Equal Pay for Equal Performance.

The latest fight, between the Ds and the Rs, is about equal pay. The Democrats have great catch phrases that capture the spirit of American fairness. What could be more American than to support the position that a man or a woman, who have the same job, receive equal pay? The republicans argue that "having" the same job is not the same as "doing" the same job and therefore pay variation should be based on "performance" rather than job title. The argument falls on deaf ears.

The republicans will lose this fight.The equal pay issue will create a massive emotional groundswell of support for the Democrats and the Republicans, who resist, will be seen as demagogues, who support gender discrimination through wages. The Republicans can not battle headlines with details. The headlines always win. And logic always takes a second place to emotion. Grab a person's brain and you cause the person to think, grab a person's emotion and you cause the person to act.

The republicans could argue that pay should be based on performance, experience and numerous other things that Human Resource departments, historically, use to make up a salary based performance review. But these are details, not headlines.

My advice. The republicans should get squarely behind the equal pay notion. In practice, it will only effect government employees where your GS level dictates your pay grade. Corporations will expand the number of job titles so that pay can be based on performance anyway. e.g. Experienced men and women who run the cash registers at Costco will be paid based on performance not on gender. And if you ask hard working people, they agree.

The Democrats can not legislate equal pay for non-equal performance at least not this year.