Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 26, 2014

OPINION Mountain Views News Saturday, April 26, 2014 
B5 
Mountain 
Views 
News 
PUBLISHER/ EDITOR 
Susan Henderson 
CITY EDITOR 
Dean Lee 
EAST VALLEY EDITOR 
Joan Schmidt 
BUSINESS EDITOR 
LaQuetta Shamblee 
SENIOR COMMUNITY 
EDITOR 
Pat Birdsall 
SALES 
Patricia Colonello 
626-355-2737 
626-818-2698 
WEBMASTER 
John Aveny 
CONTRIBUTORS 
Chris Leclerc 
Bob Eklund 
Howard HaysPaul CarpenterStuart Tolchin 
Kim Clymer-KelleyChristopher NyergesPeter Dills 
Hail Hamilton 
Rich Johnson 
Merri Jill Finstrom 
Lori KoopRev. James SnyderTina Paul 
Mary CarneyKatie HopkinsDeanne Davis 
Despina ArouzmanGreg WelbornRenee Quenell 
Ben Show 
Sean KaydenMarc Garlett 
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HOWARD Hays As I See ItLEFT TURN/ 
“We can have 
democracy in this country, 
or we can have great wealth 
concentrated in the hands 
of a few, but we can’t have 
both.” 
–Louis Brandeis 
It’s a topic that’s been a 
favorite among pundits 
and politicians for as long 
as there’s been liberal/
conservative, left/right, blue/red and Hays/
Welborn. 
But this wasn’t your standard opinion piece 
about government for sale to the highest bidder. 
It’s a dry, scientific analysis concluding that our 
country’s transformation from democracy to 
oligarchy is already pretty much a done deal. 
It’s titled, “Testing Theories of American 
Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average 
Citizens”, by Professors Martin Gilens of 
Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern 
– due to appear this fall in the journal, 
“Perspectives on Politics”. 
The first theory “tested” is Majoritarian 
Electoral Democracy, which holds that within 
the range of views Americans hold on an issue, 
there’s a place in the middle that has the most 
support – and that policy reflects most of the 
time. 
The next is Economic Elite Domination. 
The authors clarify they’re not referring 
necessarily to those considered “elite” because 
of high positions – but to those who have lots 
of money. 
There’s Majoritarian Pluralism, where those 
with common interests get together. The idea 
is that competition between interest groups 
usually leads to a moderate outcome. 
Finally, there’s Biased Pluralism – groups 
formed not from peoples’ common interests 
but to promote a corporate interest. 
For their study, Gilens and Page analyzed 
1,779 policy change issues over twenty years, 
and the views of those in the bottom 10% 
in income, those at the median and those in 
the upper 10% - not all super-rich, but with 
incomes starting around $150k a year. Those 
with median income also tended to have a 
median view on issues. 
They took interest groups pro and con on 
a particular issue, crunched the numbers and 
came up with a “net” interest group position. 
They found that individuals with average 
interest groups (including corporations, largely 
owned and controlled by wealthy elites) play a 
substantial part in affecting public policy, but 
the general public has little or no independent 
influence.” 
Establishing constants for the “net” interest 
group position and that of the Economic 
Elite, the authors found that when it comes to 
achieving policy changes, “it makes very little 
difference what the general public thinks”. If 
one-in-five of those in the upper 10% supports 
something, it has an 18% chance of getting 
done. If four-in-five support it, the chance of it 
happening increases to 45%. As for the rest of 
us, whether a policy change is supported by a 
tiny minority or by an overwhelming majority, 
it doesn’t really matter. 
The authors concede the system itself has 
an inherent bias towards the status quo. Of 
those 1,779 issues they studied, policy changes 
supported by a bare majority of the public 
actually took place only 30% of the time. If 
support grew to 80% among the public, the 
chance of it happening increased only to 43%.
Many of us do get our way, but that’s not 
because of participatory democracy as much 
as the fact that our desires often align with 
those of the more affluent. The authors call this 
“democracy by coincidence, in which ordinary 
citizens get what they want from government 
only when they happen to agree with elites or 
interest groups that are really calling the shots. 
