One Fair Wage, the sponsor pushing Raise the Wage Ohio— the proposed constitutional amendment that would artificially raise the state’s minimum wage — seems poised to pull an audacious switcheroo on early amendment supporters and unsuspecting Ohio voters. And the consequences, if they get away with it, could be catastrophic.
Unlike statutes, constitutional amendments cannot be undone with a simple majority in the General Assembly and a willing governor’s signature.
To get an amendment on the ballot, sponsors must first submit 1,000 signatures of registered voters for certification by the attorney general and ballot board and then submit a petition signed by at least 10 percent of votes cast for governor during the last gubernatorial election — just under 443,000 signatures, currently.
They must also collect signatures in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to five percent of votes cast for governor in the previous election.
It’s a difficult process by design.
Given any amendment’s staying-power, sponsors should be careful to accurately explain what a proposed amendment will do and refrain from bait-and-switch tactics that mislead petition-signers or the public.
One Fair Wage assured petition-signers that Raise the Wage Ohio would be on the November 2024 ballot, and — if passed — the new minimum wage would take effect on Jan. 1, 2025. But One Fair Wage failed to gather the signatures required. If the group does gather the requisite signatures going forward, the proposed amendment still wouldn’t appear on the ballot until November 2025.
For some amendments, a one-year delay might be inconsequential, but not this time. If adopted, the amendment increases the minimum wage as of Jan. 1, 2025 — even though the measure couldn’t pass until next November.
Imposing a retroactive wage hike will wreak absolute havoc
The increase would become retroactive and require employers to provide 11 months of backpay. Businesses, large and small, would face unexpected wage bills of up to $10,000 per full-time employee, plus “an additional two times the amount of the back wages” as statutory damages.
Those who signed the Raise the Wage Ohio petition earlier this year expected that the proposal would be on this November’s ballot, and any employer costs would be purely prospective — effective January 2025. These original petition-signers never agreed to a proposal with retroactive consequences.
But One Fair Wage insists that it will use the very same signatures it already collected and submit them along with its petition for the November 2025 ballot - assuming that every one of those early signers now also supports retroactively hiking the minimum wage and hitting every Ohio business with an unexpected bill.
One Fair Wage does not deny that the amendment would apply retroactively, nor has it agreed to repoll the original petition-signers to confirm their continuing support for a new and very different amendment.
It is fair to suspect that if those petition-signers had been told that the amendment would trigger retroactive wage increases on unsuspecting businesses, at least some of them would not have signed on in support. For One Fair Wage to assume otherwise and to use signatures acquired under now-false representations to retroactively impose costs on Ohio businesses raises serious legal questions and risks setting a dangerous precedent.
As the Buckeye Institute has demonstrated previously, raising Ohio’s minimum wage will have negative and predictable consequences, but imposing a retroactive wage hike will wreak absolute havoc and devastate the state’s economy.
It seems only right that One Fair Wage should act in good faith and restart its petition effort. If not, the Buckeye Institute’s legal team stands ready to defend the interest of Ohioans and Ohio’s economy.
Robert Alt is the president and chief executive officer of the the Buckeye Institute..
Founded in 1989, The Buckeye Institute is an independent research and educational institution – a think tank – whose mission is to advance free-market public policy in the states.
The Buckeye Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit, and tax-exempt organization, as defined by section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. As such, it relies on support from individuals, corporations, and foundations that share a commitment to individual liberty, free enterprise, personal responsibility, and limited government. The Buckeye Institute does not seek or accept government funding.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: The Moon is “Made Up Mostly of Gases” - “How could we as humans live on the moon? Are the gases such that we could do that?” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee served as a member of the House Science
Committee and the Ranking Member on the Space and Aeronautics
Subcommittee. And has spent almost 30 years in Congress. She’s also an almost unbelievable idiot. There was a story going around that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee when
visiting the Johnson Space Center asked whether the Mars Pathfinder
would be able to find “the flag the astronauts planted there before”. Rep. Lee’s people denied that one up and down. Unfortunately for her, this one was caught on video..............
2024 Election
Biden Offers $300 Billion Bribe to Buy 30 Million Voters -AThat
comes out to be about $10,000 per voter. After $138 billion in bribes
already, Biden visited Wisconsin to
corruptly promise “student loan debt” transfer from his potential voters
to the taxpayers who are already facing $100,000 in debt per household
from the national debt. Why Wisconsin? It’s a battleground
state...............Biden has boasted about ignoring the Supreme Court’s
ruling to push
what he misleadingly calls “student loan forgiveness”. It’s not
forgiveness, it’s a transfer of the debt from the people he sees as his
voters, younger college graduates, especially those with MAs, to those
whom he sees as political enemies, older taxpayers............
