Minnesota is Misrepresenting the Effects of Higher Taxes and Minimum Wages

It is being claimed that higher taxes on high income persons and increases in the minimum wage are the key to jobs creation and a fast-growing economy.  The example of Minnesota since Democrat Gov. Dayton took over is being used to "prove" this.

Gov. Dayton certainly benefited relative to Gov. Pawlenty in that he became Gov. in the year that the recovery from the Great Recession began, however meekly. He did not create the 172,000 jobs either. But let us note that 172,000 jobs in two years is just barely a match for an anemic population growth.

The article notes that the Minnesota median income advantage relative to the national average actually fell by $2,000 from 2012-2013 to now. It was not noted that the cost of living in Minnesota relative to the national average is going up as well. The combination of a rising cost of living and a falling median income, both relative to the nation, is not good.

While the minimum wage is to go up to $9.50/hr. for large employers by 2018, it will go up to only $7.75/hr. for small employers who employ most people. There are special provisions for a 90-day training period for workers under 20 years old and for all workers under 18 with a minimum wage of $6.50/hr. There are many states with no such provisions.

Furthermore, the private sector job growth in Minnesota from Q1 of 2013 to Q1 of 2014 showed Minnesota to be dead last in the Midwest in private sector job creation. Its 0.8% increase in private sector jobs was behind the next worst state in the Midwest, Illinois at 1.2%.

Gov. Dayton is probably not claiming that he caused a relative decrease in the median income with an increase in the relative cost of living.  And now that businesses have had time to react to his higher taxes and mandated higher wage costs, he is surely not claiming credit for Minnesota being dead last in private sector jobs creation in the Midwest.

Wall Street Journal Says Below Average White Rural Areas Are Becoming More Republican

The Friday Wall Street Journal had a front page story in which it said that the "GOP Tightens Its Grip on White Working Class."  It says that it tracks the House seats held by each party in House districts dominated by white, working-class voters.  In 1993, the Democrats held 36 such districts and the Republicans held 35.  By 2013, this division of such districts had changed drastically, with the Republicans holding 59 white, working-class districts and the Democrats holding only 11.

The article has the usual large number of stories about individuals and what they think and how their voting may have changed or not.  Among the stories it tells are those of people from Aitkin, Minnesota in the 8th Congressional District of Minnesota.  Aitkin is the county seat of rural Aitkin County, with a population of 2,597 people.  It is about 50 miles west southwest of Duluth, Minnesota.  The 8th Congressional District is almost 93% white.  We are told by the Wall Street Journal that the median household income is $49,860, compared to the national median of $53,000.  We are told that only a bit more than 22% of the people in the district have a Bachelor's degree or higher, compared to a national median of 28.5%.  So, we are supposed to conclude that these people are not quite as well-educated as they ought to be and not quite as successful as the average American.  So, maybe this is why they are becoming Republicans in larger numbers.

Let us consider the measure of their economic success given as their income.  Democrats obsess about materialistic measures such as comparative incomes.  But in fact, the people of Aitkin, Minnesota are a bit too sly for the median American.  There is a pretty good reason to believe the Wall Street Journal is underestimating them, both their income and their ability to recognize a perfectly fine way of living.

The median household income of $53,000 mentioned is that earned by households with a mean cost of living index of 100.  The good people of Aitkin, Minnesota have a local cost of living of 92.  Do the math,

$49,860 / 0.92 = $54,196 > $53,000.

So, it may not be the case that everyone in Aitkin, Minnesota is above average, but it is the case that their median income allows them to live a bit better than the median income in America allows the average American household.

So, being such sly folks, they are coming to realize that the Republican Party is better than the Democrat Party.  The story is that Millennials and Hispanics are beginning to learn the same lesson.  Mostly, those who are coming awake are coming to an increasing understanding that being productive is critical and that far too many people are making welfare a way of life.  The people called the white working class are learning this in larger numbers, but young people now a few years separated from the Progressive Elitist indoctrination of years of Progressive Elitist education and unable to find jobs at all or jobs anything like what they thought they would have are beginning to learn this as well.  Some are actually seeing that government actions have prevented any reasonable economic recovery.  More and more Hispanic Americans are at the least disgusted with the failed promises of the Democrats and in some cases are coming to resent others living off of their hard work also.

While some signs of understanding are beginning to show up, there is a long way to go.  A Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll in June found out that 53% of white people said that the government was doing too much to meet the needs of people and more should be left to businesses and individuals.  Only 44% of Hispanics said the same.  Still fewer Black Americans agreed with this.  They were stuck at a mere 32%.  We still live in a largely entitlement society.

Allow Same-Sex Marriages as a Basic Individual Right

For centuries, most people of the Judeo-Christian tradition have believed that God frowns upon people of the same sex having sexual relationships.  Indeed, for centuries they often thought God demanded that they execute, often very gruesomely, men thought to be having sex with men.  This vision of morality has been transformed for the better, but translated into governments only recognizing opposite sex marriages.  In recent times, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and then Massachusetts came to recognize same-sex marriages.  Today in the United States, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont recognize same-sex marriages.  In addition, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin offer either civil unions or domestic partnerships to same-sex couples.  Forty-one states forbid same-sex marriages, including North Carolina which just passed a ban by referendum earlier this year.

