In an exercise in futility, the Tea Party-led state legislature abolished New Hampshire's minimum wage law on Sunday, overriding the governor's veto and stripping rules regulating wage from the books. Why was it futile? Because New Hampshire's minimum wage was set at the federal minimum, meaning employees working at minimum wage-level jobs are in no danger of having pay cuts.
During the fight over the removing the state law from the books, Republicans insisted the wage law not only makes it harder to create jobs, it kills them.
"With this veto, the governor is sending the wrong message to employers that New Hampshire is going to make it harder to create jobs," Republican House Speaker William O'Brien said in June. Voters, he said, have sent "a clear message that they wanted more jobs, not job-killing regulations, like the minimum wage."
House Republicans also killed a Democratically sponsored bill that would have raised the wage. Democrats argued the 75 cent proposed hourly increase would put $30 more each week in the pockets of the state's 4,000 lowest-paid workers, money that would be spent boosting the economy.Give me a break. Why waste the state's money voting on this nonsense? It's clear that this action-- which would have gotten them Rick Perry's grades were they taking Economics 101-- was merely intended to spit in the eye of Democratic lawmakers in this state. Because now is the perfect time for meaningless gestures.