Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Is it Right or Politically Correct? Another Steve Helms WTF Moment.


by Steve Helms, Greene County Circuit Clerk, 2010 salary $67,888.08

Of all things, government should do what is right, not what is politically correct. One of the worst laws in Missouri and the United States is the minimum wage law.

A minimum wage law is wrong for at least three reasons. It is morally wrong. The Declaration of Independence says that we are endowed by our Creator with the Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Economic freedom is a part of those rights and government doesn’t have the moral authority, nor does it have the legal authority to tell me what I have to make or what I have to pay for a certain job.
As our nation was founded, the majority of people don’t have the right to interfere in this area either. That is the concept of the Rule of Law. Because we are a republic and not a democracy, others have no right to interfere with another person’s unalienable rights.

That is why the Missouri Legislature should not only limit our state minimum wage to the federal law, but repeal the state minimum wage law entirely. Minimum wage laws don’t work; they only drive up inflation. If you arbitrarily force the cost of wages to go up, prices will also increase. In effect, a person might see a slight increase in their pay, but they will also experience an increase in their cost of living.

This principle should be evident to all as they travel through cities with highjavascript:void(0)er costs of living and those with lower costs of living. What is the benefit if I get twice the pay, but have to pay twice the costs to live in an area? People should be more concerned with how many dollars they can keep, not just the amount that flows through their hands.
Inflation hurts those who can least afford it; those on a fixed income. This usually includes the elderly and those disabled. Often these groups of people are the least able to take care of things and need to hire low skilled help to do chores around their homes. Minimum wage laws make it increasingly difficult for them to acquire these needed services.

The choice is clear; we can do what is politically correct or what is right. Please call or write your legislator and tell them you want them to do what is right.
In 2006, Missourians voted on a proposition (Proposition B) to increase the minimum wage in the state to $6.50 an hour—it passed Greene County with 74.41 percent of the vote. The proposition strongly passed every single county in Missouri with 78.99 percent voting in favor as the minimum wage was increased to $6.50 an hour in the state.

Helms salary is $67,888.08 a year. And he wants to do away with the minimum wage.

Helms is rumored to be testing the waters for a run for county clerk when the current clerk moves on.

Helms edits, sells advertising, prints, formats, distributes, writes articles, sermons & what not and posts it all on the internet at the Springburg Gazette when he's not busy being circuit clerk.

13 comments:

Jeremy D. Young said...

You still need to ask yourself whether the minimum wage laws actually benefit those that you intended to help by passing them.

Next, you need to weigh the side effects that are also caused by these laws. What happens to high school and college students that wanted to get a little work experience, and have very few relevant skills to the workplace?

Another group that you need to consider when raising the minimum wage, is all those that had worked hard to get raises already, and might be making 60 cents an hour over minimum wage. With the last three federal increases, from 5.15 - 5.85 - 6.55 - 7.25, what happened to the people making 5.75, 6.45, and 7.15? Did they get 70 cent raises too? And.. now that they make minimum wage, and can be replaced by any person off the street, what do you think that did to their motivation?

What happens to the services that are priced according to minimum wage labor? How about those businesses that usually hire college students?

What happens to businesses that were barely making a profit and used minimum wage labor? Do those businesses just magically become profitable enough to pay the additional payroll expenses? At best, they will put off hiring people. Next, they'll cut hours. After that, they'll lay off people, and finally, they'll close up shop if all the rest fail.

What if you have a job that someone likes doing, but it really isn't worth paying someone very much to do? Such as keeping score at the park board little league games? What does that do to our already tapped City budget? Most people would probably cut that job out of the budget.

Further, after three years of Federal Minimum Wage increases, do you think that helped or hindered unemployment in 2007, 2008, and 2009?

Anonymous said...

Jeremy-- do you work? what is your salary? or do you still live at home?

Maybe Helms will give you a job mowing his lawn.

Anonymous said...

Was it "morally wrong" for Steve Helms to let the taxpayers bail him out of his financial mess when that mess included an inordinate amount of credit card debt?

-pp

Anonymous said...

A thief will steal time from his employer.

Anonymous said...

I bet Billy Long starts riding around on a Segway at parades after breaking his foot earlier in a parade. The segway, the official vehicle of the 'dork.' Just look at the picture!

Anonymous said...

Okay, like, this guy is a total Republican asshole.

Simply put, they believe in a two class system rich and very, very, never going to be anything BUT poor.

No middle class.

These guys--- like this pampered brat Helms--- will cause a revolution that will start at their own door. You have to wonder if they believe their own shit or if they're trying to please the warped base of the Republican Party.

National strikes to bring them all to their knees is the only thing that will save this country's middle class.

Jeremy D. Young said...

Anonymous, yes I work.
No, I won't tell you my salary.
No, I don't need to ask Mr. Helms for a job mowing his lawn.

I don't know the exact details of Mr. Helms' bankruptcy, but I know it was related to entrepreneurship, you know, the activity of taking a risk, attempting to start a business and grow the local economy?

You don't have to be faultless to have an opinion, I'm sure all the anonymous taunters have nothing to hide.

Do any of you have any thoughts on the actual topic at hand, or are you just going to keep drudging up bankruptcy, appearance, and class warfare?

What gives the people, or the government the right to interfere in contractual agreements between willing participants?

Maybe this is similar to concepts in freedom that you hold dear? Don't you want the government to leave you alone about whether you choose to believe in God, or consentual behaviours? Don't you think that the government should stay out of the way when you are choosing which substances to put in your own body?

Are any of you interested in talking about the actual economics of this issue?

Anonymous said...

Jeremy, the bankruptcy involved running up bills with suppliers with no intention to pay but to take the easy way out, bankruptcy.
He screwed members of his family in the process.

Mr. Helms has a vision for only himself and we have Mavis Busiek to thank for putting him in office.

The above poster who mentioned stealing from the employer has hit the nail on the head. He is stealing from the taxpayer by working on Springburg on taxpayer time.

As best I can tell, the Idiocy Bureau (News-Leader) cares nothing about these abuses.

Anonymous said...

Dear Bus Plunge:

I have been a fan our your site for years, but I must admit there is a growing trend that bothers me a tad....celebrity commenters on your site. Given his tainted history, I am shocked to see Paul Reubens being allowed to post under a pseudonym.

Yours truly,
Faron Young

Anonymous said...

I agree.

Regards,
Ferlin Husky

Jeremy D. Young said...

Guess that's a "No, we don't want to discuss the actual topic at hand."

I'll leave you to your partisan mockery then.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Young, your talking points are as old as the minimum wage. Most of the work force in Springfield and the surrounding area are committed to their workplace as full-time employees. For many households, it is the second job. In many more households, two are working for minimum wage with few benefits.

The point at hand, to be discussed, is that Scooter Helms makes 67,000 bucks a year, off the taxpayer tit, with access to health care and a retirement program, gets lots of paid days off for holidays; has another man the county hired to do the work he is not capable of doing, and, besides being a prick, has an unknown history to go with his known history of being a scam artist, resulting in a bankruptcy. He planned the bankruptcy; don't you understand? He screwed people intentionally; don't you understand?

Now the real point is that neither he nor you are qualified to speak to the issue of minimum wage; and most likely, damn few other topics.

I'm glad you've got an opinion. You only need to find an audience who wants to hear it. Most of my Republican friends, and I'm a Republican with credientials to prove it, believe you are full of the type of crap that will set back our GOP as the mood of the country swings back to the Left.

Anonymous said...

Yet somehow I'll bet you will come back when there is another topic for which you have GOP Cliffs Notes.