Kudos to Governor Greitens and the Missouri legislature. They killed a minimum wage law in St. Louis. The law was designed to make city politicians feel better about themselves. It’s certain result would have been fewer jobs for the people who need jobs the most.
Why are you complaining about Governor Greitens' first term? Did you not read his books?
Like Donald Trump, Eric Greitens called his plays at the line of scrimmage. He told you how he would govern. In his book _Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life, _Gov. Greitens introduces us to Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that focuses on how to live with purpose, character, dignity, and honor.
In his prior book, The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL, the governor introduces us to the seemingly novel idea that the results of one’s actions, not the feelings of the actor, are what matter most in policy and in life.
Now, as governor of Missouri, Greitens is taking flak for supporting a state law that prevents cities like St. Louis from enacting a minimum wage law that would kill jobs for the poor while making the board of aldermen feel better about themselves.
In case you missed it, last year St. Louis raised the minimum wage. Just like Seattle. The so-called “living wage” movement was all the rage among the left.
But the “living wage” hurts the poor. It only makes politicians and leftist professors feel good about themselves. We know this. Seattle’s $15 minimum wage is killing the poor.
From the Washington Post story, A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals:
The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by the city.
People who make $400 a month can’t afford to lose a penny. Yet laws like the one St. Louis politicians enacted cost the working poor $125 a month in Seattle.
From the Washington Post story, A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals:
On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.
Governor Greitens wrote about the UN’s failed attempts to protect orphans in Bosnia in The Heart and the Fist. Greitens witnessed the failed “do-gooderism” first hand:
Later, when I thought about the UN workers in Gasinci writing their letter, when I read about what had happened at Srebrenica, I realized that there was a great dividing line between all of the speeches, protests, feelings, empathy, good wishes, and words in the world, and the one thing that mattered most: protecting people through the use of force or threat of force. In situations like this, good intentions and heartfelt wishes were not enough. The great dividing line between words and results was courageous action.
Greitens, Eric. The Heart and the Fist: The education of a humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL (p. 58). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.
Good intentions and heartfelt wishes by the UN experts resulted in the orphans getting raped and killed in, what amounted to, UN concentration camps. These camps became playgrounds for pederasts.
Good intentions can kill.
Courageous action sometimes requires that leaders say “no” to the do-gooders. Do-gooders like the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Do-gooders who would steal 30% of a poor woman’s income in order to feel better about themselves.
I applaud Governor Greitens and Missouri’s legislature for having the courage to kill a St. Louis law that hurt the poor. And I’m proud I have my Greitens for Governor Day One team shirt.
Missouri chose well when we chose Eric Greitens for Governor.