My Take - The unending efforts by the left to corrupt the English language would be laughable if it wasn't so effective and dangerous. "Transferring" someone else's financial responsibilities is now "forgiveness".
Just like the murder of the innocent unborn is reproductive health, Remarkable! Daniel has an eye for this kind of corruption as he noted in 2022:
"Almond milk was going to save the planet. There were predictions that
the almond milk market would be worth $13 billion which is pretty good
for something that requires enough sweetener to destroy your teeth just
to taste moderately palatable. But almond milk isn't milk since, even in
a woke biological paradigm where men can be women and bees can be fish,
you still can't milk a tree. And almond milk isn't almonds either,
because it's only about 2% almonds. What is almond milk really: it’s
sugar and thirty other ways of saying sugar without actually using the
‘s’ word."RK
After Taking Over 3rd Largest Radio Network, Soros Plots to Take 2nd Largest- It’s not a coincidence that this is happening right before an election. In February, we reported that Soros was about to take over the third-largest broadcaster in the country, Audacy, along with its stations............Audacy claims to be able to reach 200 million people across the range
of its properties which include sports, music and talk radio stations,
as well as a large digital platform, and while Audacy is not an
inherently conservative company, it owns a number of talk radio stations
and the talk radio format caters to commuters, early risers and working
people which is to say conservatives. And the Soros takeover will give
one of the biggest funders of leftist extremism control over not only
conservative talk radio stations but those that are, like WILK, in swing
states. That includes two other stations in Pennsylvania and many
others across the country...............
Crime in America
Gun Control Activists Wanted This 85-Year-Old Woman to Die - No
one wants children to die in school shootings. We want women like
Christine to live. Every time I click on YouTube, it seems like I get
another Sandy Hook
Promise gun control ad. I’m sympathetic to parents who have suffered
the worst possible loss and want to feel like they can do something to
redeem it. Without agreeing with them. Even setting aside all the
foundational and philosophical ideals of
liberty on which the Second Amendment is based, gun control can put
unarmed people at the mercy of the armed, but that’s always been the
case in human history. What a gun can do is reverse the usual balance of
power.......
O.J. Simpson Lived Out His Worst Punishment- O.J.
Simpson lived long enough for no one to give a damn about him.
Austere religious scholar O.J. Simpson, as the Washington Post, might
have put it, has gone to whatever hell awaits evil men. Some are
disappointed that he went there at a ripe old age. Why evil thrives and
good people suffer is an age-old question and not one that we are about
to resolve here. But I will say that O.J. Simpson lived out his worst
punishment
already. O.J. was an egomaniacal narcissist obsessed with keeping the
public’s attention. His brutal murders tanked his career but made him
even more incredibly famous.......
DEI
Navy Focused on DEI, Now It Can’t Figure Out How to Build Ships - -
“We don’t have detailed plans of action, milestones, initiatives.”
“America’s Navy values diversity, equality and inclusivity,” the woke
Navy leadership claims. “We believe that when a diverse group of
individuals come together to do a job, they can do it better because of
their differences.” The Year of Hate helped accelerate the woke destruction of the US Navy.......How’s that working out? The “diverse group of individuals” can’t seem to get anything done beyond DEI sessions.............We
may no longer have a US Navy capable of taking on China, but at least
everyone is respecting everyone else’s pronouns...........
Economics: Minimum Wage is Another Leftist Disaster
Who Benefits From California’s $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage Hike? -Socialists.
California’s runaway one-party state goes from one disastrous
legislative session to another where anything enough leftists back
becomes law. With the state already bleeding small businesses, the $20
fast food
minimum wage hike is another bomb tossed at an industry that barely
survived the pandemic lockdowns, which shut down a lot of fast food
joints while protecting big businesses. In an economy with soaring food
prices and reduced consumer spending on eating out (among working-class
and lower-middle-class people), the business model doesn’t work and is
just leading some places to shut down. The Fosters Freeze shutdown made
the news because it was so public, but it’s hardly alone..............
Lawfare, Dual Justice, The Constitution, Deep State Corruption
By Locking Up Navarro, Dems Changed the Balance of Power -Now
they want to change it back. When House Democrats decided to lock up
Peter
Navarro for not going along with their hearings, they fundamentally
changed the game. Unlike the J6 prosecutions, House subpoenas leading to
prison time is breaking new ground. Everyone used to know how
House subpoenas worked. House committees
wanted to show off and enlist participants in their, usually partisan,
dog and pony show. Generally, administration officials complied.
