I’ve been hitting Rep. Dave Reichert pretty hard on his uncompromising opposition to raising the federal minimum wage, which at $5.15/hour now sits at a 50-year low, adjusted for inflation. So I thought it only fair to ask the Congressman to explain his position.
I didn’t get a direct quote from Reichert, but his press secretary Kimberly Cadena was kind enough to respond. She wrote:
Congressman Reichert voted no because he believes that minimum wage should be dictated by economic indicators and state and local governments, not the federal government. That principle works successfully in Washington State, which has one of the highest minimum wage rates in the country, higher than the current federal minimum wage rate. Even if the proposed federal minimum wage increase had passed, Washington State’s minimum wage rate is still higher than the proposed increase.
Hmm. This seems to indicate that Reichert supports Washington state’s minimum wage, but opposes one nationally. Yet this not only puts Reichert in the uncomfortable position of denying to other Americans the same benefits offered to his constituents at home, it also seems to put him at odds with the Washington State Republican Party’s own platform, whose section on “economic opportunity” includes:
Reforming the current Washington State minimum wage law to make Washington businesses more competitive.
So… if as Reichert (or at least, his press secretary) says, his principle on the minimum wage “works successfully in Washington State,” how exactly does one reform it to make WA businesses “more competitive?”
Here’s a suggestion: raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25/hour so that our businesses are on a more level playing field with those in neighboring states.
Barring that, Reichert is left in a kinda logical bind. If he claims that WA state’s nation-high minimum wage has not hurt the competitiveness of our state’s businesses, thus refuting the WSRP plank that calls for reform, he undermines the argument that raising the federal minimum wage would hurt the competitiveness of businesses nationwide. Yet if he supports the competitiveness premise of the plank, but refuses to level the playing field by raising the federal minimum wage, he’s really only left with one option: lowering WA’s minimum wage to bring it in line with other states — the lowest common denominator approach.
No doubt different states have different economic conditions and different costs of living, so if one believes in a minimum wage one can make a reasonable argument that it should vary somewhat from state to state. But we’re not talking about mandating anything close to a living wage here — even at $7.25 an hour a full time worker would earn well below the poverty line. The federal minimum wage is merely a floor below which the race to the bottom by low-wage employers can go no further. Like WA, other states can always set their minimum wage higher.
So I it leaves me wondering… does Reichert really support the concept of a minimum wage at all, or does he just assume it’s not such a big deal to his own constituents because they’re already covered via state initiative?
I just have a hard time understanding how the highest minimum wage in the nation “works successfully” here in WA state, yet raising it elsewhere would somehow hurt businesses and workers nationally. Perhaps Kimberly will explain further.
RubberStampReichert’s shameful vote against raising the federal minimum wage from its 50-year-low of $5.15 an hour not only marks him as a CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVE but also shows he’s an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican culture of welfare.
To explain this in economic terms, labor is an “economic input.” (Yes, that terminology dehumanizes workers; but then, everything Republicans do dehumanizes workers.) When the total of economic inputs (labor, material, and capital) exceed what the market will pay for the output (i.e., goods or services), the product won’t be produced.
Labor is a cost in every sense. Just as it costs money to produce raw material from trees, mines, farms, or what have you, likewise it costs money to produce labor: Every worker has to be housed, clothed, and fed.
A fundamental purpose of minimum wage laws is to ensure that all workers are paid at least enough to guarantee their subsistence, so that society (i.e., taxpayers) don’t have to subsidize their labor. When labor is subsidized by taxpayers through assistance programs because employers don’t pay enough wages to cover the true cost of providing labor, this encourages the production of uneconomic goods and services that would otherwise not be produced, resulting in economic inefficiency.
Consequently, a minimum wage below what the labor input costs the worker (or society) is not only bad for workers, but also is bad for the economy.
Good questions. Keep ’em on their toes.
A fundamental purpose of minimum wage laws is to ensure that all workers are paid at least enough to guarantee their subsistence
Commentby Roger Rabbit […..Why not 50 bucks an hour? hehe, JCH]
Expecting workers to work for below-subsistence wages is like asking farmers to sell their crops for less than it costs to grow them. In each case, the government has to step in and subsidize the producer. Laws that let employers pay below-subsistence wages are really welfare for businessmen. By voting to keep the federal minimum wage at $5.15 an hour, RubberStampReichert is voting for the Republican culture of welfare.
