The conventional wisdom on the credit crisis for many observers has been that free markets created the crisis, and government is going to solve it.

In fact the very opposite is true, and the Bush administration’s decision to strong-arm the nation’s largest banks into allowing government to buy in and undoubtedly begin dictating decisions will make the situation much, much worse.

Twenty-four times in the Constitution and 23 times in the Bill of Rights the words “no” and “not” are used to restrain government power, as in “Congress shall make no law” and “the right of the people . . . shall not be infringed.”

Ignoring that injunction, Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other government leaders recently frog-marched executives of the nation’s largest financial institutions into a room without telling them why they had been hauled there.

They then made these executives sign away a portion of their businesses on the government’s “take it or take it” terms.

A government whose easy credit policies, loan market manipulation and counterproductive regulatory machinery got us into this crisis is now injecting itself into the nation’s financial system in ways that were almost unimaginable just a few weeks ago.

Paulson recently announced that the federal government is sinking $125 billion of taxpayers’ money into Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Bank.

In return, the government will get, among other things, a 20 percent ownership stake (on average), restrictions on executive pay and promises the banks will pay a 5 percent dividend on senior preferred shares, rising to 9 percent after five years.

“These are healthy institutions,” Paulson told reporters Tuesday, “and they have taken this step for the good of the U.S. economy.”

No, they took this step to avoid the wrath of government. These healthy financial institutions did not need or request government money or a partial government takeover.

Paulson, with the president’s full support, has put citizens who did not make bad investments or borrow more money than they could afford on the hook for these hundreds of billions of dollars.

Citizens also are on the hook for the additional hundreds of billions the government earlier pledged to insurance company AIG, the government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, investment bank Bear Stearns and other companies.

Taxpayers may also be hit up for hundreds of billions more to buy short-term corporate debt and they will be hit hard by much higher price inflation if the government continues to loosen the money supply.

None of this is necessary, and all of it is wrong.

A fundamental condition for economic growth is risk and reward. People take risks. They earn rewards if those risks pan out, and they take their lumps if they don’t.

That ensures people on the whole will make the best decisions possible and this perpetual weighing of risks and rewards usually keeps things from going too far in any direction.

When things do go too far – as when the government floods the economy with easy credit and uses the tax code and lending regulations to encourage loans to people who should not have them – there is usually a “correction,” and should be.

We’re seeing one now in the housing and credit markets as house prices fall and credit tightens.

The government is recklessly doing all it can to stop this necessary correction, sending government deficits and the national debt skyrocketing and manipulating markets in ways almost sure to have awful unintended consequences.

There could be a terrible price to pay for these government actions. Unfortunately, those who stand to pay the dearest are ordinary citizens, not the politically connected millionaires and billionaires and their agents who made the decisions that caused the supposed crisis and who should be the ones to pay for it.

E-mail: sstanek@heartland.org

Steve Stanek is a research fellow in budget and tax policy at The Heartland Institute in Chicago (www.heartland.org).

By Guest Opinion, Steve Stanek

In 1980, Democrats wanted to run against Ronald Reagan more than any other Republican. They believed he would be the easiest candidate to defeat. They claimed he was too old and too conservative.

The Democrats got their wish and are still regretting it to this day.

Now the Democrats are licking their chops over the latest financial crunch, hoping that they are able to capture momentum for a November victory. They believe that all they need to do is coast along. Just say that John McCain is out of touch and Sarah Palin is out of her depth, these Democrats argue.

Just as in 1980, Democrats should be careful for what they wish because there is more than enough blame to go around.

For example it did not go un-noticed that Barack Obama looked like a deer in the headlights failing to answer whether he supports the bailout and then lied in the debate about forewarning of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crisis.

Forget the national polls in this race for president. Pundits need to focus on the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin where the economy will be the deciding factor.

So how does John McCain win on the economy?

On economic issues John McCain not only has a proven record of being fiscally prudent, but he also has a secret weapon — Gov. Sarah Palin.

True the news media and liberal elites continue to mock her (and a few diehard conservative supporters of other Republicans presidential candidates deride her), yet polls show she is the most popular of all of the candidates in the key battleground states.