Sometimes they fought them. Post-Navarro, the Biden administration,
wanted to treat House subpoenas as business as usual. And pushback came
from a very unexpected source.................
No Country for Old Supreme Court Justices 78-year-old
senator demands 69-year-old justice retire. After Justice Scalia’s
death, then RBG’s
death and then Democrats and leftists launching a pressure campaign to
get Justice Breyer to step down, I predicted we would be looking at this
as the new normal. And here it is. Moneyball for Supreme Court
justices means picking them young and then getting out as soon as they
get old. Or older.
...........Blumenthal told NBC. “I
have great admiration for her. But I think she really has to weigh the
competing factors. We should learn a lesson. And it’s not like there’s
any mystery here about what the lesson should be. The old saying —
graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body
included.” Vietnam War hero Sen. Richard Blumenthal is 78 years old.
Sotomayor is 69. If anyone should be stepping down here, it’s Dick......
DOJ Refuses to Turn Over Biden Tape on Grounds that Congress is Mean - Has Biden learned nothing from Nixon? DOJ attorneys just spent almost an hour being yelled at
by a federal judge for telling other lawyers not to comply with a
congressional subpoena even while arresting a Trump advisor for that
very same thing. Having learned nothing, the DOJ is fighting a congressional request
for the Biden special counsel interview ‘tape’ on the grounds that,
well, they don’t like Congress who are a bunch of meanies and anyway can’t we talk about something else? Like women’s basketball? Or the eclipse? Or the speed at which paint dries..............
Leftism is now, and has forever been a disaster.
How the Democratic Party Really Got its Name- -“The most diabolical attempts to destroy the best fabric of human government.”
The Democratic Party claims that it’s the party of democracy even as
it tries to suppress any democratic political opposition from its own
members and from third parties because it’s not about democracy. That’s
easy to understand when you take into account the true origins of the
Democratic Party. In my book, ‘Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against The Left’, I delved into the true origins of the Democratic Party. And World Net Daily (WND) ran an exclusive excerpt of that true story......Theodore Roosevelt later described them as “Democratic
societies on the models of the Jacobin Clubs of France” and their
influence as “noxious” and “distinctly evil"...............
Why Most Americans Don’t Know the True Origins of the Left (VIDEO) The
true origins of the Left disappeared when it rewrote American history.
Generations of Americans have grown up knowing very little about actual
American history. In my interview with Anni Cyrus at Rise Up to Freedom, I discussed my new book, “Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against The Left”
and why so few Americans know about the history revealed in it. The
answer is that a national centralized educational system rewrote
the teaching of American history following a Marxist template of
oppressor/oppressed, class and racial warfare, to the extent that
authentic history including key moments that defined America were
erased. In the process, not coincidentally, the origins of the Left that
I reveal also disappeared from history.........
Biden Admin Released Migrant Member of Terror Group Responsible for Killing Americans into U.S. - If
this administration were aiding Islamic terrorists, what would it be
doing different? In the various “border deal” negotiations, Republicans
stopped even
bothering to ask Biden to secure the border. Instead, they tried to hold
out for ending the mass release of millions of illegal border invaders
into America. But it was no deal. Biden refused to add anything more
than a smidgen of detention
capacity while continuing to release the invaders into the country with
court dates in the 2030s. Here’s what happens when you do that. Beyond
the cities staggering
under the burden of tens of thousands of invaders all demanding social
services and living quarters, actual terrorists are being released into the country........
Immigration
42% of Latinos Support Building a Wall, 39% Back Deporting All Illegals - Latinos
are apparently anti-Latino xenophobic racists. Who knew? The thing
about the Overton Window is that yes, it’s a way to make
the formerly unacceptable (open borders in which millions of invaders
enter the country with no recourse) seem acceptable, but it leads to
backlashes that make the formerly unacceptable seem acceptable in the
other direction. While Latinos were never the militant open borders
voters that white
liberals liked to believe they were, the Biden administration has
managed to get 42% of their great hope for a permanent minority majority
to back building a wall.......
