Lower wages hurt economy

I am writing in response to the negative tone you used (Aug. 4 editorial) when relating Mayor Condon’s budget and how it seems city employees are fat cats at the taxpayers’ expense. You write that the city needs to “narrow the gap between average household income and earnings per full-time fire/police employee.” I want to ask how this will help the economic state of the Spokane area by reducing others’ income?

The New York Times wrote in June, “The recent economic crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said Monday.” Two decades of growth were erased.

I know the hot trend right now is to say that bankers, Mitt Romney, teachers, firefighters and police and random other jobs are money suckers and unethical in their drive to receive top dollar for their services, but let’s be real – we don’t need to impale others who are healthy with their incomes just because the average person has lost income. That just makes the economic health of Spokane suffer more than it already is.

Tim Odeen

Spokane Valley