Gov. Paul LePage has always bragged that he is not a politician, that he is a businessman. One of his political peeves mentioned in the story (July 28) concerning his recent forum in Paris was the minimum wage referendum.
He claimed that the increase to $12 per hour by 2020 would put Marden’s and other commercial enterprises out of business.
Hogwash.
When businesses experience increases in their operating budget, they raise their prices incrementally. A penny added here, a nickle there and they maintain their profit margin quite nicely. What shopper really cares if the price of dish detergent or shoe laces goes up a nickle? Prices go up every year and businesses thrive.
Businessman LePage knows this. Politician LePage doesn’t want to confuse the issues that are his bread and butter with plain facts. After all, so many voters appear to believe whatever he says because he is so brash and argumentative.
Corporations do not need to go to state legislatures or deal with referendum ballots to increase prices; they just do it. It’s people who go through the process of changing wage laws with all the inherent discussions, expert testimony from both sides, arguments and predictions of financial doom, just to get a little more jingle in their pockets.
Being business-friendly seems to me to be people-unfriendly. Rent, gas, food and clothing, cable and internet cost more each year while people’s paycheck remains static.
Gov. LePage wants people to believe that is good for the folks in Maine.
Yep.
Andrew Tasker, Lewiston
Send questions/comments to the editors.