Israel, Hamas, Democrats, and Joe Biden
Israel Takes Out Iranian Mastermind of Oct 7 - Another terror leader bites the dust. The Biden administration insisted that Iran was not behind the Oct 7
attacks, but it was always unlikely that Hamas could have pulled off a
precisely orchestrated operation that exploited technological
vulnerabilities in Israel’s security. Then earlier this week, Israel hit a building next to Iran’s
diplomatic facility in Damascus where senior generals in Iran’s IRGC
terrorist network were reportedly planning an assault. One of those generals appears to have been the mastermind of Oct 7.................
Biden’s Slow Motion Betrayal of Israel - The question wasn’t whether Biden would betrayal Israel, but when.
This will be far from the only post with the word “betrayal” in the
title, but it’s really been a slow-motion betrayal. It’s a matter of
perspective when you date it from, but by November there was already a
definite turn. A little over a month after the original Hamas attack,
the Biden
administration was pressuring Israel to use less armor, bomb less, and
change its government. Then came the warnings to wrap up the war by the
end of the year. Once it was clear that Israel would not cooperate, the
slow-motion
betrayal sped up a little with diplomatic, economic and military
pressure........
“Death to America”: Chant Dearborn Hamas Supporters Courted by Biden-This
is what Biden betrayed Israel and America for. Joe Biden decided to
turn on Israel over pressure from Dearborn, Michigan, also known as
Iran’s base in America. Heavily populated by Shiites and some Sunni
Islamic terror supporters, the place is notorious for its open and overt support for Hezbollah and Hamas. It’s a fact that the media used to report on before it began covering it up. When the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by MEMRI counterterrorism researcher describing Dearborn as “America’s Jihad Capital”, everyone from Biden to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (who has her own terror associates) as “Islamophobic”......
Bernie Sanders Has Office Arsonist Arrested Instead of Negotiating With Him Bernie’s office is worth more than your life. When Islamic terrorists attack America, Sen.
Bernie Sanders warns against fighting them. When Hamas attacks Israel,
Bernie condemns the Jewish State for fighting back and demands a
ceasefire. When criminals run loose around America’s cities, Bernie
insists that we treat the social injustices that cause their crimes and
let them go. But when Bernie’s own office gets torched, it’s a whole different ball game............
After Letting Osama Go 9 Times, Ex-Clintonite Complains Israelis “Fire First and Then Ask Questions” -- 100,000 dead because the Clinton administration “wouldn’t fire first”.
The Clinton administration had 9 opportunities to kill Osama bin
Laden. Hours before 9/11, Bill Clinton gave a speech in Australia
bragging that, “I nearly got him once. I nearly got him. And I could
have killed him, but I would have had to destroy a little town called
Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and
then I would have been no better than him.” Almost 3,000 people died.
Over a hundred thousand died in the ensuing conflicts. Now Leon Panetta,
Bill Clinton’s former chief-of-staff who served
various security roles in the Obama administration, which belatedly got
Osama, has popped up to criticize Israel for being too ready to kill
terrorists...............
Biden Admin Upset Israeli Gov Hasn’t Briefed It On Invasion Date - I can’t imagine why. Prime Minister Netanyahu has announced that Israel intends to go
into the final Hamas stronghold in Rafah. Israel has set a date for
the military offensive against
the remaining Hamas terror battalions in Gaza’s southernmost city of
Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday
night...........Matthew Miller, the US State Department spokesman, told
reporters on
Thursday, “To my knowledge, we have not been briefed on that
date.”..............
Biden Demands Israel Stop Attacking Hamas Even If It Doesn’t Release the Hostages - A
total betrayal. The grim farce of negotiating with Islamic terrorists
always plays out the same way. The terrorists keep attacking while
playing the victim, make
escalating demands and once you start negotiating with them, the
negotiations never produce peace and don’t even reliably ensure the
release of hostages. The Biden administration initially rejected the
Islamist/Leftist
demands for a ‘ceasefire’ during which Hamas would be free to attack
Israel. Then came around to proposing them in exchange for the release
of the hostages. And now adopting the Leftist/Islamist position is just
demanding a unilateral Israeli ceasefire without the release of the hostages.......
Muslim Refugee Stabs 70-Year-Old British Man to “Free Palestine” - “He
swore by Allah that, if he had had a machine gun, and more weapons, he
would have killed more victims.” Free Palestine is popular all over. And
when you’ve gotta free
palestine, then you’ve gotta free palestine or someone else will snap it
up.Muslims as the most oppressed 2 billion supremacist majority that
denies basic human rights to non-Muslims in their own country are very
upset at the temerity of Israelis in refusing to be murdered in their
homes. And so it’s time to stab some folks to free Palestine.