The referendum ban of same-sex marriage in California was challenged in federal court and was declared unconstitutional.  This ruling is under appeal and is still working its way through the federal court system.  Washington passed a law authorizing same-sex marriage and Gov. Chris Gregoire signed it earlier this year.  The Maryland legislature also authorized same-sex marriage this year and Gov. Martin O'Malley has signed it into law.  But, referendums to ban same-sex marriage in Washington and Maryland will be on the ballot in November.  Maine, which presently bans same-sex marriages, has a referendum on the November ballot to allow them.  Minnesota, which presently bans same-sex marriage by statute, has a referendum on the November ballot to additionally forbid same-sex marriage in their state constitution.

How does one rationally analyze the role of governments with respect to marriage and with respect to same-sex marriages in particular?  We have to decide what marriage really is and why government has necessary and legitimate functions with respect to marriage.  In the oldest Judeo tradition, marriage was commonly not a domestic partnership between one man and one woman.  Each husband might have several wives.  This was surely not marriage of the nature of those recognized by government in America today.  Early Christians commonly did not marry, since many thought the end of the world was rapidly approaching with the return of Christ.  After that brief period, Christian marriage was often a means of cementing favorable relationships between families, clans, tribes, aristocrats, and even nations.  A young woman was pretty much the property of her father and the father eventually traded her to a man for a degree of allegiance and goodwill in many cases.  She was now her husband's property.  Marriage was not the spiritual union of two people in the way many think it is today.  It was a commercial and political act in many cases.  The church supported this viewpoint of marriage by providing a patina of spirituality, though spiritual connections between the husband and wife were very commonly missing.

Even today, the role of government is not to provide a spiritual content to marriage or even to assess whether such a spiritual basis for a marriage exists.  An honest evaluation of marriage as provided by government license and contract is that every marriage is a domestic partnership and any spiritual meaning to the union is provided by the married partners independent of government.  The domestic partnership that governments offer is a legal contract with legal implications for shared property, procreation and the raising of children, taxes, mandated time off work to care for one another, and permissions to make medical decisions for one another if one partner is unable to make such decisions.

The only case of such issues in which the sex of the partners may make any difference at all is with respect to procreation and the raising of children.  In the modern world, adoptions may easily take the place of procreation, but many married partners also have no children and there is no title of aristocracy demanding an heir.  Should children be adopted in the relatively rare case by two partners of the same sex, there is little reason for one having to be a high-earning man, since many women are now high-earners.  The domestic partnerships that are formed by government marriage licenses are just as appropriate today for partners of the same sex as they are for partners of opposite sexes.

Each and every American adult competent to care for himself has a very broad sovereign right to life, liberty, property, the ownership of his own body, mind, and labor, and the pursuit of his own happiness.  Legitimate government cannot violate that broad range of fundamental individual rights.  There must be a strong presumption against laws that limit the exercise of personal actions which do not do harm to others.  Legitimate government does not interfere with the association of one adult with other consenting adults, unless substantial harm is thereby done to others.  Legitimate and individual rights-protecting government is highly limited and minimal government.  If it acts to place limits on the relationships and associations of individuals, it must have a very substantial reason for such limits and a strong case for the harm those associations or relationships would do to others.  The only way such harm to others occurs is if the partnership uses force to harm others, but there is no new issue here since initiated harm done by force by any individual to others is already prohibited.  There is no more reason to prescribe the number and sex of domestic partners than there is to do so for a business partnership.  Indeed, a domestic partnership is very much like a business partnership in all respects relevant to the role of government.

Not only is there no reason to place a prohibition on same-sex domestic partnerships, but because our individual rights are equal, we cannot limit marriage contracts to only those who desire a single partner of the opposite sex.  While anyone may exercise their own freedom of conscience in the belief that same-sex domestic partnerships are immoral, abhorred by God, or simply biologically uninteresting to them, government and the People whose individual equal rights are to be protected by government cannot make such judgments in the political realm without violating the freedom of conscience of others with a differing viewpoint.  They cannot legitimately use force to prevent others from exercising control over their own bodies and minds, from evaluating and choosing whose most intimate company they desire, and from pursuing their most personal and individual happiness.

Individual human beings are complex and highly differentiated.  We are all different in the way our minds observe reality, analyze and evaluate it, and assess our own relationship to it and to others.  Our biochemistries differ, our senses operate at many different levels, our nervous systems feel differently, our bodies take very different forms, and we respond very differently to other individuals.  Among the most complex and highly differentiated aspects of an individual's nature is his or her sexuality.  We cannot be serious about the individual right to pursue happiness if we have government place obstacles and unequal treatment in the way of individuals whose sexuality is different than that endorsed by a religion or just recent and local tradition.

It is a basic violation of individual rights for government to discriminate against individuals based on their sexuality.  Legitimate government ought to provide same-sex marriage contracts which are equivalent to those it provides to couples of the opposite sex.  It should even provide a more enlarged concept of domestic partnership contracts as broad in terms of the combination of adult individuals bound in the contract as is the case in small business partnerships.  Government commonly interferes with our freedom of association in far too many ways.  It is time that it stop interfering with that broad freedom of association in our domestic partnerships which it is the right of each and every adult individual to claim.

Understanding this, one should vote for Question 6 in Maryland to allow same-sex couples to marry in Maryland.