Limiting Economic Mobility and Loving It
by Andy Caldwell
Conservatives believe the best way for people to become upwardly mobile (that doesn’t create inflation) is via equal opportunity which is ultimately dependent upon a person’s education, work ethic, lifestyle choices, and the principle of no risk, no reward. Progressives, however, believe government can help people become upwardly mobile by way of redistributing wealth with a focus on guaranteed outcomes regardless of the aforementioned factors.
Thereby, Santa Barbara County Supervisors Das Williams, Laura Capps, and Joan Hartmann, are entertaining a proposal by two activist groups: the Central Coastal Alliance United for A Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), and Mixteco/Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), to create a $26-an-hour living wage for farmworkers. The request is based on a shoddy report which failed to acknowledge that most farmworkers earn well above minimum wage because they receive bonus pay, known as piece-rate (basically a form of profit-sharing), on top of the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, one county supervisor revealed that nearly 10% of the county’s workforce does not earn $26 per hour despite the county having a $1.6 billion budget. Moreover, MICOP had a budget of over $10 million in 2022, while CAUSE limped along with a measly $5 million, according to their IRS filings. Where did they get this much money?
The answer to that explains the difference between genuine grassroots movements and artificial turf. CAUSE and MICOP are basically funded by foundations that are not based here locally, including the Irvine Foundation in Orange County that gave these two organizations $3.8 million collectively in 2022. Despite this largess, MICOP and CAUSE don’t pay their own workers a minimum wage of $26 either. A recent joint advertisement offered positions starting at $22 per hour!
Economic 101
So, here are a couple of basic economic lessons for our supervisors. If farmworkers want a better paying job, then they need to move up in the company or move to a different economic sector because most of our farmers haven’t made a profit in over two years. Thus, any arbitrary and capricious wage hike imposed by the county will result in job losses rather than increased wages. What other entry-level sectors are available for these employees, most of whom are immigrants facing language barriers and with little to no education? For the record, most immigrants in America work in sectors other than agriculture, including food and lodging services.
While Supervisors Capps and Williams have relatively few farms in their districts, they do have many hotels and restaurants. However, these two sectors are the bottom dwellers out of all the sectors of our economy. While paying less money, these sectors employ more people than agriculture. Furthermore, a significant number of the people working in these sectors either live in or commute to the South County, which has a higher cost of living than the north county, which is where most all row crops are found. So, why are these two supervisors not considering a “living wage” for these sectors of our economy (not that I am suggesting it)?
That brings us back to the differences between conservatives and progressives. County supervisors have placed a measure on the November ballot asking for an increase in the transient occupancy tax rate (vote NO on H2024!). Hence, they are seeking to exploit more money out of the lowest paying sector of the economy while doing nothing for the workers in that sector.
Threat to the Quality of Life
A conservative’s perspective on this income stream posits that if the county wants more bed-tax dollars, they should allow more hotels and motels to be built. That is, more beds would create more jobs and more revenue. Instead, these supervisors would rather increase the costs to consumers via higher taxes. Ultimately, higher taxes and wages serve to create inflation and less job creation, meaning that one of the greatest impediments to upward mobility are the policies that limit new development.
What if, however, limiting growth, which is considered a threat to the quality of life for the local elite, was the overarching purpose of Santa Barbara progressives? Years ago, a former county planning director spilled the beans of his mission, “The cost of preserving the high quality of life in Santa Barbara County includes limiting opportunities for others. It limits economic mobility, but that is a legitimate political choice.”
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Thanks Andy for again exposing the hypocrisy and dishonesty of our local government officials. The three amigos, Capps, Hartman and Williams seem to be at the core of this cabal of leftist schemes. Since when is it the role of the BOS to mandate or set minimum wages? Of course, higher wages in agriculture will affect food prices at the grocery store. Further, why should a lame duck like Das Williams be aloud to affect policies which the middle class will be dealing with for years?
This is not to suggest that local farms don’t have culpability in our current immigration crisis. Hey, if you plan to bring in hundreds of migrants to pick your crops, plan on housing them on your property!
As for Transitory Occupant Tax, yet another lefty ruse to stick it to out- of-towners in order to extract money for their pet projects. There comes a point when touristas will choose other places to vacation.
Lastly, these not-for-profits which seem to pop up everywhere, seem to be overwhelmingly supporting leftist causes need to be scrutinized or investigated as to who is actually running these multi million dollar shell corporations to find out are they actually charities or fronts for lefty political agendas.
Bat Shit Crazy is not a political or economic plan. Harris and her BSC followers are nothing but Little Red Book carrying stooges “untethered by what was” or whatever in a blind march for open socialism/ outright communism. Voters for Harris under proper legal review could properly be determined “enemies of the Republic” as they seek the overthrow of our constitution. They are saying this openly now. You know, “unburdened by the Constitution and laws.”