Why? Because like very few politicians (indeed only two in recent memory come up, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan), Sarah Palin can relate to voters and talk about issues that they can relate to and understand.

She can, to steal a phrase, “feel people’s pain” because she is one of us but even more than that, she can state a vision on how to recover from our economic morass that reminds many of the Gipper (and let’s not forget, the blue collar Democrats in those swing states, particularly Pennsylvania, aren’t called Reagan Democrats for nothing).

Like Reagan, Palin relates and connects to the average taxpayer. She speaks in terms that Americans can understand and relate to – again, like Reagan in 1980.

The media who mock Sarah Palin when she talks about the effects of the economy on everyday Americans also mocked Ronald Reagan when he said losing one’s job is a depression for that person.

It just showed how out of touch Reagan was, the media said. Yet Americans suffering under Jimmy Carter’s mismanagement of the economy could relate, as Reagan, who had lived through the Depression, could.

Today, like most Americans, Palin has to balance the family checkbook every month. This is not a woman jetting off to overseas destinations as the media has pointedly ridiculed her lack of having a passport until last year.

Rather this a woman with a real family who knows what it is like to struggle and make ends meet. And like Reagan, she knows also that it is optimism and hope that inspires a country out of its periods of crisis.

Could you imagine what would be happening to the GOP ticket if John McCain had selected Mitt Romney as his running mate? The Democrats would be ripping the ticket for being two rich white guys with no connection to the average taxpayer.

It wouldn’t have stopped there. Democrats would have most certainly rolled out the old attack ads Ted Kennedy ran against Romney in 1994. They featured jobless workers left in the wake of Romney corporate raids.

Even worse, the Republicans would have been portrayed as a party of gloomy old men with no hope and optimism and just offering experience as a solution (ask Bob Dole and Walter Mondale how far experience gets you in a presidential election).

Instead the Republican Party has a woman whose husband is a labor union member and whose life story is the American dream. Sarah Palin is the modern day Mrs. Smith goes to Juneau and then Washington or as some have suggested, a worthy successor to the Gipper, himself.

She is the future of the Republican Party.

Unlike her Democratic counterpart, she doesn’t equate patriotism with a 1040 form or see the IRS auditing taxpayers as part of the overriding narrative of American history.

No, unlike Joe Biden, Sarah Palin sees the sacrifices at Valley Forge, the storming of Normandy, the gallantry of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and the everyday struggles of Americans as patriotic and part of the American fabric.

Now that the last debate is over, voters in the key states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are still left with the question of do they want a president and vice president who remain silent during the worse crisis since the Great Depression and feel that higher taxes are patriotic, or one who has fought higher taxes and runaway spending and believes America’s best days lie ahead of us?

David E. Johnson is the CEO of Strategic Vision LLC and a leading Republican pollster and strategist. He can be reached at djohnson@strategicvision.biz. Holly Robichaud is president of Tuesday Associates and a senior Republican fundraiser. She may be reached at Holly@TuesdayAssociates.com.

By Guest Opinion, David E. Johnson, Holly Robichaud

A payday loan. If you’re like most Arizona voters, you’ve never had one, don’t really know how they work and might even have a less-than-positive feeling about them.

And who could blame you?

Every day, it seems, another self-appointed know-it-all with an ax to grind is in the news, blaming payday lending for all of society’s ills and demanding the industry be run out of town before every one of us is beguiled into bankruptcy.

In my 20 years of civic involvement in Arizona, I have never seen an issue so grossly manipulated by special interests either willfully ignorant of the facts or simply obsessed with their own aggressive political agenda.

These same people are now doing a genuine disservice to the voters of Arizona by demanding a “no” vote on Proposition 200 while telling a one-sided story designed to prey on people’s emotions.

If this small-but-vocal group of angry opponents gets its way, payday loans will be eliminated in Arizona.

Thankfully, most voters reject this crazy idea as extreme and would rather reform payday loans than eliminate them.

That’s what Proposition 200 does.

Here are the facts on Prop. 200 – The Payday Loan Reform Act:

• Prop. 200 mandates lower fees on payday loans.