The only good conservative is a dead conservative.
Commentby GBS [………………………………………………………………………….GBS, Who will pay the taxes so libs like RR and you can have a “guvment” job?]
5, RR, Why not let the free market decide the price? hehe, JCH
The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country’s central bank. A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve. […………………….That would be YOUR pension, Roger Rabbit, and YOUR welfare check, GBS. Soon you Democrat parasites will be cut off the “guvment” tit, and you will bitch and complain and howl!]
BOMBAY – ANTI-TERRORIST detectives detained more than 350 people in arrests across Bombay yesterday, as police chiefs predicted that they would identify in the next 24 hours the bombers who killed nearly 200 people on the city’s commuter trains. Detectives are showing some of the injured survivors photo-fit pictures of three men seen at Churchgate, Bombay’s main commuter station, each carrying brightly wrapped gift boxes.
OK, Libs, Let’s play 21st century Horsesass.Org “CLUE” game:
Roger “Jafar” Rabbit in the train with the backpack bomb.
Ahmed “GBS” Allah in the restaurant with the vest.
Mohammed “Left Turn” in the plane with the boxcutter.
Osama “K” bin Ladin at the hotel with the car-bomb.
Gee, it makes perfect sense to me. Remember that the comment was probably written by Mike Shields, the former aid to Newt Gingrich and Reichart’s chief of staff. In other words, certain comments will be inserted for public consumption which will be ignored shortly after it is communicated.
Summary: Reichart believes the minimum wage should be left to “local conditions”. The Republican Party platform in Washington State is to “reform” the minimum wage in the state until it is more “competative” (i.e., at its lowest possible level). If the federal minimum wage increases, there wouldn’t be much benefit in trying to decrease the state minimum wage also. So the first step is to keep the federal minimum wage low, then the state Republicans have a chance to lower the state wage also, to “conform to local conditions”.
By the way, we should be a bit louder about this plank in the Republican platform. Voters need to know that Republicans in Washington State will REDUCE the minium wage here, at the first opportunity.
First the Telegraph, now the Times.
JCH is well-read. A pity he’s not well-spoken.
In 1997, economists David Card (Univ. of California — Berkeley) and Alan Krueger (Princeton) wrote a book called “Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage,” based on empirical research, in which they argued that negative employment effects of minimum-wage laws are minimal or non-existent in the United States.
After examining New Jersey, California, and federal minimum wage increases in the 1980s and 1990’s, they concluded the higher minimum wage led to pay increases for workers without loss of jobs. They attributed this to inelasticity of demand for low-wage workers.
Card and Krueger also reexamined the existing literature on the minimum wage, and concluded the literature does not support claims that a higher minimum wage eliminates jobs.
Their results were verified by economists David Neumark (Michigan State) and William Wascher (Federal Reserve), who usually are critical of minimum-wage increases.
Traditional economic theory, which holds that the minimum wage reduces demand for workers, assumes a competitive market. But when low-skill employers have monopsony power, an appropriate minimum wage actually raises employment. A 2003 book, “Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labor Markets” by economist Alan Manning (London School of Economics), suggests that employer monopsony power characterizes most (if not all) markets for low-skill labor.
Cheap labor conservatives, and wingnuts who shill for them, love to say, “Why not set the minimum wage at $20? Or $100?” Of course, it’s a trick question, and is intended to discredit valid arguments in support of the minimum wage. The answer is that when wage rates exceed the marginal output of labor, production becomes uneconomic. The purpose of minimum wage laws is not to provide workers with high wages, but to prevent employers from shifting labor costs to society by paying workers less than what it costs workers to provide their labor, resulting in society having to subsidize the employer’s labor costs by such means as housing subsidies, food and medical assistance, and other subsistence items.
(The foregoing is based in part of on a Wikipedia article on minimum wage laws.)
@9
JCH at Oklahoma City
VALERIE PLAME SUES CHENEY, ROVE, AND LIBBY
The Associated Press reported today:
“WASHINGTON (July 13) – The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.
“In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby of participating in a ‘whispering campaign’ to reveal Plame’s CIA identity and punish Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration’s motives in Iraq. …
“The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children’s lives at risk by exposing Plame.
