LABRADOR: Try on $12 an hour

Mr. Labrador, I can tell you that I am a voter and I won’t vote for you, just like last election when I didn’t vote for you. Now I’ll tell you one of the reasons. At last week’s speech in Post Falls, you were quoted in the Coeur d’Alene Press as saying:

“One of the problems of the Republican party is that we continue to talk about ideas as it relates to business (and job creation). As a party, we’d better start talking to the employees, not just the business owner.”

Later, in the same Coeur d’Alene Press article, it says you have talked to business owners who are having a hard time hiring people at $12 an hour because unemployment benefits from the government are better.

Nowhere in the article does it say you talked to anyone, an employee or unemployed person, about why they might not want a $12/hour job. Were they a trained machinist, welder, engineer, equipment operator or pharmacist? These, sir, are the kinds of jobs we need in Idaho, and if you would take one for $12/hour, you are an idiot.

Did you ask the business owner what position he was hiring for at $12/hour? If you did, you did not go on record with the Coeur d’Alene Press as having mentioned it. Did you talk to any unemployed people and ask them why they may not want a $12/hour job? I’ll tell you that I don’t want a $12/hour job because I couldn’t afford to feed my wife and son while keeping clothes on them and a roof over us.

At $12/hour with 40 hours per week and working 52 weeks per year, the gross pay would be $24,960. This is probably OK for a single person in their 20s. Is this what you expect your constituents to look forward to when they get into middle age and try to retire when they get to the right age? By the way, Social Security taxes will take away about 7 percent of that earlier total, leaving take home pay, before income taxes, around $23,212 per year.

A quick Google search shows that you make at least $174,000/year as a U.S. representative. Do you, sir, want to give up your position and work for $12/hour? I doubt it. One of your primary responsibilities as a U.S. Representative is to pass a budget bill. You can’t even do that without putting other government employees out of work. If it was up to me, you would be fired because you can’t do your job.

I pay the kid that comes and picks up dog crap from my yard $20, and it takes him about an hour once every 2-3 months. I would be appreciative if you would come and do it for $12, but it would make for an unemployed teenager.

SAM TAYLOR

Coeur d’Alene