Equal time for common sense on 'equal' pay

I’ve written a couple of columns in a row on some of the more blatant attempts by liberals to shut down free and fair debate on topics ranging from climate change to Christianity.

The techniques employed in this campaign range from name-calling (climate change “deniers,” war criminals, homophobes) to actual criminalization of thought (seen especially in Canada with its “hate speech” laws, but working its way into American jurisprudence as well).

But there is also a more subtle approach that probably has more impact on silencing opposition to liberal social policies than sheer intimidation does, and that approach is “the big lie.”

Last week, we saw the big lie on full display, as politician after politician bent over backwards to promote the idea of equal pay for women. I should say liberal politicians, because so far as I can tell, the only purpose of this campaign was for liberal politicians to try to make conservative politicians look like bad people by suggesting that somehow they were for unequal pay for equal work.

President Obama and the White House took the lead on “Equal Pay Day” to demonize bosses and businesses. He said that he was fighting for “a simple principle: equal pay for equal work.” He then repeated the oft-quoted evidence that suggests an imbalance, an injustice, and impropriety: “Today, the average full-time working woman earns just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.”

Sounds horrible, doesn’t it? And it should sound horrible, because it is not just a little lie, it is a “big lie,” the kind of lie that is so outrageous no one doubts it is true. And, more importantly, the kind of lie which typical politicians can’t afford to vocally oppose because they will find themselves being targeted in the campaign crosshairs as misogynistic Neanderthals.  

So what is the lie? Simple. Women do not make 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same job. This has nothing to do with wage discrimination. It has nothing to do with equal pay for equal work. The 77 percent statistic is based on the average salary of all women in all jobs compared to the average salary of all men in all jobs. There is no imputed injustice in the fact that women are paid differently than men who work in different jobs. Nor would there be any justice in creating “equity” in pay between all men and all women. The only way that could be accomplished would be by artificially taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people who have not earned it.

This is called “redistribution of wealth.” It is a basic principle of Marxism, and if we are surprised to see liberals promoting such an idea in the United States, then shame on us. Just as Sen. Max Baucus admitted in 2010 that Obamacare was intended to correct what he called the “mal-distribution of income in America,” almost every social policy introduced by Democrats in the past 50 years has been aimed at taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people. You can’t even say they are taking money from the rich, because the evidence is clear that they have been taking money from the middle class as well.

So, what exactly would President Obama do if he didn’t have conservative Republicans standing in his way? Create a new tax entitlement similar to the “Obamacare” health insurance tax credit (subsidy) or the Earned Income Tax Credit which would simply give women in lower-paying jobs a credit that brought their salary up to the level of the average salary of all men in the United States?

Do I really need to say that such an idea is insane? Yet, there is no other mechanism that could accomplish the intended effect short of ordering that all workers in all jobs shall be paid at the same pay rate, with adjustments based only on the size of one’s family rather than one’s abilities or one’s merit or one’s training.

But how many politicians are going to actively oppose the president’s “big lie”? Do you know any Republicans who want to face advertising campaigns this fall that accuse them of being “anti-women’s rights”? Of course not.

That’s why this technique is so effective. It puts conservatives in a box, and makes the truth irrelevant. The so-called Paycheck Fairness Act, which Democrats wanted to pass last week, was a sham. The fact of the matter is that it has been against the law to pay a woman less than a man for the same work in the same job with the same experience since 1963 when the Equal Pay Act was passed.

Moreover, the fake fix offered by the Democrats would be the exact opposite of the fairness promised. It would make it virtually impossible for employers to reward their best employees by paying them more based on performance. What’s fair about paying employees based on the job they are asked to do rather than how well they are actually doing it? Nothing, that’s what.

But that didn’t stop both of Montana’s U.S. senators and its governor from pandering to voters over the issue. Sen. Jon Tester put out a statement that Montana’s women make on average 76 percent of what a man makes, and he said “We can do better.” Yet how? His only solution was equal pay for equal work, but we already have that. No ethical employer is going to offer a woman less money than a man doing the same job with the same experience. And there are almost no cases of people being prosecuted on such charges.

Gov. Steve Bullock goes even further. He claims that in Montana, women earn “only 67 percent of what men do for the same job.” That’s why, in his first year on the job, he created the Equal Pay for Equal Work Task Force, which recently held an Equal Pay Summit at Montana State University.

The governor claims that in Montana, women don’t always “get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” Maybe he can even find some obscure case somewhere that involved a woman worker making 67 percent of what a male employee made for the same work. No one says injustice doesn’t happen on occasion, and when it does, it should be rooted out, but it certainly isn’t the rule, and the law already exists to stop wage discrimination. Yet Gov. Bullock says Montana suffers from “a moral failing” because it is treating women differently than men in the workplace.

That is a serious accusation against Montana employers, and should not go unanswered.

My challenge to the governor and anyone else who thinks women don’t get equal pay for equal work is simple: Prove it. Don’t just keep citing the irrelevant 77 percent statistic, or the even more damning 67 percent statistic. Find actual examples of women who are making less than their male counterparts in the same business with the same experience, and then show how they could not have used the existing Equal Pay Act of 1963 to rectify the problem.

If anyone anywhere could do that, Republicans would demand changes in the law immediately, just as all people would. So why don’t the Democrats provide evidence instead of empty rhetoric?

You know the answer as well as I do — politics. I suppose the real question is what are WE going to do about it? Just keep repeating the “big lie” because it suits our own political agendas, or demand responsible leadership that won’t exploit people’s hopes and fears?