“‘This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of … (Plame), whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country,’ the Wilsons’ lawyers said in the lawsuit. …
“The lawsuit alleges that Cheney, Libby and Rove used Plame to punish Wilson for his public statements about the administration’s portrayal of the intelligence on Iraq. …
“According to court filings in Libby’s case, Cheney played a key role in a White House effort to counter Wilson’s charges. … Libby told a grand jury that Cheney was so upset about Wilson’s allegations that they discussed them daily after the article appeared. …”
For complete story and/or copyright info, see http://articles.news.aol.com/n.....4709990001
THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!! HIT ‘EM WHERE REPUBLICANS FEEL THE MOST PAIN: IN THEIR POCKETBOOKS!!! I HOPE THE JURY GIVES HER A BILLION DOLLARS AND THOSE SCUMBAGS LOSE THEIR HOMES, CARS, STOCK PORTFOLIOS, AND PENSIONS! THEY DESERVE TO BE HANGED FOR TREASON.
And for more fun, see @ 47 on Open Thread
# 8:
“The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country’s central bank. A ballooning budget deficit…”
Finally, we are in agreement. The budget deficit is a serious problem, one which needs to be remedied immediatly. Of course, six years ago we had a budget surplus, until the Republicans gained control of not only both houses of Congress, but also also the Presidency.
So the first order of business is to vote out the Republicans as rapidly as possible, preferably giving Democrats control of at least the House, possibly both the House and the Senate, by 2006. Then electing a Democratic President in 2008.
Their first order of business will be to stem the tide of red ink. This can be done by repealling the Republican Tax Cuts for the Wealthy.
Secondly, returning sound fiscal management to the government in general, especially to departments like FEMA and Homeland Security and the Pentagon, which have become cash-cows for favored Republican companies.
Third, arrange for the orderly return home of troops from Iraq.
Fourth, begin a thorough accounting of the no-bid contracts and classified contracts issued by the Bush administration to Haliburton, its subsidiaries, and its similar companies. File criminal prosecutions as well as civil actions to recover money which was illegally disbursed. If the evidence warrants, consider prosecuting Haliburton, its executives, and those in government which fed it, for racketeering (as an ongoing criminal enterprise which profited from defrauding the American public), and seize its assets as the proceeds of a criminal enterprise.
1. Expecting workers to work for below-subsistence wages is like asking farmers to sell their crops for less than it costs to grow them. In each case, the government has to step in and subsidize the producer. Laws that let employers pay below-subsistence wages are really welfare for businessmen. By voting to keep the federal minimum wage at $5.15 an hour, RubberStampReichert is voting for the Republican culture of welfare.
Commentby Roger Rabbit— 7/13/06@ 5:48 pm
Roger Rabbit why do we need a minimum wage when you have Unions? Just for fifty bucks a month you can receive a fair wage and someone to defend you from the villains. Roger when are you going to start your own union, and protect the poor slobs who can’t barter a just wage. Who needs a bunch of Socialist Democrats making laws to float those who don’t want to pay Union dues? Remember the government can not protect everyone from those who pray on the weaker gene pool and vote those Socialist Democrats into office.
I think we should lower Reichert pay to $5.15 an hour
BOSTON – Inspectors on Thursday quadrupled the number of possible ceiling bolt problems in a Big Dig tunnel where a woman was crushed by falling concrete, adding to the urgency of the growing debate over who should ensure the safety of the troubled project. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority said inspectors found additional bolt assemblies that were separating […………………………………………………………………Are you lib Democrats going to let this monument to Democrat Tip O’Neil/ Democrat Teddy “Oldsmobile” Kennedy/ John “Fucking” Kerry/Democrat union thugs/Democrat cost overruns be liabled?? hehe, JCH]
The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country’s central bank. A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.
Look forward 10-11 years to about 2017, the year when the Social Security Administration expects to start tapping into the Social Security Trust Fund when outgo outpaces income from FICA taxes. Said same SS Trust Fund monies are “invested” in “special” US government bonds (can you spell IOU, boys and girls). The actual cash is long gone. At that point, Social Security is really and truly broke and bankrupt because the IOU’s are basically worthless; US government cannot redeem these “special” bonds without finding MASSIVE NEW SOURCES of REVENUE, i.e. new taxes and lots of them.
Call it a “lockbox”, call it a “trust fund”, call it a “Ponzi” scheme; by any name it’s a royal screwing that John Q. Taxpayer is going to get to keep the checks a-coming to the geezerama crowd. And that doesn’t even address the larger problem of Medicare!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You keep repeating yourself. But the first step to fixing the problem is to vote the Republicans out of office, as they are the cause of the ballooning defecits. Funny how you keep skipping over that fact.
