MADISON, WI [ LINK : Chicago Tribune ] The Department of Workforce Development has asked the Wisconsin state legislature to inflate the price of our Happy Meals.  Yes, the minimum wage is back on the docket.  Again.

It takes about two years to raise the minimum wage threshold.  The first year, Democrats travel the state burying every copy of the Federal and State Constitutions that they can find beneath gallons of DNR-approved goose poo.  The second year is spent convincing the Republicans that there never really WAS any expressed limitation on their powers codified into the law, and distracting them with shiny objects.  The markup is then voted on and approved before replacement Constitutions arrive from eBay, and then the whole process starts over.

The arguments are the same every time around:  people deserve a “livable” wage, and a fry cook simply can’t be expected to raise a family of eleven on $6.25 an hour, even with those nine different child-support checks coming in.  As a civilized people, we are obligated to provide underachievers with an acceptable level of squalor, so periodically, self-righteous bureaucrats grab Ronald McDonald by his red/white striped ankles, hold him upside down, and shake until more money falls out.

“We know how deep those pockets are, clown!” they’ll scowl.  “Lookit the size of those pants!”

They should talk.  Those legislators’ own slacks have to be tailored to comical proportions to accommodate the tremendous balls it takes to perpetuate this scam on a gullible public time and time again.  And it’s a safe bet that yards upon yards of fabric have to be added to the rear area of a pair of drawers when one is such a tremendous asshole.

But it’s useless to fight them.  We obviously can’t win this tug-of-war, so I say, let go of the rope.  I’d even go so far as to line up on their side of the mud puddle and yank hard.

We need a $100 per hour minimum wage.  Think of the economic prosperity that would follow when all of us enjoy a comfortable and prosperous six-figure income.  This IS their argument after all.  If a little more money makes people a little better off, then a LOT more money should make us all a LOT better off.

Plus, you’ll need all that money when a Happy Meal costs a hundred and fifty bucks…