When push comes to shove, actual influence 
matters.” 
The two types of interest groups are 
compared. The business-oriented groups are 
twice as effective in influencing policy as the 
people-oriented ones – mainly because there 
are twice as many of them. The net positions of 
populist interest groups have only a very slight 
positive correlation with the preferences of 
average Americans. For the business-related 
groups, it’s a negative correlation – and they’re 
the ones with the most influence over policy. 
The authors remind that their study focused 
on influence over matters up for decision. But 
they point out that the same influence bias 
applies in setting the agenda for what’s to be 
considered in the future, and in “shaping” 
the preferences of the average citizen. In any 
case, “when a majority of citizens disagrees 
with economic elites and/or with organized 
interests, they generally lose.” 
In other news this month, the NY Times 
reports that corporate profits are at their 
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OUT TO PASTOR 
A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder 
RIGHT TURN 
GREG WelbornRESTAURANTS SHOULDN’T 
SERVE CHEAP SANDWICHES 
I AM ON A ROLL SO DON’T 
ROCK MY BOAT! 
So, we’ve been told that the ideal 
business model – at least insofar as 
employees are concerned – is embodied 
in Costco and Zingerman’s Deli. 
These are two companies to which 
President Obama paid special tribute 
on his minimum wage marketing tour. 
Both pay their employees more than 
the minimum wage so they are to be 
applauded and emulated. But both are 
actually perfect examples of why the 
minimum wage shouldn’t be raised. 
Let’s take Costco. By all accounts, 
it’s a great place to work offering a great 
environment an above-minimum-wage 
scale. But for the national debate on 
this issue, what’s missing is that they can 
afford to do this. As reported by Michael 
Saltsman of the Employment Policies 
Institute, Costco charges its members an 
annual fee and sells products at prices 
which allow it to earn an average $10,000 
profit per employee each year. Your 
average casual dining restaurant, on 
the other hand, earns roughly $2,000 in 
profit per employee. That’s a 5 to 1 ratio, 
allowing Costco to pay employees more 
than a casual dining restaurant.
Perhaps that’s why President Obama 
also referenced Zingerman’s Deli. If ever 
there was a casual dining joint it’s a deli. 
Casual or not, Zingerman’s sandwiches 
run about $12 to $14. Most local 
sandwich shops, McDonalds, Subways, 
Burger Kings, etc. couldn’t charge ten 
bucks for a sandwich to someone coming 
off a diet. Raising the minimum wage 
will not affect companies that are already 
paying more than the minimum wage. 
But raising the minimum will have a 
tremendous effect on those businesses 
which hire the least skilled workers and 
sell lower priced items. 
If you force these businesses to increase 
their wages, they have three choices: A) 
raise their prices – thus passing the 
burden on to customers who probably 
shop there because they can’t afford 
the more expensive alternative – or B) 
reduce the number of workers who have 
to receive the new higher wage – thus 
unwillingness to 
really deal with the 
primary cause of 
income inequality:
s i n g le -p a re n tfamilies. It may have 
taken some time for 
statistical analysis to 
prove what common 
sense, and the good 
Lord, told us, but the correlation between 
economic inequality and single-parentfamilies is stronger than the correlation 
of inequality with any other factor. 
Consider some basic statistics. In 
1960, 97% of whites, and 76% of blacks, 
were born to married couples. Today, 
those rates have dropped to 70% for 
whites, 30% for blacks, and 50% for 
Hispanics. On the economic side, it is 
equally clear and devastating. Only 2% 
of children raised in two-parent families 
live in poverty long-term, while more 
than 20% of the kids raised in single-
parent homes live in poverty longterm. 
Numerous books and studies by 
credentialed, respected academics – 
from Susan Mayer to Charles Murray – 
have chronicled the decline and causes of 
income inequality and poverty. Today, 
the causal relationship between single-
parent homes and poverty is stronger 
than that between smoking and cancer. 
Lest I be accused of racism, because 
I’m picking on the victims, who 
happen to be overwhelmingly black 
and Hispanic, please consider that 
even Harvard University – a bastion of 
Liberalism – produced a study showing 
that communities with high percentages 
of single-parent homes are less likely to 
enjoy upward mobility. 