Hmmmm Liberal press holds liberal candidates to a higher standard….. I guess I buy that. Its hard to be held to high standard when we lie about republicans. You lefties have to give us journalists a break. Its not 1970 anymore when we said anything we wanted and there was no one around to challange us. I should know, I went to early retirement because of the alternative media.
Rabbit @ 5 – I’ve asked this before, but since you’re so full of shit you probably won’t give a straight answer this time either.
If you’re so fucking worried about “livable wages”, what should minimum wage be? SAS not 7 bucks an hour.
Give me a dollar figure. None of your usual bullshit. A number…
Do that,and then I’ll tear your fucking head off. Dumass…
Goldy: “But we’re not talking about mandating anything close to a living wage here – even at $7.25 an hour a full time worker would earn well below the poverty line.”
Isn’t that the rub? As the old saying goes, twice nothing is still nothing. Sure, $7/hour is better than $5…but it won’t make the difference in, for example, buying a home. I have no problem in raising the minimum wage, but is it really going to make a big difference in the end? Who out there is making minimum anyway, when the burger joints around here are paying above the state minimum, and I’m sure that’s the case around the country?
Seems like another mostly symbolic vote that one side wants to use against the other.
bet-welsher @ 23
Do that,and then I’ll tear your fucking head off.
Then it wouldn’t be wise to give you what you want.
Until you pay Goldy a simple “fuck you” will have to do.
REP Pat @ 19- since you wouldn’t answer on the other thread, here it is again:
REP Pat @ 14- the construction was done by Bechtel, hardly a Democratic company. They were certainly closer to and more able to prevent any problems.
Funny how the government is always to blame and the contractor is innocent.
Commentby K— 7/13/06@ 6:10 pm
As has been pointed out numerous times before, the minimum wage is a scam. Reichert has guts for not going along with the scam. Not one liberal can answer the simple question- if a minimum wage of seven or eight bucks per hour is a good thing why is setting the minimum wage at a living wage of twenty bucks per hour not a good thing? Why do liberals set their sights so low? Why don’t you call for a $20/hr minimum? Not even $15. Not even $10.
Maybe liberals think that seven or eight bucks an hour is a living wage, or is it that you really don’t give a damn about working people and know its a scam. If you really believed your propaganda you’d also jump on cheap labor corporate Dems like Cantwell(D-Mexico, voted for NAFTA and CAFTA) for calling for a minimum wage of only $7-8. Guess the Dems need to pinch pennies on labor costs so that they can buy off candidates like Wilson(D-Show Me The Money,Maria).
Good for Reichert, we need more pols with guts.
MTR @ 23:
Oh, boy, more of Dr. Redneck’s verbal abuse. Ignore him — he’s all hat, no cattle.
The raising of the minimum wage is just like any other feel good liberal policy. It doesn’t help, in fact in may make the problem worse but boy it sure feels good.
Don’t think too hard Goldy although I have to chuckle at your attempts of gotcha journalism.
Oh, and I thought you were aborting these trolls.
The only good conservative is a dead conservative.
Commentby GBS [………………………………………………………………………….GBS, Who will pay the taxes so libs like RR and you can have a “guvment” job?]
Having a higher Washington minimum wage that the federal actually makes sense, since the cost of living in Washington is much higher that most other places nationwide.
Explain how setting a minimum wage makes businesses more competitive? Seems to me that it does exactly the opposite. Since we are in a global economy, our labor must compete with labor worldwide.
That’s why so many technical support jobs are exported to India.
They work for less, their cost of living is less and they have a higher work ethic. Regardless of the politics, THERE IS NO WAY TO STOP THE EXPORTING OF THESE JOBS!! Besides, Americans don’t really want this kind of job.
To demonstrate this, Dave Ross of KIRO Radio was promoting a fruit picking job where you got room and board and $10/hr. Only two Americans signed up and they quit after the first day. His point was that migrant workers will take these jobs because they WANT TO WORK!
The market has a very good way to solve the minimum wage issue. It’s called supply and demand. By pegging the minimum wage, market forces aren’t allowed to work.
If the job is in demand, the pay goes up to attract the people necessary to fill the position.