Philly Mayor Claims Ramadan Shootings “Sacrilegious” - “We
stand united with the Muslim community.” Politicians tend to claim
without evidence that Ramadan, an Islamic
religious period during which violence tends to amp up, is a time of
peace. America and Israel were warned not to bomb Islamic terrorists
over Ramadan. None of these non-Muslim politicians ever give the various
Muslim gunmen the memo that Ramadan is a time of peace. And so the
violence continues, not only in Yemen, Iran or Israel, but also in Philly......
Rep. Rashida Tlaib Refuses to Condemn “Death to America” Chants Soon
Rep. Tlaib will be chanting, “Death to America” on the House floor.
Americans were shocked when a video of an Islamist anti-Israel rally in
Dearborn went viral complete with chants of, “Death to America”. The event took place in Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s district. And when a FOX
News reporter tried to ask Rep. Tlaib to condemn it, she instead bleated
about “racist tropes”, “my community” and “Islamophobia.".....
My Take - Islam is a criminal, political, terrorist movement
masquerading as a religion, and the hypocritical double standards of
these leftist misfits like Bernie Sanders and Leon Panetta is blatant treason. As for informing the Biden administrative of their plans: Well, I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect they they tell Biden on Monday, Hamas may very well know what those plans are by Tuesday. Or earlier. Who in their fight mind would trust the Biden administration with that kind of sensitive intel? RK
Transgenderism: The lies and the consequences
Puberty Blockers Are Not a ‘Pause Button’, They’re a ‘Sterility Button’ A 12-year-old boy who had taken puberty blockers for 14 months had nearly 60 percent of his sex glands had “fully atrophied.” Any significant medical intervention has a physical price. That price
may be justified by the need, but anyone who claims that there isn’t a
price, is lying. From those cheerful drug ads of families happily cavorting and living
life after they’ve taken their daily dose of CAVORTIL/XS (not to be
taken with food, other medicine or oxygen, may cause panic, unexplained
bleeding from ears, nose and toes, may not actually work, all lawsuits
subject to mediation and postponed until 2093) to media coverage, the
goal is to brand procedures and medications with some dumbed down and
simplistic buzzword........Isn’t that so reassuring? Parents are told that the alternative to
this ‘pause’ is depression and suicide. Just give your kids some puberty
blockers and give them time to “figure it out”. The reality is very different. Real life has no pause button. Neither does biology.........
December 29, 2023 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty
As explained by public intellectuals such as Milton Friedman, Johan Norberg, John Stossel, and Orphe Divougny, the argument against minimum wage requirements is very simple. If
politicians dictate that people can’t be employed unless they receive,
say, $15 per hour, then workers who are worth less than than amount
(because of low skills, no experience, etc) won’t get hired. And if a worker is worth $17 per hour and a government now says that
worker must get $20 per hour, that’s a recipe for getting laid off. Which is exactly what is happening in California. Here are some excerpts from a Wall Street Journaleditorial........To Read More....
Milei's Best Proposal? - December 30, 2023 by Dan Mitchell - I sometimesjoke about living in a libertarian fantasy world, maybe even a libertarian nation with a libertarian anthem.
Amazingly, that is basically what Argentina’s new president, Javier
Milei, is trying to create. At least the libertarian nation part. He
has all sorts of proposals that I like, including smaller government, deregulation, and free trade. But Articulo 209 is my favorite. He wants to prohibit the government
from saying that goodies from the government are “free.” Here’s a tweet describing his proposal................
The Best and Worst News of 2023 - December 31, 2023 by Dan Mitchell - Time for the annual “best and worst” column, which has been a long-standing tradition (2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, etc). We actually saw some major good news in 2023. Here are my top 3 developments.
Landslide victory for TABOR in Colorado – If Milei’s victory was the best global election news of 2023, the defeat of Proposition HH was the best domestic election news of the year. Pro-spending lobbies have repeatedly tried to get rid of the TABOR spending cap.
Mary Anastasia O’Grady warns in her Wall Street Journalcolumn that Argentina is on the verge of another economic meltdown.
Margaret Thatcher famously quipped that the trouble with socialism is
that “you eventually run out of other people’s money.” …Argentina’s
central bank is printing more pesos than the market wants to hold
because the government, which is broke, needs them to pay its bills.
This isn’t new in Argentina. Successive governments have generated
repeated bouts of high inflation for decades. …Capital controls
exacerbate shortages of hard currency. …Stagnating Argentine economic
growth is no mystery. …On Aug. 13 Argentines vote in primaries for
presidential candidates, and this issue is front and center. Yet
promises of a cure are short on details, probably because it would mean
upending the long tradition of Peronist populism that has bankrupted the
country.
