Despite being a journalist means being largely in the working class, and decreasing work over roughly the past decade and a half. The writers of the Washington Post tend to view themselves as above that working class. A caseinate point would be the opinion piece I read recently about Washington D.C.'s Initiative 77 titled; 'Congress shouldn't stop Initiative 77. But maybe D.C. should.'
Initiative 77 if passed, would mean waiters and other "tip" related workers would start making $15 a hour. Even though Initiative 77 was a local issue, two house Republicans, Mark Meadows and Gary Palmer went ahead to try and get passed legislation that would override the initiative. The other of the op-ed says the two shouldn't do that for two reasons. One, is to "respect home rule" which you think would be a given since the two are conservative, but politicians are full of shit-nothing new. The second reason the author argues they should stand aside, is that "local officials appear ready, willing and able to stop Initiative 77 from taking effect without intervention from Capitol Hill." In other words, Meadows and Palmer shouldn't interfere with the Democratic process, because local officials are already willing to do so, which makes it more democratic?
Although the initiative passed, the author wants the reader to know that the voter turnout for it wasn't good, so it shouldn't count; "the measure passed with 47,230 votes out of nearly 85,000 cast in the primary; there are nearly 480,000 registered voters in the city. That's hardly a mandate." By that logic, anything that Trump has done, and will do, should be stopped. After all, around 117 million eligible voters did not even vote, and Trump didn't even win the popular vote. Trump is bad for America, he should be ousted based on that alone.
After starting off with the aristocratic angel, the op-ed author moves to the point of view of the workers who would be impacted by the Initiative. "Many workers protest that they'd take a pay cut under Initiative 77, either because owners would substitute a mandatory service charge." But as The Intercept pointed out, in states and cities that have enacted the $15 minimum wage, it hasn't been the minimum wage increase that has been the problem. Places like the Bay Area and Seattle, the problem for business is that the cost of living in these places is too high for people to afford who make $15 an hour. The author mentions the fear of mandatory tip charges, but in San Francisco customers tip rate is 19 percent, and in Washington D.C. it is 14 percent. If anything, evidence shows that the D.C. tip workers could use the extra salary from employers.
Furthermore, The Intercept actually did a little more research than this op-ed author did. A group that was against Initiative 77 was “Save Our Tips – No on 77." They claim to be anti-Trump people too, but quick look into the group, and the story is different. Lincoln Strategy Group partly managed "Save our Tips," and donated $600,000 backing Trump. The Intercept writes, "Lincoln Strategy Group is a firm co-founded and currently managed by Nathan Sproul, a GOP consultant and former executive director of the Arizona Christian Coalition." On top of that, Sproul has a history of scandals. For example, in 2004, Sproul's Strategic Allied Consulting was accused of destroying registration forms for Democratic voters.
Staying on the worker plight view, the author writes "many workers will see reduced hours or lose jobs; certain restaurants won't get started at all, if they can be launched in Maryland or Virginia, which won't have a rule like Initiative 77." First of all, Maryland is a blue state, so a $15 minimum wage could be going their fairly soon. Second, having a restaurant in D.C. would sure to provide perks that Virginia and Maryland could provide to a certain point. And third, waitresses are twice as likely to be on food stamps than their counterparts, they're workers who are in a world of instability, people know this, which is why people would still tip workers who make $15 an hour.
The excuse that state rights advocates use, is that states can be the testing ground for policies. The $15 minimum wage isn't failing because employers have to pay that, or that customers don't tip. The places that have done the minimum wage increase are places that a waiter couldn't afford to live. In fact, there's not a lot of places where making less than $15 an hour would be a livable amount of income without food stamps, or other government assistance. If more cities and states pass the mandatory $15 an hour, we could get a better grasp of it's actual impacts on local economies.
If Kansas can pass tax policies that left the rich richer, and a state budget down fall of $1 billion. If Louisiana can do the same tax policies where Bobby Jindal himself said didn't work, saying "the truth is, we have a system of corporate welfare." Under Jindal's tenure as governor of Louisiana, he oversaw his state have a deficit not seen in three decades, and air so bad they have a part of Louisiana called "cancer alley."
If the right can make policies that help the rich, why can't the left make policies that try and help the working poor?
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