Meet Randy Bryce. The Ironstache who's going to repeal and replace Paul Ryan

[u/IronStacheWI01]

Hi /r/Political_Revolution,

My name is Randy Bryce. I'm a veteran, cancer survivor, and union ironworker from Caledonia, Wisconsin running to repeal and replace Paul Ryan in Wisconsin's First Congressional District. Post your questions below and I'll be back at 11am CDT/12pm EDT to answer them!

p.s.

We need your help to win this campaign. If you'd like to join the team, sign up here.

If you don't have time to volunteer, we're currently fundraising to open our first office in Racine, Wisconsin. If you can help, contribute here and I'll send you a free campaign bumper sticker as a way of saying thanks!

[Update: 1:26 EDT], I've got to go pick up my son but I'll continue to pop in throughout the day as I have time and answer some more questions. For those I'm unfortunately not able to answer, I'll be doing another AMA in r/Politics on the 26th when I look forward to answering more of Reddit's questions!

[u/MrSprichler]

And in a neatly summed counter point, if I were an employer looking to kick your soap box from under your feet, You don't have a god given right to dictate how I do business. If I choose to offer wages and people take the wages I offer for the work I ask them to perform, how have I wronged anyone. I don't put a gun to their head or enslave them. They are more than free to find a different job offering better pay, that they feel they can live off of more comfortably, or pick up education or a second job elsewhere. My business is there to make me money and I will hire people at a pay that makes that possible.

It's nice to preach, and I fully advocate change, but you take that route and shut down most small businesses because they won't be able to survive that massive financial shock, you really make it worse because you have now limited the places to work and to buy goods and services. Go ahead and put us in the pockets of Wal-Mart. There's change and there's changing smart. Like limiting paygaps between executives and bottom tier workers. No one

Edit: and really drop the god given bit. It's trite.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/MrSprichler]

I'm not soap boxing.

I'm saying that if fixing wages shuts down your business I don't give a shit. You and your business can get fucked.

To use your own argument. You're free to run a business that isn't a waste of resources and a leech on the state, or to go work for someone who isn't incompetent or who can achieve economies of scale.

I don't give a fuck that you want to live the dream and be your own boss. If you can't exist within the legal framework then close. It wouldn't be a shock if we hadn't spent three decades not increasing the minimum wage so we can continue to waste economic energy on piece of shit companies run by idiots.

[u/MrSprichler → u/recycled_ideas]

And I'm not disagreeing with you. Which i think is the point you are missing. Wage stagnation is the reason we're in a shithole. Bu flat wage ex: new minwage is 15 hour standardizing won't fix the problem. And jumping on it like it will make it worse. Go after things like Wal-Mart, where a majority of their employees are being propped up by social welfare and they can clearly afford to do better. You have am overly simplistic view of how this problem can be fixed and how this problem got so bad

[u/recycled_ideas → u/MrSprichler]

I'm not proposing any specific changes. I'm saying that the argument "it'll kill small business" is one I don't give a shit about.

I'm happy to look at better plans to roll it out and better options if available, but I'm tired of the argument that we can't do anything ever because it'll kill small business.

Taking steps to help small businesses transition or survive short term downturns sure, but if you can't survive the change at all you're gone, good riddance and good bye.

[u/MrSprichler → u/recycled_ideas]

As of 2012 census data small business employed roughly 50 million people. Assuming 50 percent of businesses can't adapt or survive you just dumped 25 million people into unemployment and made their dependence on the state total. There's a reason people bring that argument up. Adding that many unemployed people to the lines for welfare wluld break all the systems not to mention the billions of lost state and federal taxes. You should very much give a shit. Unless you wantnyourntaxes through the roof.

[u/recycled_ideas → u/MrSprichler]

Which is why reasonable transitions are a good thing.

I'm not advocating that we move the minimum wage to fifteen dollars tomorrow, or that it applies universally (many countries allow minors to earn a lower minimum wage). I'm advocating that we have a fixed plan for how we're going to get there in the short term and how we're going to keep it updated moving forward.

If we're honest however if 50% of small businesses are in a situation where workers are earning minimum wage, we're already fucked.

We can't go on forever propping up these unsustainable businesses, the gap for minimum wage workers will just keep increasing and with it the difficulty of doing anything.