I don’t want to encourage stupid people to have a meager existence by giving them a “living wage” for something that require no skill.
I want to encourage them to better themselves to go for a good paying job. The higher the minimum wage, the lower the work ethic and the lower the desire to seek something better.
Hey, take a Whizz:
“Explain how setting a minimum wage makes businesses more competitive?”
OK, that’s easy–What’s more competitive, businesses who compete based on research, focused marketing, and adaptability, or businesses that compete by basically pushing down the wage level?
“Since we are in a global economy, our labor must compete with labor worldwide.”
By all means, let wages fall to match those in China! What brilliance! Of course, since you’re such a noble free marketeer, then you support the free movement of labor across national borders, right? After all, this is a global economy, right? Restricting immigration is a violation of the laws of supply and demand. Correct? Answer, please.
“I don’t want to encourage stupid people to have a meager existence by giving them a “living wage” for something that require no skill.”
Ah yes. The old, if you’re poor, you must be stupid argument. And what better way to properly incentivize them than by ‘teaching them a lesson’ and lowering their wage? How utterly ridiculous.
Roger at 14,
So Ms. Plame is suing Cheney et. al. O’Reilly cited this as “The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day” on his program last evening. Did you catch “The Factor” last night?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13857865/from/RS.3/
Doesn’t get much better than that!
36.
Yes, Sheriff Davy will have to hand out a lot more baloons, comb that hair and buff up for the gals at many more galas to get past the latest AP-Ipsos poll of registered voters.
Asked if they would they vote for the Democratic or Republican for Congress in their district, Democrats were favored 51 percent to 40 percent. Independents back Democrats by 56 percent. Democrats hold sway with persuadable voters, too. 51 leaning toward Democrats, 41 Republican.
Better get the big gunt out here, righties. Spenda, spend, spend.
Better get the big guns out here, righties. Spend, spend, spend.
Will the Exterminator be the candidate in the Texas 22nd? One can only hope.
MTR: I’ll answer the question of why the minimum wage shouldn’t be $20.00 per hour, when you answer the question about why it shouldn’t be “competative” at 0.30 cents an hour (the approximate wage of certain factories in Asia).
To RR at 12: A few notes on cheap labor:
One of the aspects of a minimum wage is that it requires the employer to be more productive. The explosive economic expansion of the U.S in the 19th and 20th centuries was due to quite a number of factors, but one of the principle ones among them was a shortage of labor, which caused wage rates to be relatively higher than in other places. This encouraged immigration among those willing to work hard in exchange for a “piece of the pie”. But coinciding with the advent of the industrial revolution, it encouraged employers to seek inovation and mechanization in order to save on labor costs. The result, by the mid-20th century, was the most productive society in the world, when GDP output per man-hour was compared. So the results of the study are not too surprising – a temporary displacement of workers due to rising wages is usually offset by increased productivity on the part of the employers, thereby causing a surge in the economy and more jobs overall.
In contrast, in other areas of the world where the cost of labor was cheap, there was no incentive for the employers to invest capital in labor-saving devices. In China, even in the mid-20th century human laborers were used to drag barges up-river by hand, because the cost of such labor was not only less than the cost of steam tugs, but even less than the value of a pack animal which could do the same task. If China had been able to adopt and enforce a minimum wage, it would have encouraged a more productive method and their economy might have boomed, preventing the ultimate Maoist revolution.
This was part of the problem with the South of the “Old Confederacy”. The original settlers of South Carolina and Virginia coastal areas, the Cavaliers of England, attempted to re-create the manoral system they enjoyed there. But the English manoral system, a feudal throwback, depended upon a shortage of available land and a surplus of available labor. There was a shortage of land because it never made it on the market, estates were inherited in “fee tail” and could not be sold, automatically transferring upon death to the oldest son. Tenants who had no chance to own property of their own were subservient to the landlord, literally and figurativly, because to be disposessed by an angry landlord was to be consigned to a life of vagrancy and beggerdom.
But in America, they found the opposite situation: a shortage of labor, and a surplus of land. Workers imported from Britain to work the manors/plantations soon found that by traveling a few miles further west, they could work for themselves instead. Rather than pay competative wages, the plantation owners instead tried to legally bind the employees to service. First they tried indentured servitude. Then they tried prisoner colonies (Georgia). Finally they resorted to slavery.
