Non-Negotiable

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Rush anticipated the President would call for an increase in the Minimum Wage to $10 per hour in the State of the Union address.  A caller said Republicans should see his $10 and raise him to $30.  That would make people to see how silly the Minimum Wage is so they’d stop talking about it.

That’s a bad idea.  The Minimum Wage is an emotional issue – poor people are suffering because wicked businesses won’t pay fair wages.  Explaining the economics of it in a logical, orderly, methodical way is proof that you’re a heartless bastard who doesn’t care about fairness and hates the poor.

Feeling is easy and everybody does it.  Thinking is hard so nobody does it.  Playing to Democrat strength is a bad idea just as raising the minimum wage is a bad idea.  Don’t offer $30, don’t even offer $10: they might just take you up on it and later, when the bad consequences hit, it’ll be your fault for suggesting it.

Yes, Democrats will call you heartless.  That will suck.  Tough.  Embrace the suck and do the right thing anyway.

Joe Doakes

There is a short list of things that the GOP – despite its inner, “go-along, get-along” tendencies – really really can not compromise on; the compromise itself will not only make things worse, but will be used against the party and all those trying to un-screw things after this past five years.

6 thoughts on “Non-Negotiable

  1. Yes, because raising the minimum raise has worked so well in the past! Since Herr Obama took office, personal income has dropped, while elected Democrat’s net worth, in many cases due to actions that would be considered crimes, has increased.

  2. I don’t want policy makers to have an economic micro-managing “heart” (regardless of party). Yes, I want them to craft laws to protect me and every other individual from force and fraud (including at the hand of government), but other than that allow the free market to work so that the resulting robust economy allows me to sell my labor and talent for it’s worth to the highest bidder.

  3. It is as if we’ve got to repeat the mantra “Now what happens if the minimum wage is $10/hour and your work is only worth $5/hour?” a trillion times and hope a few people catch on.

    Of course, it doesn’t help that we’ve got a guy at 1600 Pennsylvania whose work is worth a negative ten trillion dollars a year being paid for his labor.

  4. Joe Doakes wrote “they might just take you up on it and later, when the bad consequences hit, it’ll be your fault for suggesting it.”
    You can’t win that way, either, Joe. “Obamacare was a republican plan proposed by the Heritage foundation and first implemented by Republican governor Mitt Romney”.

  5. Does anyone else see the disconnect between inviting in and legalizing 20 million low skill workers and the effect that has on the wages of the legal low skill workers? Uh, guys, it’s the illegals that are killing the job market for low skill positions and upping the minimum wage won’t increase the number of minimum wage jobs.

  6. Nerdbert, I’m becoming rapidly aware that the concept of “supply and demand” is entirely foreign to most Democrats, unless they’re counting the cost of their gardeners and maids that they don’t pay FICA tax for.

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