Proposed Minimum Wage Increase

It is time to talk a little truth about the minimum wage. I am closing in on six decades of life, and I remember a lot of minimum wage increases. Every time one is proposed it is supposed to solve the problems of the working poor. It never does. Now why is that?

Well, for starters, the government mandates and the folks adjust. If an employer has to pay higher minimum wages, that employer has at least four clear choices:

First; take the money out of the employer’s pocket. Right, we all believe that is going to happen.

Second; get more work out of the folks they already have. If the employees work harder, or more efficiently, the bottom line stays the same. So, let us up the minimum wage in the name of worker exploitation.

Third; cut costs. Example I have three employees working at $5.00 per hour. Minimum wage goes up to $7.50 per hour. The simple solution is to let Tammy go and make Bob and Mark pick up her work. Do not ask Bob and Mark how the minimum wage increase improved their lives, ask Tammy!

Fourth; lets just pass the costs on to the consumers. To understand this game look at oil prices. Have a real cost increase do to hurricane damage to the refineries, jack the prices up. A rumor that there might be another war in the middle east, or alaskan oil taken off the market, well get the costs from the consumer. It does not matter that the cost of the gasoline being delivered today was in no way effected by this crisis. Government mandating a labor cost increase? Make the consumer carry the cost.

Since these facts are obvious, even to slobbering dolts, we have to ask ourselves why the Democrats want a higher minimum wage, and why the Republicans might agree. My answer is Welfare State Addiction.

Simply put the Democrats need people out of work, and need inflation. People out of work are dependent on the social safety net of the Social Welfare State. Democrats can not allow people to become too confident in their own abilities to become independent, or the social welfare state has no clients. Without clients, it withers and dies. Why do you think there are now multiple generations
where the family has been a welfare state client? If we can fool you into believing that the problem is corporate greed not the need of the welfare state for your votes, we get your votes. Votes are power and politicians want votes.

Ok, but what about the Republicans. Well, the Republicans are addicted to the welfare state- the Corporate Welfare State. The corporate welfare state gives huge tax breaks to multimillionaires to build stadiums, and insures that Boeing and Electric Boat remain profitable. The government does not deal with small business. Its money only goes to the guys with 50 plus employees. The more employees the more we like you. Money buys votes. Money buys support for the government and its programs. The Corporate Welfare State breeds white collar jobs; breeds new Republicans.

Look at the present minimum wage push, the Republicans have offered to back it if the Democrats agree to end the death tax. The Republicans want the death tax repealed because it affects successful family farms and family businesses. These are the folks that hope to grow and become the clients of the Corporate Welfare State, where the big bucks are.

Now the poor benighted Libertarians just do not agree. Libertarians think like the words from that old “Chicago” song: “Momma may have, and Poppa may have, but God blessed the child that got his own.” We just want folks to be able to get their own without all the butt kissing required in the Welfare State.