The Economy

The year was 1992; George H.W Bush was running for reelection. I had just turned 18 and was entering my last year of High School. I was also paying more attention to politics and had decided to register as a Democrat. During the Democratic Party primaries I had rooted for the now late Paul Tsongas and was a little disappointed when Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton got the party nod. To be honest I didn’t really know a lot about Paul Tsongas’ platforms. What I do remember was a commercial of his that I had seen where he was swimming. The commercial promised that if elected Paul Tsongas would immediately call an economic summit to deal with the then economic recession. This appealed to me. I figured that something needed to be done about the economy. And I was impressed that somewhat in government had come out and offered to really look at the problem and address the issues. I was disappointed when he lost the Primaries. I got over it though when I heard Bill Clinton speak. Say what you will about him, he is a good orator. I once heard him speak where he quoted scripture. That too impressed me. He quoted part of Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” I don’t remember anything else he said, I just remember getting a good feeling when he spoke.

Looking back though, I fully realize that I knew nothing when it came to the economy in general and the Democratic platform in particular. I think that I was a Democrat only because my parents were Republican. I was excited to get to vote but, admittedly, I did not know what I was voting for. Eventually, I could not make up my mind because I just did not understand. So I went with the “safe” vote. I voted for Bush. That’s right, as a Democrat, I voted for Bush. I didn’t know why I was voting for him at all. But I knew that if I had voted Democrat, My father would have asked me why. I would not have been able to answer, so I avoided the issue and voted for Bush.

My father remains (warts and all) one of the smartest men I know. Politically, he could be a little intimidating but only because he asked good questions and if you did not have good answers, you looked stupid. This was driven home one evening that same year when we had a discussion about minimum wage. I, being a teenager who earned minimum wage, was all for the government raising it. My father was against it. He had been a small business owner who had burned out and sold his business. He understood well the consequences of government intervention into the economy. He understood the effects on business owners that raising the minimum wage would have. He explained how such government intervention might hurt the very people (especially me) that the government thought they were helping. He explained it from a small business point of view. He said that small businesses don’t often have a whole lot of money to throw around. If they have to choose between paying so much for taxes (or go to jail for tax evasion) and pay a government-mandated minimum wage hike for employees (the number of which you can control) guess which one you are not going to pay? A primary effect may be that workers looking for jobs are hurt because employers simply cannot hire them, they cannot afford too. A secondary effect is that small businesses cannot hire needed help to handle the workload of running a business, which causes more stress for the business owner.

My father had a really hard time explaining this to an 18-year old kid who made minimum wage and didn’t understand a thing about economic cause and effect. This was not his fault. It was mine. It was and is my responsibility to do the research and understand these things.