But by the time of the American Civil War, this system came back to haunt them. Virtually all of their capital investment was in land and slaves. They had no need to invest in methods of mass production, becuase there was no need for labor-saving devices. Yet when the war came, they were out-produced by the North, not only in manufactured tools of war, but also in agricultural products. The more efficient production methods of the “higher wage” north outpaced considerably the “cheap labor” south.
Dave is correct in that minimum wage should be a state’s issue not the federal governments to set. There should be no debate about that. Should any other state have to pay what our state decides to pay it’s less skilled and educated workers?
The fact that the Rep plank is to get the WA state min wage competitive doesn’t affect the fact that Dave is correct. You all can then work for the keeping of the WA min wage at its current level. (side note: should someone in washtukna get paid the same min wage as someone living in Fremont or West Seattle?)
Also, you know what might also help those that have chosen a path to only be able to make min wage…..lowering taxes. :-)
38.
The concept that good pay gives incentive to employers to innovate is one that sheds light on a real danger in companies offshoring to get cheap labor. Such productivity gains aren’t innovative, they are more akin to what industry in the slave states relied on to keep profits high.
CEOs raiding corporate coffers based on short-term profit jumps from cheap labor moves are like Southern planters attempting to keep their “way of life” going the easy way, on the backs of their slaves.
Thomas Jefferson, deciding how to keep his gentleman farmers intellectually stmulating life style afloat first sold his collection of books, the start of the Library of Congress. He still could not complete Monticello, and missed his books, so he balanced his accounts by reneging on his vow to free his slaves.
Perhaps Jefferson, a mortal at the twilight of an hisorically productive life can be understood for this decision, that only delayed the emancipation of his chattal until his death.
Immortal corporations, recipients of much government largesse and privileged legal protections should be expected to perform better.
rhp6063,
Are you a histroy major or a history buff? You seem to know a lot about the Old South. I grew up in SC, so I’m intersted in Southern History, too.
If we bring back indentured servitude for debtors, problem solved! WA state growers can use slave labor and just think how “competitive” they’ll be! Then, if Rubberstamp also votes to pass laws making the children of indentured servants liable for their parents’ debt (and you know he would–whatever Karl wants), it’ll solve our immigration prblems too! Who would hire a Mexican cow when they can get the milk for free?
That was some weird metaphor, eh?
32. Proud ass, you stumbled onto something that actually does impact real wages, which is the supply of labor. There are only two ways to increase real wages, decrease the supply of labor or increase the demand for labor. Illegal immigration drives down wages by increasing the supply of labor. Eliminating illegal immigration would decrease the supply of labor and drive up wages.
Since not one liberal can answer the simple question- if a minimum wage of seven or eight bucks per hour is a good thing why is setting the minimum wage at a living wage of twenty bucks per hour not a good thing- the fallacy of your minimum wage scam is obvious. It’s also obvious that illegal immigration depresses wages, but since illegal immigration is almost 100% nonwhite, and nonwhite voters vote overwhelmingly Dem, liberals oppose restrictions on illegal immigration while at the same time stating that illegal immigrants “only come here to work.”
So here is another quetion liberals can’t answer- how is it possible for millions of illegal aliens to come here only to work without increasing the supply of labor and therefore driving down wages?
@44 So typical of wingnut propaganda as to be almost beyond comment. The direct beneficiaries of illegal immigrants are the employers, who are predominately Cheap Labor Conservatives. Their economic stake in encouraging and continuing illegal immigration trumps any other consideration. Politics or humanitarian considerations pale by comparison to the GREED of the Cheap Labor Conservatives. Prosecute employers who employ illegal immigration and you will choke off illegal immigration.
Libertarian at 41: My hobby is history. I do a lot of reading. I took some history classes as an undergraduate in college, but it was not my major.
I also grew up almost a stone’s throw from Missionary Ridge, site of the last battle of the Chattanooga campaign during the Civil War. I spent a lot of days as a Boy Scout hiking the trails at Chickamaugua National Battlefield and Lookout Mountain.
45. Congratultions for being half-right. At least you’ve figured out that the beneficiaries of illegal immigration are cheap labor employers. Too bad the phoney friends of the working class Dems don’t even demand strict enforcement against employers; are you sure you’re a Dem? You sound somewhat conservative, being in favor of prosecuting employers.
Now try to focus on who is hurt by illegal immigration. If illegal immigration benefits cheap labor employers perhaps it’s also bad for American workers?
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