• Prop. 200 makes it illegal to extend a payday loan and charge another fee.

• Prop. 200 creates a flexible repayment plan for customers who can’t meet their obligations.

• Prop. 200 reins in unregulated, off-shore Internet lenders.

• Prop. 200 makes it harder to have more than one payday loan at a time. (It’s already illegal.)

• Prop. 200 will close payday loan stores that cannot adjust to new tough reforms.

• Prop. 200 will preserve payday loans as an option for those who choose it.

These are the facts of Prop. 200. See for yourself at www.ReformAZPayday Loans.com.

Here are a few other important things you might not know about payday loans:

• The average customer earns about $30,000 a year, is married, has some college education and probably owns a home.

• Every payday loan customer must have a steady job and a bank account.

• Most bounced check fees are higher than the cost of a payday loan.

• It is usually more expensive to pay over-limit fees on a credit card than to borrow from a payday loan store.

• Most payday loan customers use the service for its simplicity, convenience and to avoid more costly credit choices.

What these hardworking Arizonans need is a reformed payday loan industry as a credit option during difficult economic times. Removing this option, or any other for that matter, is not going to help anyone.

Every assertion made by opponents of payday lending as an option for people is directly addressed by the reforms of Prop. 200.

The sad truth is, some people have a political agenda intent on eliminating payday loan stores entirely, even though economic conditions are extremely tight for many Arizonans right now.

Those who are undecided about how to vote on Prop. 200 would be wise to read a November 2007 staff report done for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, available on our campaign Web site.

The report showed that consumers suffer financially when payday lending is banned in a state where it once existed.

The key conclusion of the report was that bankruptcies, bounced checks and credit trouble all rose dramatically when consumers no longer had access to this financial option.

Reform is better than elimination.

George McGovern, a former senator from South Dakota and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, said it best recently when he stated, “Anguished at the fact that payday lending isn’t perfect, some people would outlaw the service entirely, or cap fees at such low levels that no lender will provide the service. Anyone who’s familiar with the law of unintended consequences should be able to guess what happens next.”

The Payday Loan Reform Act makes sense. Reforming the industry while keeping this financial option available for those who choose it is a sensible, reasonable thing to do in Arizona.

Please join me in voting “yes” on Prop. 200.

Stan Barnes is campaign chairman for YES on Proposition 200, the Payday Loan Reform Act.

A report shows that consumers suffer financially when payday lending is banned in a state where it once existed.

By Guest Opinion, Stan Barnes

Payday lending stores and their mostly out-of-state owners have been practicing what amounts to legalized thievery for eight years, and they now are trying to convert the experiment into a permanent way of life.

Their method of high-interest, short-term profit-taking preys on those who can least afford it – the poor, the desperate and the financially unsophisticated.

The Arizona industry has been successful to the tune of $150 million or more a year in usury fees alone.

The maximum interest rate for all other Arizona financial institutions is 36 percent, but the Legislature in 2000 granted an exemption for payday lenders, requiring, however, that the enabling legislation expire on July 1, 2010.

The number of payday storefronts has mushroomed since the exception was made, and about 650 of them now operate in strip shopping malls.

That may well be a number greater than pizza parlors, which charge their customers considerably less.

Three veteran Phoenix-area lobbyists – one-time legislator Stan Barnes, public relations man Mario Diaz and attorney Lee Miller – have walked the Capitol halls in recent years trying to persuade the Legislature to eliminate the 2010 sunset clause. They have failed.

Now they have come up with Proposition 200, an initiative misleadingly labeled the Payday Loan Reform Act.

Through their Arizona Community Financial Services Association, the lenders have raised nearly $9 million to propagandize and try to win voter approval in November.

The title of Proposition 200 is deceptive, to say the least. The use of the word “reform” makes a mockery of the traditional definition of the word, which means “to improve.”

Two provisions of Proposition 200 are crucial to the lenders. First, it would eliminate the 2010 sunset clause and second, it would still allow triple-digit interest (391 percent).

In addition, it would authorize the lenders to have electronic access to the borrowers’ bank accounts and require the state to create a bureaucracy to monitor customer loans.

