Crony capitalism is destroying jobs

Re “Government is killing business” (Letters, Oct. 22): Letter writer Jared Katzenbarger has it wrong. Government isn’t killing business. Greedy corporations in collusion with government use trade agreements and tax breaks to hurt all of us, including small businesses.

Companies leave California because other areas of the country and world are willing to sacrifice the well-being of their workers. This has depressed wages. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be far higher than the paltry $12.50 that Sacramento proposes.

I wish people would stop repeating that the minimum wage was never intended to be a living wage. President Franklin Roosevelt stated that it was intended to be a living wage. But right-wing organizations have been chipping away at that concept deliberately.

More adults are working at minimum wage jobs because they have no choice. Almost all of the manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. What is left are mostly white-collar jobs and service jobs. Both serve a useful purpose, and both should be rewarded with a living wage. People who are able to work their way up should be rewarded, but that does not mean that those who cannot should struggle to survive.

Business shoulders too many burdens

In addition to paying taxes of their own, businesses get dumped on to collect almost every tax imaginable from the public and their employees to remit to the federal, state and local agencies.

This does a great service for government and greatly reduces the cost of any other means of collection, but adds an administrative cost to business.

This great service should be rewarded or partially compensated in the form of an income tax credit calculated at a nominal 5 percent of all those taxes collected and remitted, including sales taxes, gasoline taxes, tobacco taxes, employee withholding of income, Social Security and Medicare taxes to name a few. The founding fathers never intended that business should ever be an arm of government.

Metro Chamber is twisting words

Finger-wagging shame on the Sacramento Metro Chamber and its word-bending ways. To lobby against the proposed city minimum wage increase to $12.50 phased in over give years in the name of “Keep Sacramento Working” is the height of cynical Orwellian language play. I submit this name change to Metro Chamber chief executive officer Peter Tateishi: “Keep Sacramento Working For Peanuts.”

Minimum wage idea passes test

Sacramento’s proposed minimum wage ordinance ensures compliance by including language explicitly prohibiting an employer from taking an employee’s tips: “Nothing in this chapter entitles the employer to withhold gratuities from the employee to whom it was given, regardless of whether the employee is entitled to the city minimum wage.”

Total compensation is a critical element of this proposal that will help create income equality between tipped and untipped workers. This is an opt-in program that helps to bridge the income gap in some business models, guaranteeing more than the minimum wage for tipped workers while freeing up limited labor dollars for untipped, heart-of-house employees.

Women in science need pay equity

Gov. Jerry Brown has made public education in science, technology, engineering and math a priority by including additional funding in his 2015-16 budget.

Brown agrees that education in these fields is paramount to produce innovation. However, he is declaring STEM career fields are not deserving of equal pay, as has been observed by the huge pay gap between state engineers and scientists.

Investing in STEM education programs, but not offering competitive salaries won’t help the state reach its long-term goal of gaining a future workforce that will help California remain a part of the global economy.

All women deserve honest advice

Re “A crisis in accurate health advice” (Editorials, Oct. 19): The Bee’s editorial brings to light the deceptive practices of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” and the legislation signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown to combat the misinformation provided by these anti-abortion facilities.

While I appreciate the sentiment that a pregnant teenager has a right to factual medical information, we would emphasize that, no matter what her age, all women facing a pregnancy deserve access to sound medical information.