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Even
the strongest supporters of the minimum wage concede
that it costs jobs. What they won’t admit is that
higher labor costs also raise retail prices while
sending more jobs overseas.
Federal
government statistics show that raising minimum
wages costs thousands of jobs — hurting the very
poor it supposedly helps. The Labor Department
figures also show that hardly anybody actually works
for the minimum wage — about two percent of the
workforce. Most are either teenagers living at home
or old people — very seldom heads of families.
The
family-owned grocery in Stanardsville in Green
County would likely close down, putting the
teenagers from the high school across the street out
of work. They, and the elderly who walk to shop and
work here, would have to find a ride to the huge
foreign-owned chain store miles away.
If
it’s so bad who wants it?
•
Democrats who see a way to destroy Republicans by
getting RINOs to defect.
•
Labor unions, bent on destroying low pay jobs to
reduce competition for over-paid members.
•
Huge global corporations, to end competition from
Mom and Pop businesses.
•
China and others who will see more business for them
and less competition from us.
•
Illegal immigrants and other
"undocumented" workers who will take jobs
from tax paying legal Americans.
•
Leftist, socialist haters of free market capitalism,
media, academia and Big Entertainment.
•
Government itself, which always wants to grow.
•
"Useful idiots" -- bald, pony-tailed,
leftover 1960's hippy-type radical college
professors and ignorant, emotion-driven Americans.
•
Some liberal Christians who shirk their duty of
charity to let government do it.
•
Politicians, using the poor for political gain, as a
useful perpetual victim class.
Of
the working poor, the ones for which we have the
most sympathy are single moms who do indeed struggle
to make ends meet. Unfortunately they broke three
rules Daniel Patrick Moynihan identified way back in
1962 as necessary to prevent 90 percent of
poverty:
•
Finish high school,
•
delay having babies until married,
•
get married and stay married.
If
you want to help the poor earn more don’t expand
government programs. They do more harm than good,
and are hideously expensive. Instead, empower
churches, private charities and industry to help
restore the family as the prime training ground for
the virtues necessary for success: good manners,
acceptance of authority, getting along with others,
learning to work hard, industry, thrift, honesty and
self denial.
The
instant it was clear that Nancy Pelosi was going to
be speaker of the U.S. House, the usual suspects,
uber-leftist organizations like ACORN and Big Labor,
who have been waging this war on America for decades
— launched their latest assault on common sense,
the Constitution — and the poor, by dragging out
their tired and always proven wrong old nostrum,
hking the minimum wage. They know it doesn’t work
but count on the emotion-driven public going for it.
Lemmings
in the Virginia Legislature are lining up right
behind Congress to jump off the cliff — and take
our economy and the poor with them. Looks like a
done deal.
"It’s
not fair that the ‘working poor,’ struggling to
raise a family on minimum wage should be starve when
corporate executives and rich oil companies get even
richer on the backs of those same poor!" Of
course, that is a Big Fat Lie. But, also, few have
the will to resist — even when they know better.
Thanks be to liberal government schools.
The
free market has cut the poverty rate in half
everywhere in the world where private property is
honored. In the free market employers compete for
the best workers, so they can negotiate for wages,
benefits and working conditions. Nixonian price
controls always cause a vicious circle, a dwindling
spiral— just like all socialism. It shrinks the
legitimate taxpaying economy and jobs. Socialism
always increases inequality. To escape it many more
will join the underground economy. More
"undocumented" workers— including
illegal aliens— shrinks the tax base increasing
the burden on above-ground, taxpaying workers who
are then more likely to lose their jobs to those
same illegal workers shifting the burden to them.
In
Virginia so far, five bills have been dropped into
the legislative hopper for consideration by the 2007
General Assembly. All say, "to amend and
reenact § 40.1-28.9 of the Code of Virginia,"
pertaining to the already unconstitutional law
controlling what employees and employers are allowed
negotiate for wages.
Bills
differ only in detail. All tie Virginia’s
Unconstitutional Minimum Wage Law to the federal
Unconstitutional Minimum Wage Law. All would raise
the minimum wage over the next few years, and tie
Virginia’s to federal minimums. The bills are all
offered by members of two out of the three parties
in Richmond, democrats and the new third party, the
Bi-Party. The Bi-Party is composed of sell-out
RINO’s (Republican In Name Only). Real Republicans
are not represented.
House
Bills are: HB1634 delivered by D. W. Marshall, RINO-Danville.
HB1651 emanates from Albert C. Eisenberg, D-Peoples
Republic of Arlington. HB1654 was tossed in by David
J. Toscano, D-Socialist Hell-hole
Charlottesville.
Senate
bills are: SB-758 served up by Walter Stosch, RINO-Henrico.
SB-766 was launched by Locke, D-Hampton. (Her
namesake, John Locke, must be rolling in his
grave.)
Virginia’s
Legislature has an excellent website. Go to: http://legis.state.va.us/
for all the juicy details. Readers need to pester
these poltroons to kill these bad bills — minimum
wage is bad for all of us!
--
January 8, 2007
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