The industry has focused much of its campaign on the idea that payday loans provide a financial “choice.” That they do, but it is an imprudent choice.

Employers offer workers a choice to come to work or not. Failure to do so results in dismissal. Drivers can choose to exceed the speed limit. If convicted, they are punished. Houses of prostitution provide a choice. Society bans them. The list could go on indefinitely.

One question the Proposition 200 supporters do not raise: How did Arizonans manage to get along before payday lending was legalized?

The answer is simple. People in financial difficulty went to their families, their friends, their churches, their employers, their banks and credit unions, the parties to which they owed money.

They worked out their difficulties, usually in a manner that required immediate, but temporary, spending sacrifices.

A major problem with payday loans is that a borrower in need of $50 or $100 today is unlikely to have an extra $50 or $100 with which to pay back the loan in two weeks.

That means the debt must be rolled over, and if the original lender is reluctant to do so, the borrower simply goes down the street to a different company, then returns to pay off the first loan.

Research by the Center for Responsible Lending has shown that predatory payday loans trap most borrowers in unending cycles of debt.

Only one of 100 borrowers walks away clear after one loan. The average borrower takes out eight to nine payday loans per year, and 90 percent of industry revenues come from trapped borrowers with five or more loans.

In Arizona, the Southwest Center for Economic Integrity says, the average borrower will pay back $841 for a $325 loan after having to renew it at least eight times.

The Department of Defense recognized the dangers and insidiousness of payday loans and convinced Congress to limit loan cost to 36 percent for members of the military and their families. That law went into effect last October.

If high-interest loans are bad for the military, why aren’t they bad for the rest of us?

More than a dozen states have banned payday lending simply by capping short-term interest rates at 36 percent or less. In Georgia, the practice has been made a felony.

For the moment, the “choice” facing Arizonans in November is whether to allow the lenders to remain after July 1, 2010. That should not be too difficult. Vote “no” on Proposition 200.

Donald W. Carson is a board member of the nonprofit, nondenominational Little Chapel of All Nations, which has been active in the anti-payday loan effort for at least three years.

Research by the Center for Responsible Lending has shown that predatory payday loans trap most borrowers in unending cycles of debt.

By Guest Opinion, Donald W. Carson

My co-workers provide direct services to our elderly, sick and physically challenged residents for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health.

Health care jobs are demanding, and people leave every day because of continual stress and low pay.

As a result, we are constantly training new employees. We’ve learned that high-quality health care means keeping good, experienced employees by paying them a decent wage and providing affordable health benefits.

I can’t imagine working for less than $11,000 a year, which is what a full-time minimum-wage worker earns.

It is appalling to watch the price of fuel, food, rent, electricity and child care go up year after year and see the minimum wage stay the same since 1997.

I don’t know how people survive on $5.15 an hour.

The typical low-wage worker is an adult woman who works full time, as a maid, housekeeper or laundry worker.

Then again, 10 percent of police, fire and ambulance dispatchers in Arizona earn less than $6.75 an hour.

More than 10 percent of Arizona’s child-care workers are paid less than $5.80 an hour.

It is these low-wage workers who take care of our children and our public safety. They deserve better. And I know Arizona can do better.

By voting for Proposition 202, we have a chance this year to raise the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

We can ensure that it keeps up with the cost of living, so working families don’t fall behind 9 out of every 10 years, as they have been.

Indeed, the value of the minimum wage is lower today than it has been in 50 years.

Today, 303,000 Arizonans will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Seventy-eight percent of them are 20 or older; 57 percent are women; 60 percent work full time; 112,000 are married; and 97,000 are parents.

About 200,000 children live in families that will get a bigger paycheck when Prop. 202 passes.

That raise will mean real benefits for these children.

Children in poverty are three times more likely to have poor health, five times more likely to die from an infectious disease and one-third more likely to have asthma, according to the Children’s Action Alliance.

Poor children also have twice the risk of being held back in school. Voting for Proposition 202 will make a real difference for the kids in this state.

Those opposed to giving hard-working, low-wage employees a raise claim that the sky will fall if we increase the minimum wage.

That simply isn’t true. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and their economies are doing very well.

