The GOP's confused inequality message

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"Don’t ever accuse the Republicans of having nothing to say about inequality. They have lots to say about it. Lots of different things.

Now that President Barack Obama has put inequality on the national agenda, the GOP is on the hunt for something to say. They’re making progress, with prominent Republicans adopting some of the latest ideas generated by conservative thinkers — everything from rewrites of antipoverty programs to new tax breaks for middle-class families.

And they’re challenging Obama’s seriousness in actually addressing the economic inequality he warned about. “We are facing an inequality crisis — one to which the president has paid lip service, but seems uninterested in truly confronting or correcting,” Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said in the tea party response to Obama’s State of the Union address.

But for all of the headline-grabbing speeches by their rising stars, the GOP still isn’t ready to finish this sentence: “And the Republican plan for inequality is …”

The Democrats have a script on inequality — the lengthy script that Obama read in his State of the Union stemwinder.

Republicans are more like the roomful of scriptwriters who are still writing things down and crossing them out, still debating each other about what the actual plot is going to be.

They’ve got some fully developed scenes, thanks to serious speeches by high-profile Republicans like Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Lee — but there are also some that really haven’t progressed beyond one-liners yet. (Why did Lee call Obamacare an “inequality Godzilla” in his State of the Union response? We’ll come back to that one.)

It’s another example of how the GOP can sometimes stumble around when it needs an answer to Obama’s policies.

For years, Republicans have been hard pressed to identify an alternative to Obamacare, and although some Republicans are starting to outline their own plans now, Obama can still score points with the “What’s your plan?” zinger. Now that Obama is talking inequality, Republicans are being put in the same box. "

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"And then there’s Obamacare — the law Lee called an “inequality Godzilla.” He didn’t explain that line in any great detail, but his communications director, Brian Phillips, said it captures all of the problems Lee sees in the inequality debate: It adds to the maze of government programs for the poor, increases health care costs for the middle class by creating plans with high deductibles, and benefits powerful insurance companies — especially with a provision that will give them extra payments if they attract too many sick people.

It doesn’t take any convincing to get Republicans to oppose Obamacare, of course, but Lee plans to have a more detailed anti-cronyism agenda in the spring that will include plans to fight corporate welfare and cut off energy subsidies — all part of an effort to signal to the rest of the party that it has to talk about the needs of middle-class and low-income Americans, not just fiscal policy and national security all the time.

“That’s not going to cut it anymore,” Phillips said. "

I can't get behind the whole inequality issue. The rich getting richer doesn't hurt me, directly or indirectly. They are neither to blame, nor somehow gaining at my expense. Rather, it is the crappy economy and the consumer-driven culture that hurts the rest of us, and runaway costs for things like medical care and education.

To the last, every young person I know that brays about "inequality" is:

1. Doing, financially MUCH better than I was at their age and
2. Expecting to profit from any inequality program that might be enacted.

They're also having a bit of shock over the idea that Obamacare isn't going to be free health care for them.

I can't help but think that beneath the entire inequality issue is a mentality that basically supports "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - the basic tenet of Communism. That's not what's supposed to make this country great. We're supposed to be of the opinion - bust your ass, get ahead. I fear we have emerging generations who don't have a good grasp of what our grandparents had to do to get where they are.

I have many relatives in northern Michigan who go back to the 1800's. They pulled out trees and built stump fences with their bare hands, and built houses with their own hands - houses AND fences which are still standing. They didn't hire a crew - I have the memoirs. They did it themselves. My parents lived through the Depression and did jobs for pennies so they could buy jam for their bread; my grandma was a Rosie the Riveter.

The kids I see at work expect to be in charge after a year. They don't work hard, and they often do shoddy work - and expect the rewards anyway.

I don't sympathize with them.

Obama is pushing monetary equality.

He seems to have decided that the way to achieve it is to take from those who have and give to those who do not have.

The thing he seems to have forgotten is how those who have, got what they have.

Work. A work ethic, mostly received from parents who taught them that work ethic.
Received from a country where everyone who wanted to get ahead got that chance.

Not from a country that gives away benefits to everyone just because they are breathing.

President Obama Doesn’t Know How to Create Jobs, a

President Obama Doesn’t Know How to Create Jobs, and a Minimum Wage Increase Won’t Help
Don't look to the White House for good ideas.



Raising the minimum wage will not help. President Obama’s proposed executive order increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 for federal contractors and his call to raise the federal minimum wage for all employees directly oppose his proclaimed emphasis on the importance of economic opportunity and his statement that “the best measure of opportunity is access to a good job.” Increasing the minimum wage is likely to decrease employment opportunities for Americans—especially low-skilled, undereducated youth. The majority of research concludes higher minimum wages have a negative effect on employment levels, and if the President and policymakers are truly interested in expanding employment opportunities, they should not raise the mandated wage floor at either the federal or state levels.

When the government mandates that an employee must be paid more than he or she produces, businesses are forced to respond by decreasing other production costs. Some employers will reduce pay raises to employees who earn more than the minimum wage while others will reduce employees’ hours, non-wage benefits or training. Still more will be spurred to make do with fewer employees and instead invest in labor-saving technologies.

States and municipalities are able to set their minimum wage rates higher than the federal wage floor of $7.25, so rates vary across jurisdictions. Although many economic factors influence unemployment rates, the five states with the lowest unemployment rates have minimum wage rates equal to the federal rate, while the five states with the highest unemployment rates have minimum wage rates above the federal level.