Minimum wage hypocrisy: Force a bad law on businesses generally, but exempt special large corporate interests

All of our all-Democratic county elected officials seem to agree that raising the minimum wage is good, despite the harm it might cause businesses or the danger that it might lead to higher prices. The council voted unanimously for a 58% increase in the the minimum wage, and county executive Rushern Baker supported the increase.

BUT ...

Now one large employer wants special treatment. Six Flags has found an excuse to argue that they deserve special treatment. So councilman Derrick L. Davis (D-6) plans to introduce discriminatory legislation to provide corporate welfare benefits for a special interest in his district.

Never mind that there are lots or reasons not to increase the minimum wage at all. Or that lots of businesses might have business-specific arguments against it.

No, following Orwell's story that All Pigs are Equal, but Some Pigs are More Equal than Other Pigs, Derrick Davis is going to make Six Flags more equal than any other county employer. Apparently Mr. Baker agrees with this special treatment of a single big corporate employer.

And I thought that this kind of special treatment for big corporations was what local folks claim distinguishes evil Republicans from good Democrats.

Have Davis and Baker sold out? Will they now begin to listen to similar or identical arguments from other businesses?

Or do they only help out big corporations, not run-of-the-mill business owners?

CLOWNING AROUND: Dem opposes minimum wage hike at amusement park

By Andrea Noble,  The Washington Times, Monday, January 13, 2014

An effort is underway in Prince George’s County to carve out an exemption to the much-ballyhooed “regional minimum wage” increase passed by lawmakers there, in Montgomery County and in the District last year.

County Council member Derrick Leon Davis is expected to introduce a bill Tuesday that would let one of the county’s largest employers, Six Flags, continue to pay its seasonal workers at the lower rate of $7.25 per hour instead of the wage that would increase to $11.50 per hour by 2017.

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