Better late than never, nearly two weeks after the ads started rolling out, the Seattle Times gets around to fact-checking the Gregoire campaign's assertion that Dino Rossi hates people earning the minimum wage:
Would Republican Dino Rossi really lower the state's minimum wage by $1.50 an hour if elected governor?That's the claim in an aggressive spate of ads from Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire's campaign, which selectively quote Rossi from a debate last month to suggest he'd pursue an across-the-board cut in the state minimum wage.
But the ads distort Rossi's comments. He was answering a question about a "stair-step training wage" for some new workers and insists he was talking only about teenagers. In his final debate with Gregoire this month, Rossi explicitly pledged not to lower the minimum wage for "any adult."
"The ads are untrue and the governor knows it," said Rossi spokeswoman Jill Strait.
Nevertheless, the ads have continued, featuring a cast of adult minimum-wage workers, including an 80-year-old man, to argue "we can't trust Dino Rossi."
Amusingly, the attack is so incorrect that Gregoire's press secretary, Aaron Toso (normally pretty able at such things), is reduced to saying:
"To me it's semantics. If you support any wage that's a dollar-fifty less than the minimum wage, you support lowering the minimum wage," said Gregoire spokesman Aaron Toso.
That of course does nothing to address the fact Gregoire's ads say Rossi will cut the minimum wage for adults, when Rossi has said that's not his position.
Moreover, the Times finally touches on an aspect of the discussion that has been left unremarked upon in a number of issue discussions in the gubernatorial race:
Even if Rossi wanted to cut the minimum wage, the Democratic majorities of the state House and Senate won't let it happen, said Anthony Anton, president of the Washington Restaurant Association, which has complained the looming increase will hurt restaurants."The governor's-race debate is moot," Anton said. "I would like $1 million tomorrow and no one is gonna give it to me, either. No one is going to lower the base minimum wage by $1.50."
There are a number of positions that Rossi has articulated where he as Governor and the Legislature would essentially cancel each other out. The true benefit of a Rossi governorship would be the firm hand of proven leadership to negotiate through a budget disaster without cutting essential services or raising taxes. That and do crazy things like make a decision on unaddressed issues like the Viaduct.
Posted by Eric Earling at October 24, 2008 07:30 PM | Email ThisThe front page story today about the health care plans could have been written by the Obama campaign. Every one of their examples were positives for a single payer system, and bemoaned how much more McCain's plan will cost. They did an example of what McCain's plan would do to taxes, but nothing on the cost of what Obama is proposing. The analysis was impossible to decipher, and probably had the intent to just frustrate readers from trying to understand it.
The other story compared Burner's lying on her website about having a degree in Economics to the Washington Post having Reichert's bio wrong. The two were examples were presented as equal. It was ridiculous.
Posted by: janet s on October 24, 2008 07:30 PMWhy might Dino's position on minimum wage (and abortion, and gay rights, and global warming, and . . .) matter? How about:
-In the give and take of the legislative process, the very real possibility that a Governor Rossi would condition his signature or veto of a bill favored by Democrats on their acquiesence to a lower minimum wage. Likely I'd be angry at both for such deal-making, and with Governor Gregoire, it would never happen.
-Majorities in the legislature are subject to change every two years. God help us if Republicans were to gain control in 2010 or any point after, and Dino would rule unfettered. Even the slightest risk of that happening demands that he never get the job.
-Perhaps most significantly, as Governor, Dino and his agencies would be charged with enforcing the laws. Any doubt that the folks at Labor & Industries who make sure the minimum wage actually gets paid would not be among those deemed "essential" as Dino moved to balance the budget? Once they're let go, Anton could pay whatever he wanted because there'd be no one to tell him otherwise.
Dino's position on issues such as minimum wage reflect a set of values that is in itself reason to vote against him. But voters should not be fooled by you or anyone else into thinking that as Governor, his beliefs wouldn't ever make their way into law.
Posted by: John on October 24, 2008 08:46 PMMy son worked as a dishwasher this past summer... part time... he was 16 (now 17).
The idea that they were forced to pay him $8.07 an hour to wash dishes part time is both as moronic as Queen Chrissy, the Tribal Ho's ads... and the idiotic, totally partisan, defying reality posts of John and Lysander.
Reality, people. Dino seems to do a much better job of living in it then that disaster of a governor you support.
And I can say that knowing that I'm not gonna voter for either of them!
Posted by: Hinton on October 24, 2008 09:41 PMThe Times story quotes a woman who disputes Rossi's claim that minimum wage is not meant to be a family wage. She is a single mother with two kids, and the implication is that she supports her family on minimum wage. But she earns minimum wage PLUS tips. It also says she is married, so presumably this is a two income family.
So I'm still trying to find the flaw in the concept that minimum wage is an entry wage, meant to encourage the least experienced to get into the workforce and move up. If someone has a family, and has been working for years, and still makes minimum wage, something is seriously wrong.
And the solution is not to raise the minimum wage.
Posted by: janet s on October 24, 2008 10:07 PMJohn, #3, who is responsible for the lunacy above, apparently does not favor fiscal restraint and accountability. Not to worry, John, we're discussing entry level wages, not welfare.
Posted by: Saltherring on October 25, 2008 06:23 AMMy question for you is how is this different than:
(1) McCain's ads, like the following:
Too Dangerous
Promise
Education
All of this distort what the actual positions are and cast it in a gloomy, dark mode to play to fear, just like CG's ads.
(2) How is this different than the ads by the independent groups on both sides that are attacking Rossi and CG. Ads like the Sex Offenders ad, which takes a statistic and blows it up to total fabrication.
(3) How is this different than Rossi's own ads that continue too hammer away on the projected 3.2B shortfall. This amount is already going to be cut in half due to current staffing freezes, travel freezes, and draconian purchasing freezes put in place by CG. This doesn't include the next year staffing reductions and other budget reductions the agencies are working on at the direction of CG. For the life of me, this is CG's fault in not stating all that she is currently doing and letting this misconception continue. Rossi is running with it as long as he can, but it doesn't make it true, today.
No, to get upset about the CG ad (or ads) only and not condemn all the misinformation out there on all sides is just letting your bias show through. For me, I would like to get rid of all the ads. I am so tired of them from all sides. I don't make my decision by the ads. What I appreciate is accurate reporting, which finds an issue, researches it, gets both sides statements on the issue and research found, and then reports the facts. What I appreciate is the local community papers, like my own Gateway, which this last week had long articles on each of the candidates running for the local legislative districts. These provide a lot more useful information than the ads. Political advertising, on both sides, is getting more and more negative and whose sole purpose is to tear down their opponent. Most of the advertising doesn't go into, nor has the time to go into, candidate's actual positions. The ads are getting very nauseous, with Darcy Burner ads probably on the top of the heap of nauseousness, but the independent groups on both sides of the governors race are close behind.
Posted by: tc on October 25, 2008 11:02 AMAnyways... please tell me what is moronic about my comment. Is it that you feel that we should have two classes of workers in this country?
Posted by: Lysander on October 25, 2008 03:34 PM