Grand Rapids Pundit

Oh boy

Posted by: GRPundit on Friday, 3rd Mar, 2006

We just got a preview of the Grand Rapids City Commission’s upcoming agenda. The resignation of Robert Dean from the commission created an opening which the commission needs to fill. Candidates were interviewed yesterday for the appointment.

The interesting thing is that Mayor Heartwell says that the second round of interviews for the three finalists will include more hard-hitting topics, such as:

He believes they will be asked about their stand on whether to ask voters for an increase in city property or income taxes.

He also expects they will be quizzed on whether they support a living wage ordinance that could raise minimum wages in the city.

Oh boy. In other words, the litmus test will likely be something along the lines of, “do you think city government should be bigger and more invasive?” The response of “yes” will work in the candidate’s favor.

If both those issues pass in the city, get ready for making a bad economic situation even worse.

Michigan Minimum Wage Zealots

Posted by: GRPundit on Wednesday, 29th Jun, 2005

As GR Pundit readers should already know, there is a campaign in Michigan to get a proposal on the ballot to increase the state’s minimum wage to $7.15 an hour. We’ve already pointed out how increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment, but we’ve come across an amusing fact about the folks who are pushing this ballot proposal.

An organization called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is one of the prime backers of the proposal. ACORN is essentially a bunch of ill-informed socialists who campaign for living-wage and increased minimum wage laws, in addition to a whole host of other collectivist campaigns such as universal health care, “affordable housing,” social[ist] security “protection,” etc.

However, the funny part is that when ACORN was confronted with having to pay a “living-wage” in California, they sued the state, seeking an exemption. In ACORN’s legal brief, they claim:

“The more that ACORN must pay each individual outreach worker—either because of minimum wage or overtime requirements—the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire.”

Well, that summs it up perfectly, doesn’t it? Need we say more?

Oh, by the way, unemployment rates increased in 14 of Michigan’s 17 major labor market areas in May. The Grand Rapids area’s unemployment rate went from 5.7% in April to 6.3% in May.