Below The Beltway

You would think that with the Virginia General Assembly firmly in Republican hands, we would not see the same kind of economic stupidity eminating from Richmond that we have recently seen from Annapolis, Maryland. You might think that, but you would be wrong. Today’s Washington Post reports that the Republican controlled legislature will consider, and very well may pass, a bill to raise the minimum wage.

RICHMOND — The Virginia General Assembly, long unfriendly to proposals on raising the minimum wage, will consider bills sponsored by Northern Virginia legislators who say the state should no longer tie its rate to that set by the federal government.

While business groups strongly oppose the legislation, backers of the wage increase say that after years of waiting for Congress to raise the $5.15-an-hour rate, it is time to press ahead at the state level for the sake of low-income workers.

And just who is proposing this ?

One difference in Virginia this year is that a bill to increase the wage is being sponsored by Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr. (R-Fairfax), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Callahan and Sen. Charles J. Colgan (D-Prince William) have proposed bills that would raise the minimum wage in Virginia from $5.15 to $6.15 on July 1. If the bills pass, wages would rise again by $1 in 2007 and then again by $1 the next year. After that, the proposals would peg increases to the rising cost of goods and services, rather than the federally mandated minimum wage, as has always been the case in Virginia.

Not only does this bill raise the minimum wage once, it guarantees permanent increases based not at all on anything approaching an analysis of the market for employment, virtually ensuring higher prices, increased wage pressure for employers already paying more than the minimum wage and, fewer jobs created.

“It bothers me that a state that is as affluent as Virginia is still paying people Third World wages,” Callahan said. “You can’t support a family on that.”

Colgan called the current wage “not livable — below the poverty line.”

With all due respect Delegate Callahan, this is bull. Third-world wages means pennies a day. Show me one person in the Commonwealth of Virginia, outside of migrant farm labor perhaps, where someone is being payed anything even close to that. I would suspect that you can’t.

One can only hope that Del. Callahan’s fellow Republicans are not infected with the same degree of economic irrationality.

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