“Serious cuts” coming from SeaTac, WA biz as $15/hr min wage set to take effect

Shocking! Via Fox News:

As talk builds on Capitol Hill over hiking the federal minimum wage, one city in Washington state is poised to set the highest rate in the nation.

On Jan. 1, an estimated 1,600 hotel and transportation workers in SeaTac, Wash., will see their pay jump to $15 an hour, a 60 percent increase from the state’s $9.32 minimum wage. 

While many workers look forward to the higher pay, employers are looking for ways to absorb the big increase in labor costs. Some plan on eliminating jobs. 

“We’re going to be looking at making some serious cuts,” said Cedarbrook Lodge General Manager Scott Ostrander. “We’re going to be looking at reducing employee hours, reducing benefits and eliminating some positions.” 

That’s in the short term. Eventually, those jobs and more are expected to return as the Cedarbrook Lodge looks to build an addition to the hotel. The plan is to increase revenue to offset the higher labor costs.

But not every employer is being so ambitious. One has told a trade group it is going to close one of its two restaurants, eliminating 200 jobs. 

The plan has also caused Han Kim — who runs Hotel Concepts, a company that owns and manages 11 hotels in Washington state — to shelve plans to build a hotel in SeaTac. The company already has three hotels in SeaTac, and Kim and a business partner were looking to build a fourth on land they own.

“Uncertainty is bad for business, and right now we’re right in that area so we’re just putting everything on hold,” Kim said.

[…]

The owner of Dollar Rental Cars told Fox News she’ll outsource some functions, change schedules and cut some staff in response to the new policy.

And guess what? Job cut backs, losses, and a halt in business expansion won’t be the only thing hitting SeaTac, WA if the minimum wage hike goes through: The prices of goods and services will also go up, which means tourists will spend less because they can’t afford the price jump the businesses had to implement in order to pay their staffs.

Talk about dumb!

This, btw, is all part of a new nationwide strategy on the part of Democrats who are trying to do their best to distract and deflect from a hellacious 2013 year for them thanks to Obamacare:

WASHINGTON — Democratic Party  leaders, bruised by months of attacks on the new health care program, have found an issue they believe can lift their fortunes both locally and nationally in 2014: an increase in the minimum wage.

The effort to take advantage of growing populism among voters in both parties is being coordinated by officials from the White House, labor unions and liberal advocacy groups.

In a series of strategy meetings and conference calls among them in recent weeks, they have focused on two levels: an effort to raise the federal minimum wage, which will be pushed by President Obama and congressional leaders, and a campaign to place state-level minimum wage proposals on the ballot in states with hotly contested congressional races.

With polls showing widespread support for an increase in the $7.25-per-hour federal minimum wage among both Republican and Democratic voters, top Democrats see not only a wedge issue that they hope will place Republican candidates in a difficult position, but also a tool with which to enlarge the electorate in a nonpresidential election, when turnout among minorities and youths typically drops off.

“It puts Republicans on the wrong side of an important value issue when it comes to fairness,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s senior adviser. “You can make a very strong case that this will be a helpful issue for Democrats in 2014. But the goal here is to actually get it done. That’s why the president put it on the agenda.”

Top Republicans assert that a wage increase would dampen the economic recovery and indicated after Mr. Obama mentioned the issue in his State of the Union speech this year that they had no intention of bringing a minimum-wage increase to a vote in the House, which they control.

“Why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?” Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said.

Indeed why?

What we’re seeing here – as usual – are Democrats (who are also cranking up this rhetoric here in North Carolina) resorting to desperate attempts at vote-buying. They did it with “free” healthcare, “free” birth control, “forgiveness” of student loans, a vast expansion of the welfare state, and now this.  This party is flat out of ideas – has been for a long time, in fact – and now has few other options on the table left but to promise you “free” stuff,  higher pay (which would have to come out of someone ELSE’S pocket – surprise!) , and “protection” from the very people who have the money to spend to start up a business or expand one. You know, the people who provide employment opportunities – which this country so desperately needs right now?  It’s never occurred to these dum dums that you earn higher pay based on the type of job you have, the skill level it requires, how productive and efficient you are at it, etc.  Then again, it shouldn’t shock anyone that this bunch believes you shouldn’t have to work harder to earn more money – that instead it should just be given to you via the force of government.

Just how do Republicans effectively combat naked liberal appeals to the “gimme generation”?