Refuting Emmer’s Myths

(For my previous posts on Tom Emmer, click here)

For those of you who haven’t been following the Tom Emmer story in the last week, let me bring you up to speed.  Last Saturday in one of the most patronizing publicity stunts I have ever witnessed, Tom Emmer “waited tables.”  I put this in quotation marks because all he really did was shadow a server around a restaurant for a couple hours.  He did no sidework and probably did not even spend the evening living on the $60 his trainer made.  He followed this up with a townhall meeting on Wednesday where he faced a room of angry servers and sycophantic supporters who clearly were not servers.  He faced some pointed jabs, a bag of pennies, and expertly dodged some question.

Here are some of the points Emmer attempted to make at this meeting:

Read the full post at Tips For Improving Your Tips

A Few More Thoughts On Emmer

I covered this issue in yesterday’s post, but have since ran across several interesting pieces of information I wanted to pass along.  MN Gov Nominee Tom Emmer said in a recent stop at the Eagle Street Grille that the owners had told him three of their employees were making over $100,000 a year as a result of being paid minimum wage.  Emmer’s solution was to implement a tip credit so employers could be relieved of the burden of having to pay such high wages.  Reading around through news accounts, talking to a couple politically knowledgeable friends, and doing some math led me to some insights I thought I would share.

Emmer has scheduled a stop on his listening tour at Ol’ Mexico Restaurante and Cantina in Roseville, MN on Wednesday.  His staff says they will not be screening the attendees.  He will inevitably cite the University of Nebraska study that he has already used on his website.  If anyone attending happens to be reading this, yesterday’s post dissects this study pretty well.  I would love to see him respond to the fact it uses data from 1999 or that the basic premise of the study is “if you don’t make enough as a server, you can change states.”  If you or anyone you know is near Roseville, this would be a great opportunity to stand up for the rest of us.

Read the full post at Tips For Improving Your Tips