That’s why a coalition of business owners, religious leaders, community organizations and senior groups support raising the Arizona minimum wage.

They know that statistics prove small businesses in D.C. and the 10 states with the highest minimum wage actually do better than small businesses in states like Arizona.

The number of small businesses in areas with higher minimum wages grew by 5.4 percent from 1998 to 2003, compared with only 4.2 percent growth in states such as Arizona, reports the Fiscal Policy Institute.

States with higher minimum wages also saw a bigger increase in the number of small-business employees than states such as Arizona.

When wages go up, turnover goes down and workers work harder.

The cost to businesses of increasing the minimum wage is totally offset by reduced turnover and increased productivity. That’s why so many small businesses have joined the effort to pass Proposition 202.

Raising the minimum wage is overdue. Indeed, it is nine years overdue.

Our child-care workers and police and fire dispatchers deserve better. Everyone deserves better than $5.15 an hour.

Arizona can do better. We can pass Proposition 202.

John Edwards works for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health and is a member of SEIU Arizona, the Service Employees International Union, a coalition of public service and health care employees.

———

About the author

My co-workers provide direct services to our elderly, sick and physically challenged residents for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health.

Health care jobs are demanding, and people leave every day because of continual stress and low pay.

As a result, we are constantly training new employees. We’ve learned that high-quality health care means keeping good, experienced employees by paying them a decent wage and providing affordable health benefits.

I can’t imagine working for less than $11,000 a year, which is what a full-time minimum-wage worker earns.

It is appalling to watch the price of fuel, food, rent, electricity and child care go up year after year and see the minimum wage stay the same since 1997.

I don’t know how people survive on $5.15 an hour.

The typical low-wage worker is an adult woman who works full time, as a maid, housekeeper or laundry worker.

Then again, 10 percent of police, fire and ambulance dispatchers in Arizona earn less than $6.75 an hour.

More than 10 percent of Arizona’s child-care workers are paid less than $5.80 an hour.

It is these low-wage workers who take care of our children and our public safety. They deserve better. And I know Arizona can do better.

By voting for Proposition 202, we have a chance this year to raise the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

We can ensure that it keeps up with the cost of living, so working families don’t fall behind 9 out of every 10 years, as they have been.

Indeed, the value of the minimum wage is lower today than it has been in 50 years.

Today, 303,000 Arizonans will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Seventy-eight percent of them are 20 or older; 57 percent are women; 60 percent work full time; 112,000 are married; and 97,000 are parents.

About 200,000 children live in families that will get a bigger paycheck when Prop. 202 passes.

That raise will mean real benefits for these children.

Children in poverty are three times more likely to have poor health, five times more likely to die from an infectious disease and one-third more likely to have asthma, according to the Children’s Action Alliance.

Poor children also have twice the risk of being held back in school. Voting for Proposition 202 will make a real difference for the kids in this state.

Those opposed to giving hard-working, low-wage employees a raise claim that the sky will fall if we increase the minimum wage.

That simply isn’t true. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and their economies are doing very well.

That’s why a coalition of business owners, religious leaders, community organizations and senior groups support raising the Arizona minimum wage.

They know that statistics prove small businesses in D.C. and the 10 states with the highest minimum wage actually do better than small businesses in states like Arizona.

The number of small businesses in areas with higher minimum wages grew by 5.4 percent from 1998 to 2003, compared with only 4.2 percent growth in states such as Arizona, reports the Fiscal Policy Institute.

States with higher minimum wages also saw a bigger increase in the number of small-business employees than states such as Arizona.

When wages go up, turnover goes down and workers work harder.

The cost to businesses of increasing the minimum wage is totally offset by reduced turnover and increased productivity. That’s why so many small businesses have joined the effort to pass Proposition 202.

Raising the minimum wage is overdue. Indeed, it is nine years overdue.

Our child-care workers and police and fire dispatchers deserve better. Everyone deserves better than $5.15 an hour.

Arizona can do better. We can pass Proposition 202.

John Edwards works for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health and is a member of SEIU Arizona, the Service Employees International Union, a coalition of public service and health care employees.

