Beinhart’s Body Politic: Class Warfare IV

by Larry Beinhart, April 26, 2011

Remember Maine?

It’s the state up north with the vast nature preserve that’s supposed to protect America’s last five Traditional Republicans, once known as RWRs, Republicans within Reason. They’re now known as Rinos, Republicans in Name Only, because anyone in the party who pits reason against rhetoric gets knocked out in the primaries.
Maine’s environmental protection agency has apparently failed in its duties because RWRs have become extinct. Word has reached us that the last breeding pair won’t even put down their martinis to get out of their separate beds when dosed with Cialis because they’re upset that their medication might have been funded by Obamacare.

Governors of Maine usually enjoy so much obscurity that they’re hard to distinguish from hibernating bears. But Maine’s new Republican governor, Paul LePage, has managed to draw attention to himself by removing murals from the state’s Department of Labor because some people in them appeared to be working and pictures of people working could be deemed to be hostile to business. According to the governor’s spokesman, it was “one-sided décor” not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.
That was a symbolic gesture.

How about a real one? Well, Paul LePage’s got one for you. How about rolling back child labor laws? Did you know that children in Maine can’t work later than 10pm on school nights? Just because most school days start at eight in the morning and school bus pick-ups begin at 7am or earlier. Children have to be paid minimum wage, $7.50 an hour. Way too much. Let’s push that down to $5.25.

Is that the end, or just the beginning? State Rep. Bruce Bickford (R), who co-sponsored the bill said, “It’s not up to the government to regulate everybody’s life and lifestyle. Take the government away.”

Median family income in Maine is $5,600 less than the US average. Twelve percent of the state lives below the poverty level. Clearly, the governor believes that if they could only get more kids into the work force, to work more hours, for lower wages, that would that fix things.