As a conservative, I am a friend of the 
poor and certainly more of a champion of 
the poor than any Liberal in the modern 
era. I say that because as a conservative I 
care about outcomes, not just intentions. 
I care about opportunity; I care about 
mobility; I care about people having a 
job – any job – in which they can have 
opportunity and learn the skills they’ll 
Have you ever hadone of those weeks 
where everything 
went exactly as 
planned? Well, neither have I, except for 
last week. I do not know what was going 
on last week, all I know is everything 
went according to plan. My plan, that is. 
I was on a roll. 
In a sense, that worries me. I am not 
accustomed to having my week work out 
according to my plans. Normally, if I can 
get 50% of my plans accomplished in a 
week, I am doing pretty good. Last week 
was one of those weeks, which may never 
repeat itself ever again, I am sorry to say. 
Or, am I sorry? 
In contrast, the week before it was 
horrendous. 
I was out of town on business for the 
week and had to return via the airplane. 
If you have ever been on an airplane, you 
know that the 10 dwarfs of Snow White 
fame designed the seats. I think the one 
in charge of the seat project was Grumpy. 
I was flying from Chicago to Orlando, 
which is not that bad of a trip. I boarded 
the plane in Chicago and took my seat 
at B3. I got all snuggled and strapped in 
and was prepared for the trip. No sooner 
had I gotten into this state of affairs, and 
you know getting into those seats is one 
of the great challenges that a real man 
has, somebody came and stood at the 
aisle looking at me and said in a high 
pitch grumpy voice, "You are sitting in 
my seat." 
The emphasis on the word "my," indicated 
to me I was up against someone that I did 
not want to be up against. 
"I'm sorry, madam," I stated as calmly 
as possible, "but this is my seat." I tried 
to emphasize the word "my" to get the 
message across. 
She stared at me with one of those stares 
that penetrates the very soul of a person's 
manhood. Then she waved her ticket at 
me and said, "You are sitting in MY seat." 
I took out my ticket to wave at her and 
prove she was wrong. Much to my 
chagrin, my seat was B13. Do you know 
what it takes to get unbuckled from a 
plane seat and extradite yourself out of it? 
Especially when Ms. Grumpy is staring at 
you with one of those stares. 
I went back to B13 and went through the 
same procedure to get myself situated in 
the seat for someone half my size. Just 
before the plane took off, I heard in the 
seat behind me a little baby start to cry. 
"Oh, no," I said to myself, "not a crying 
baby!" Sure enough, in the seat behind 
me was a baby with lungs the size of an 
elephant. I tried pretending I did not 
hear, but the more I pretended the more I 
heard. That baby cried from the moment 
we took off until the moment we landed. 
When we landed, the baby fell asleep. I 
wanted to cry myself. 
That was last week. This week was 
different in every respect. I enjoyed this 
week, particularly the fact that I got all 
my "to-do-list" accomplished and by early 
Friday afternoon, I had nothing to do. 
Nothing to do! 
Then a thought wrestled my brain to the 
mat. What if the Gracious Mistress of the 
Parsonage found out I had finished all my 
work and had nothing to do? 
When I thought about this, one thought 
that was predominant was that it is a good 
thing when I do NOT finish everything in 
a week. Then, I have the excuse that I have 
too much to do to delve into the "honey-
do-list" of which my wife is most famous. 
I believe this "honey-do-list" is something 
mothers pass on to their daughters. It is 
part of the women's secret society that 
does not permit any intrusion from the 
non-female counterpart. It is the reason 
wives prefer their husbands call them 
the secret name, "Honey." Whenever the 
husband uses this term of endearment 
the wife smiles one of those romantic 
smiles that her husband has no idea what 
is behind that smile. 
It has taken me a long time to come to 
this point of understanding. While, it is 
very gratifying to get your work for the 
week done ahead of schedule, it creates 
an opportunity for the intrusion of that 
infamous "honey-do-list." This list has no 
end to it. 