———

About the author

My co-workers provide direct services to our elderly, sick and physically challenged residents for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health.

Health care jobs are demanding, and people leave every day because of continual stress and low pay.

As a result, we are constantly training new employees. We’ve learned that high-quality health care means keeping good, experienced employees by paying them a decent wage and providing affordable health benefits.

I can’t imagine working for less than $11,000 a year, which is what a full-time minimum-wage worker earns.

It is appalling to watch the price of fuel, food, rent, electricity and child care go up year after year and see the minimum wage stay the same since 1997.

I don’t know how people survive on $5.15 an hour.

The typical low-wage worker is an adult woman who works full time, as a maid, housekeeper or laundry worker.

Then again, 10 percent of police, fire and ambulance dispatchers in Arizona earn less than $6.75 an hour.

More than 10 percent of Arizona’s child-care workers are paid less than $5.80 an hour.

It is these low-wage workers who take care of our children and our public safety. They deserve better. And I know Arizona can do better.

By voting for Proposition 202, we have a chance this year to raise the minimum wage to $6.75 an hour.

We can ensure that it keeps up with the cost of living, so working families don’t fall behind 9 out of every 10 years, as they have been.

Indeed, the value of the minimum wage is lower today than it has been in 50 years.

Today, 303,000 Arizonans will directly benefit from raising the minimum wage.

Seventy-eight percent of them are 20 or older; 57 percent are women; 60 percent work full time; 112,000 are married; and 97,000 are parents.

About 200,000 children live in families that will get a bigger paycheck when Prop. 202 passes.

That raise will mean real benefits for these children.

Children in poverty are three times more likely to have poor health, five times more likely to die from an infectious disease and one-third more likely to have asthma, according to the Children’s Action Alliance.

Poor children also have twice the risk of being held back in school. Voting for Proposition 202 will make a real difference for the kids in this state.

Those opposed to giving hard-working, low-wage employees a raise claim that the sky will fall if we increase the minimum wage.

That simply isn’t true. Ten other states and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, and their economies are doing very well.

That’s why a coalition of business owners, religious leaders, community organizations and senior groups support raising the Arizona minimum wage.

They know that statistics prove small businesses in D.C. and the 10 states with the highest minimum wage actually do better than small businesses in states like Arizona.

The number of small businesses in areas with higher minimum wages grew by 5.4 percent from 1998 to 2003, compared with only 4.2 percent growth in states such as Arizona, reports the Fiscal Policy Institute.

States with higher minimum wages also saw a bigger increase in the number of small-business employees than states such as Arizona.

When wages go up, turnover goes down and workers work harder.

The cost to businesses of increasing the minimum wage is totally offset by reduced turnover and increased productivity. That’s why so many small businesses have joined the effort to pass Proposition 202.

Raising the minimum wage is overdue. Indeed, it is nine years overdue.

Our child-care workers and police and fire dispatchers deserve better. Everyone deserves better than $5.15 an hour.

Arizona can do better. We can pass Proposition 202.

John Edwards works for the Pima County Department of Institutional Health and is a member of SEIU Arizona, the Service Employees International Union, a coalition of public service and health care employees.

———

About the author

Former state Rep. Greg Patterson summed it up best:

“There always seems to be an initiative that has apple pie in the title and rat poison in the language. This year, I think the award for stealth language goes to the minimum wage initiative.”

Arizona voters should make no mistake as to what Proposition 202 is.

It is a deception by unions using the Trojan horse of the minimum wage to give themselves total control over this state’s employment policies.

For public consumption, the initiative’s backers have packaged it as a straightforward increase in the state’s minimum wage and a linking of all future increases to the federal Consumer Price Index.

Something so simple, however, should not need 2,000 words to describe it, and this is where proponents give the game away.

The dirty little secrets behind this sumptuous- looking harlot include:

● Exempting state government from paying the state minimum wage.

● Creating a politically appointed commission to oversee minimum wage and employment practices in Arizona.

● Giving that commission full access to all business records, regardless of whether they relate to minimum wage, which would create privacy concerns.

● Granting full enforcement power to the commission to arrest, fine, monitor and inspect.

