While I am disappointed that The Columbian did not endorse my campaign this year, I am at peace with the reasons why. The Columbian thinks that the way forward involves lower wages for working people. I disagree. Preserving and strengthening the middle class is a very basic principle. Given a choice between whatever political advantage I might have gained by going along with The Columbian’s view that working people are paid too much, or fighting to restore economic prosperity for all Americans, there was no contest in my mind. We have to do whatever we can to protect American family wage jobs.
On Principle
While I am disappointed that The Columbian did not endorse my campaign this year, I am at peace with the reasons why. The Columbian thinks that the way forward involves lower wages for working people. I disagree. Preserving and strengthening the middle class is a very basic principle. Given a choice between whatever political advantage I might have gained by going along with The Columbian’s view that working people are paid too much, or fighting to restore economic prosperity for all Americans, there was no contest in my mind. We have to do whatever we can to protect American family wage jobs.
For thirty years we have tried again and again a radical experiment: if we cut people’s pay, we will end up more prosperous. The terrible result of this policy is all around us today. Lowering people’s pay makes us all poorer.
Now The Columbian believes that this radical doctrine of lower pay, which has ravaged the private-sector should be tried on the public sector. Maybe they feel policemen and other vital public services will be more exciting if they are preformed by people holding down two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Again I disagree.
The way forward consists of rebuilding our economy by paying people properly, and by investing our resources in long-term projects such as building a new I-5 bridge. Our future depends on reinvigorating small businesses.
Cutting people’s pay simply drains demand for the products and services our small, and for the matter, larger enterprises sell. The Columbian, unfortunately, has adopted a self-defeating strategy that I cannot and will not back.
I know that a lot people become cynical about politics because people see political leaders selling out any principle to gain support from powerful forces. I will not back down from my long-term position of making sure that working people are paid a living wage, whether they work for a private employer, or if they work for us.
I appreciate the strong support I have received from the community since The Columbian decided to decline to back our campaign. It really is all about us!!
Rep. Jim Moeller
Business Publication Agrees: The Problem is Wages!!
In an earlier posting, I proposed that the underlying problem in our economy is wage stagnation. The economy has grown over the past forty years, but wages have remained flat. Over this period the middle class financed their lives by borrowing more and working more, which leaves us where we are today with the paradox of high unemployment sitting next to families who need multiple jobs under one roof and yet cannot pay to keep the roof!
This morning, The Moltley Fool, a (despite the silly name) long trusted source for investors chimed in on the unemployment crises.
Here’s a little of what they reported:
The bottom line isn’t that a skills mismatch — though it may exist — is responsible for our unemployment woes; rather, many companies’ earnings are divorced from the strength of our economy… on the whole, persistent unemployment is terrible for workers and sales. Last time, our economy was ultimately bailed out by a massive economic stimulus in the form of World War II — not tax cuts, deregulation, small-business lending, or jobs training. If we continue to blame unemployment on the wrong culprits, we could see the economy muddling along for some time.
And here’s what they reported as the change in pre-tax earning in the industries as listed:
| Sector | Median 3-Year Pre-Tax Earnings Change |
|---|---|
| Health care | 35% |
| IT | 23% |
| Telco | 22% |
| Utilities | 18% |
| Consumer Staples | 17% |
| Materials | 10% |
| Consumer Discount | 6% |
| Industrials | (1%) |
| Energy | (15%) |
| Financials | (27%) |
Well folks, how did you do in the past three years? Anyone here see a 25% increase in take home pay? Gee, I I don’t see too many hands up. How about no pay increase? Wow, that’s a lot of people. And how many lost pay in in the last three years?
That’s the problem. We have a basic dysfunction in the economy and very very few people are even willing to talk about it. Still others are spending time thinking up ways to make it worse!
As your State Representative, I will do whatever I can to make this right. It will take all of us working together inside the private sector, inside the public sector, in the making of laws, and in all of our public spaces to re-think how we are doing business. We simply cannot run a functioning economy that literally produces more than the people who produce the goods and services can afford to buy.
