefit of running as a major party candidate. Their views are nearly identical and Giuliani has the benefit of receiving a lion’s share of the credit for post-9/11 leadership in New York City. It Giuliani secures the GOP nod, there would be no appreciable difference between the two that would make a Bloomberg run make any kind of sense, other than to split the vote and allow a Democratic presidential victory.
Second is GOP candidate Mitt Romney, currently battling with Arizona Senator John McCain for second place versus Giuliani for the Republican endorsement. Just like Bloomberg and Giuliani, Romney is of the exact same socially liberal, fiscally conservative, East Coast liberal type represented by Giuliani and Bloomberg. Again, a Romney candidacy would provide no contrast for Bloomberg to run against, other than to split the anti-Hillary/anti-Obama vote and ensure a Democratic win. And it should be noted that McCain, while not an East Coast candidate, fits in lock step positionally with Giuliani, Romney and Bloomberg.
In fact, the GOP field is so packed with East Coast social liberal/fiscal conservative candidates, one has to wonder if there’s any hope for the conservative movement in 2008.
But I mentioned a third candidate who – arguably – fits the same mold. I’m speaking, of course, about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Despite being slightly more liberal than Giuliani, Romney and Bloomberg, some votes actually have Sen. Rodham as more conservative than McCain on select issues. Sen. Rodham-Clinton is basically Mayor Bloomberg on Phentermine.
What I think motivated Bloomberg more than any real, substantive “difference” from candidates like Giuliani, Romnet, Bloomberg and Rodham-Clinton is something far more provincial: a good ol’ New York pissing contest. For the last several election cycles, East Coast candidates – and specifically New Yorkers – have been nonfactors in presidential politics, much to the chagrin of the New York-centric liberal news media. New York has taken a back seat to the deep South as the most influential voting block, and New Yorkers are eager to get back into the game of presidential politics.
Think about it.
Bush II/Cheney: Texas and Wyoming
Clinton/Gore: Arkansas and Tennessee
Bush/Quayle: Texas/Maine and Indiana
Reagan/Bush: California and Texas/Maine
Carter/Mondale: Georgia and Minnesota
Ford/Rockefeller: Michigan and New York.
So, you have to go all the way back to 1974-1977, a brief stint as Ford’s vice president, to find the last time a New Yorker was in the White House. That’s at least a 30 year absence and it’s clear that one of the largest states in the nation is eager to be “back in the game.”
By the way, Rockefeller was, in his day, the leader of the liberal wing of the GOP, so even he fit with the ever-more-bloated socially liberal/fiscally conservative mold that is so well represented in this election cycle by Bloomberg, McCain, Giuliani, Romney and – arguably – Rodham-Clinton.
To be blunt, Bloomberg’s “change of pace” proposed candidacy is no “change of pace” at all – it simply litters the field with another sound-alike candidate designed to blot out any legitimate conservatives from getting a foothold in the 2008 election cycle.
The only real hopes for a legitimate change in rhetoric in this election cycle are Fred Thomspon, Newt Gingrich, or – arguably – a dark horse emergence from someone like Mike Huckabee. Bloomberg doesn’t represent change in any fashion; but a potential third-party run could doom the country to a Democratic presidential victory.
Is it his cologne?
Just about every GOP presidential aspirant is running in two opposite directions at the same time: they all want to claim the Ronald Reagan mantle, and they all want to distance themselves from George W. Bush.
Whether it’s Guiliani, Romney, McCain or one of the Seven Dwarfs, it seems like President Bush is as popular as a New York ticket broker 20 minutes after a football game is over; no one wants to be around him.
That’s not Reagan-esque.
One thing Reagan knew well is, you stick by your friends and fellow party members through thick and thin. But simply because a handful of MoveOn.org Democrats have stirred up Bush’s negatives, all these wannabe mini-me Reaganites are leaping to play “Dogpile on W.”
Well, remember, you GOP candidates: one of you just may win the office and when you do, is this the kind of “loyalty” you’d want from your own supposed allies?
Truth is, Bush may not be as good of a social conservative as Reagan, but in terms of foreign policy, he resembles Reagan’s “No BS” approach far more than any of these “American Political Idol” wannabes.
Bush has understood the nature of the terror war far better than just about anyone else. This country needs its next president to be as fearless. And it needs its next president to be as pro-Israel as Bush.
If we fall short of that, our country may see a much bleaker future in 2009 and beyond.
Fewer people divorcing!
According to a Breitbart.com article, fewer people are getting divorced these days, and far from the media drive to declare marriage dead by talking about a divorce rate over 50 percent, a recent study proves the divorce rate is actually going down, not up.
Are husbands suddenly becoming more loving and faithful, buying their spouses a set of Studio RTA furniture? Are wives suddenly appreciating their husbands more and browbeating them less?
Who knows?
But according to the study, the divorce rate peaked in 1981 with a rate of 5.3 per 1,000 people. It’s now down to 3.6 per 1,000, the lowest the divorce rate has been since 1970, almost four decades ago.
Now, the “nattering nabobs of negativism” will point out that there are more people living together without the benefit of marriage, so the lower divorce rate could be due to fewer people getting married in the first place.
There may be a point there, but I prefer to look at it this way: maybe, at last, there are fewer people rushing into marriages and more people waiting until they know they’ve found someone worth marrying.
One can always hope.