● Allowing unions and self-styled special-interest groups to file complaints on anyone’s behalf.

● Allowing illegal immigrants to file complaints against American citizens for money.

● Making the accused guilty until proven innocent, which runs counter to our American legal system.

● And allowing allegedly aggrieved workers a full two years to file a complaint.

The above is just a small sampling of the Pandora’s box containing Patterson’s metaphoric rat poison.

These last two provisions cannot be overstated for the potential they have in opening a whole new flock of opportunistic lawsuits for ambitious lawyers.

How easy this initiative makes it for them to not only sue, but also to settle.

Proposition 202 is a grand deception built on a collection of lies big and small, and Arizona voters should see it for what it truly is.

But this will prove difficult, because the minimum wage has enjoyed a public image opposite to its actual effect.

As the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows – and the overwhelming body of economic literature has always known – the minimum wage is actually an entry-level wage.

In short, the bureau’s “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers 2003″ found:

● Only 2.9 percent of all hourly workers in the nation earn at or below the minimum wage.

● More than half of minimum-wage earners are under age 25.

In short, raising the minimum wage punishes young kids looking for their first jobs.

The minimum wage is therefore not a living wage or a family-sustaining wage.

But if the minimum wage can get away with being something it’s not, why not use it to get away with a ballot initiative that is not what it says it is?

And that is the insidious genius behind the unions’ very crass attempt to grab power that they could never have hoped to achieve any other way.

If the voters buy this lie, they will pay a heavy price for it.

Michelle Bolton and Michael Crowe are co-chairs of the No on 202 Campaign.

———

About the authors

Former state Rep. Greg Patterson summed it up best:

“There always seems to be an initiative that has apple pie in the title and rat poison in the language. This year, I think the award for stealth language goes to the minimum wage initiative.”

Arizona voters should make no mistake as to what Proposition 202 is.

It is a deception by unions using the Trojan horse of the minimum wage to give themselves total control over this state’s employment policies.

For public consumption, the initiative’s backers have packaged it as a straightforward increase in the state’s minimum wage and a linking of all future increases to the federal Consumer Price Index.

Something so simple, however, should not need 2,000 words to describe it, and this is where proponents give the game away.

The dirty little secrets behind this sumptuous- looking harlot include:

● Exempting state government from paying the state minimum wage.

● Creating a politically appointed commission to oversee minimum wage and employment practices in Arizona.

● Giving that commission full access to all business records, regardless of whether they relate to minimum wage, which would create privacy concerns.

● Granting full enforcement power to the commission to arrest, fine, monitor and inspect.

● Allowing unions and self-styled special-interest groups to file complaints on anyone’s behalf.

● Allowing illegal immigrants to file complaints against American citizens for money.

● Making the accused guilty until proven innocent, which runs counter to our American legal system.

● And allowing allegedly aggrieved workers a full two years to file a complaint.

The above is just a small sampling of the Pandora’s box containing Patterson’s metaphoric rat poison.

These last two provisions cannot be overstated for the potential they have in opening a whole new flock of opportunistic lawsuits for ambitious lawyers.

How easy this initiative makes it for them to not only sue, but also to settle.

Proposition 202 is a grand deception built on a collection of lies big and small, and Arizona voters should see it for what it truly is.

But this will prove difficult, because the minimum wage has enjoyed a public image opposite to its actual effect.

As the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows – and the overwhelming body of economic literature has always known – the minimum wage is actually an entry-level wage.

In short, the bureau’s “Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers 2003″ found:

● Only 2.9 percent of all hourly workers in the nation earn at or below the minimum wage.

● More than half of minimum-wage earners are under age 25.

In short, raising the minimum wage punishes young kids looking for their first jobs.

The minimum wage is therefore not a living wage or a family-sustaining wage.

But if the minimum wage can get away with being something it’s not, why not use it to get away with a ballot initiative that is not what it says it is?

And that is the insidious genius behind the unions’ very crass attempt to grab power that they could never have hoped to achieve any other way.

If the voters buy this lie, they will pay a heavy price for it.

Michelle Bolton and Michael Crowe are co-chairs of the No on 202 Campaign.

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