Fifteen or Fight!

For someone so ept at electoral politics, Barack Obama has repeatedly shown himself to be artless when it comes to the political side of governance. Over and over again the president has entered policy negotiations with low-ball proposals that set-up compromises that, in real terms, hand victory to his opponents.

Take the $9 minimum wage proposal. A person making $9 an hour will earn, before deductions, $360 a week. That's working a full week, but many retail and service jobs offer much shorter hours. Even a worker lucky enough to land two full-time jobs -- 80 hours a week -- would take home less than $720 a week after deductions. Clearly, a minimum wage of $9 is insufficient if the goal is to assure that, as the president said, no one with a full time job should have to live in poverty.

The problem with Obama's maladroit handling of negotiations with the conservatives is that he establishes benchmarks that, while they may achieve "compromise," not only don't fix the problem being addressed but make it more unlikely that a better result can be achieved in the future (think of health care reform).

As politics, $9 barely makes sense; as policy, it's ridiculous. Labor and liberals should have nothing to do with it.