Paying the Price for Government Meddling
By: Matt, July 9th, 2007
On the surface, a recent law passed in Maryland, the “Living Wage” law, may appear to be a coup for employees and would-be employees in Maryland. The law raises the minimum wage for employees working for state contractors to $11.30 per hour for those in the Baltimore-DC area and to $8.50 per hour for those in the rest of the state. Not surprisingly, labor leaders have hailed the statue as a great success.
Todd Cherkis, an organizer for the United Workers’ Association (UWA), told the World the UWA greets passage of the measure as a “a great first step.”
He added, “For Gov. Martin O’Malley to even talk about a living wage was a victory. It looked like the bill was going nowhere, but in the final hours of the legislative session, O’Malley put on the pressure and it went through. He invested a lot of political capital in this and he deserves credit.”
What I wondered when I heard about this, however, is how this will negatively affect those involved. Those first affected will be the employers, i.e. - those companies contracting with the state of Maryland. Maryland being an extremely liberal state, I would guess that the majority of the electorate would simply say “screw ‘em”, but of course this ignores a major issue. That is - just how business “unfriendly” does Maryland have to become before companies just pick up and leave? For those who have read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, you know what I mean. For those who rail against business interests in the name of protecting “the people”, perhaps YOU should read Atlas Shrugged.
I admit that I’m not speaking from a position of disinterest here. I own multiple businesses, all licensed in the state of Maryland, as well as multiple real estate holdings, also all located in Maryland. I am repeatedly amazed at how difficult the state makes it for me to conduct business, and just how often I get a bill for “insert bullshit fee/license/overcharge/penalty here”.
I think what people fail to realize, and that Ms. Rand went to great lengths to point out, is that the businesses out there are the entities that offer “the people” jobs. The businesses take the risks, invest the time, create the new technologies and, generally, do all the things that make our lives better (hint: they provide energy to heat and cool your home too). But they don’t do so in a vacuum, and their job is not to provide their product or service for the good of the people to the detriment of their bottom line. Businesses are, after all, in the business of MAKING MONEY. Without the profit motive, why would a company do business? The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t…
And therein lies the lesson for the Maryland politician looking to score a political victory by beating up on businesses and working to look after the interests of “the people”. In short, be careful what you wish for.
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