What would you pay?

I have a client who was recently contracted by a county in Southwest Ohio to do painting work for the county. ( I won't name the county for fear of retaliation to my client).

Here's a question

If you needed painting work done to your home, what do you think an appropriate hourly wage would be for someone in the profession?

a) Minimum wage?

b) $10.00/hour?

c) $15.00/hour?

d) $20.00/hour?

e) $25.00/hour?

The reason that I ask is this county's contract requires the company to pay a "prevailing wage" or basically what would a union worker with no skills would make on the job.

In this case, the prevailing wage is $33.72/hour. That works out to $67,440 a year.

Now ask yourself these questions. Do you make that much money? Would you pay that much money for someone to do that work?

Why am I a tea party supporter? Because this is the type of burden we keep heaping on the backs of taxpayer's who don't make near that kind of money.

Doesn't it strike you as somewhat insane to be paying people almost 3 times what you would pay them as a private individual? And yet this is business as usual in the state of Ohio. So when the topic of tax increases come up just remember Joe $33.72 an hour and tell me again how government is so efficient with our money.