When you accomplish one item on the 
"honey-do-list," three other items appear 
automatically. It is virtually impossible 
to finish everything on that list. It is part 
of the wife's secret society no man can 
penetrate. 
Being on such a good roll in any given 
week is not the grand thing I thought it 
was. I am now content to have my desk 
piled high with unfinished work at the 
end of each week. 
Since I had a little bit of time on my hands, 
I read what good old King Solomon, the 
wisest man that ever lived, thought along 
these lines. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
to do, do it with thy might; for there is no 
work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest" 
(Ecclesiastes 9:10). 
If I do not use my time to the best of my 
ability, the probabilities are pretty high 
somebody will intrude and use that time 
for some other use. 
Mountain Views News 
Mission Statement 
The traditions of 
community newspapers 
and the 
incomes tend to agree on most things with 
those who are more affluent, but they don’t 
agree with interest groups. This was true 
with the “economic elite”, as well. While, for 
highest level in 85 years, while employee 
compensation is at its lowest in 65 years. 
The Supreme Court in its McCutcheon 
decision gutted overall campaign spending 
unemploying those who need an entry 
level job the most – or C) a little of both.
The President is on a tear to raise 
the minimum wage because he claims 
need to advance up the income scale. I 
don’t care about how rich the rich are; 
I care about how poor the poor are and 
how long they have to stay there. 
concerns of our readers 
are this newspaper’s 
top priorities. We 
support a prosperouscommunity of well-
informed citizens. 
We hold in highregard the values 
of the exceptionalquality of life in our 
community, includingthe magnificence of 
our natural resources. 
example, as individuals they might support 
smaller government, the business groups they 
bankroll will support whatever corporate 
welfare and government subsidy program that 
helps boost profits. 
Half-way through the study comes the 
main point: When testing each of those four 
“theories” independently, they can each be 
affirmed as having an effect on policy changes. 
It’s when you start comparing them that things 
get out of whack. 
When matched up against Majoritarian 
Democracy, Economic Elites are shown to 
have a “quite substantial, highly significant, 
independent impact on policy”, while “ordinary 
citizens” have “little or no independent 
limits. 
House Republicans killed President 
Obama’s minimum wage proposal, which was 
supported by 75% of Americans (but only 40% 
of the wealthy). 
Republican hopefuls for 2016 went to 
Vegas to kiss the ring of casino magnate 
Sheldon Adelson, and to New Hampshire for 
the “Freedom Summit” thrown by the Koch 
Brothers (whose combined worth just topped 
$100 billion). 
Professors Gilens and Page conclude by 
warning, “if policymaking is dominated by 
powerful business organizations and a small 
number of affluent Americans, then America’s 
claims to being a democratic society are 
to support the little guy, but his policy 
prescription will hurt them most. Those 
who can least afford to lose a job where 
they’re learning job skills will be fired, 
and all of them will pay more for the 
products and services they purchase 
from the businesses affected by the 
minimum wage. 
This isn’t complicated, but there is 
something about the inequality between 
those who earn a lot and those who don’t 
earn much which blinds this president, 
and most in his party, to the laws of 
economics. They are willfully ignoring 
the unintended, but very predictable, 
Liberals, like President Obama, claim 
the greatest of intentions and many times 
generate the most compassionate sound 
bites, but they seem to care very little 
about outcomes among the poor, the very 
people they claim to champion. Rather 
than making sure the poor can get a job 
and work their way up the income ladder, 
the Liberal solution to income inequality 
boils down to telling restaurants to stop 
serving cheap sandwiches. That won’t 
help anyone.
About the author: Gregory J. Welborn 
is a freelance writer and has spoken to 
several civic and religious organizations 
guide.
Integrity will be our influence on policy at all.” 
The result is somewhat of a mix, finding that 
“both individual economic elites and organized 
Their study leads one to doubt whether 
there’s still any “if ” about it.
seriously threatened.”
very constituency they hope to help. 
Beyond that blindness, there is also 
reached gregwelborn2@gmail.com 
consequences which will devastate the on cultural and moral issues. He can be 

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