P.S. Writing for Law & Liberty, Marcos Falcone of Fundación Libertad explained that Argentina’s march in the wrong direction was aided and abetted by a constitution that evolved in the wrong direction.
…the 1853 Constitution…purposefully followed the model set by the
American Founding Fathers so as to establish the kind of rule of law
that a classically liberal society would need. …internal, bureaucratic
barriers to free trade were to disappear; that no privileges would be
extended by the government to anyone; and that private property was an
inviolable right.
…Ever since its inception, though, the Argentine Constitution has
suffered from several changes…new articles incorporated into the
Argentine Constitution have recognized social and collective ‘rights,’
the enforcement of which depends on increased government intervention.
…Article 14 bis of the Constitution,…added in 1957…guarantees
the existence of a minimum wage, mandates ‘fair’ salaries for workers,
…and effectively bans the state from dismissing public employees. …The
1994 Convention…added the concept of ‘environmental rights’ in a way
that implies proactive government intervention.
On the left, there's
considerable discussion of the idea of raising the minimum wage, and
creating a "living wage." Who could disagree with such an idea, right?
Actually, it's another bad idea that looks like a good one from the far left that will do more harm than good if enacted.
Let's start
by discussing how the Living Wage movement came to be and what the laws
of economics tell us about attempting to conjure out of thin air, ever
higher wages decoupled from productivity. We will also talk about how
socialism and communism are closely tied to this subject. Let’s begin
with a definition of what a Living Wage is:
“A Living Wage
is a socially acceptable level of income that is meant to provide
adequate coverage for basic necessities such as food, shelter, child
services, and healthcare.”
Investopedia states that a Living Wage for a family of four was $68,808 as of 2019. That is more than this country’s Average Median Income of $67,521 in 2020. ‘Socially Acceptable?’ Now, that describes my problem. Socially Acceptable to whom?
Consider this: The idea for a Living Wage began in the Soviet Union. Or, as Marx liked to say: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."............To Read More....
You could also think of it as Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris — or
maybe we should think of it as Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi versus
Donald Trump. I don’t mean to shortchange, or disrespect, President
Biden by choosing his veep, but I see his political future as late
afternoon or well into the evening.
Or you could think of it as a presidential race between Florida’s
governor, Ron Desantis, and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom. The
current California governor and former San Francisco mayor first has to
survive a gubernatorial recall.
Kudos to New York Post columnist Kyle Smith who laid out the battle between California and Florida in a compelling way. “Those differences,” Kyle writes,
“are growing into a chasm of philosophical and practical contrasts
between two basic models for the American future. Call them the
California way and the Florida way.”.............To Read More....
I’ve written nearly 6,100 columns for International Liberty, but only one of those columns has focused on Lebanon.
That was back in 2018, when I explained how the nation could have avoided a fiscal crisis with a spending cap. Now it’s time to once again write about Lebanon, though maybe today’s column is actually more about media bias. That’s because this story in the Washington Post, authored by Sarah Dadouch, shows how journalists have far too little understanding of economics.
Lebanon’s
worsening financial meltdown has been accompanied by a dire shortage of
imported fuel. Roads in cities like Beirut and Tripoli are now lined
with cars queuing for hours to get their allotted amount of gasoline, at
most a third of a tank.
…smugglers have discovered there’s good money to be made by buying
gasoline in Lebanon at the heavily subsidized price and then selling it
on the black market in Syria, which has a debilitating fuel crisis of
its own. …Many Lebanese politicians blame the gasoline crisis partly on
smuggling… In April, Lebanon’s caretaker energy minister said the
disparity in gasoline prices between Lebanon and Syria means smugglers
can make huge profits next door. …The Lebanese army, which has received
more than $2.5 billion in aid from the United States since 2006, has
made concerted efforts to curb the illicit commerce.
The smugglers aren’t the cause of Lebanon’s energy crisis. They’re
merely a symptom of the real problem, which is that the country’s
politicians buy votes from motorists by subsidizing gasoline. Get rid of those subsidies and smuggling will disappear overnight.
The
moral of the story is that bad things happen when politicians interfere
with prices. We have forty centuries of evidence showing price controls don’t work. When politicians try to curry favor by rigging prices, bad things happen.
And the second moral of the story is that journalists don’t
understand the first moral of the story (not that I’m surprised, given
the shaky track record of the Washington Post).
P.S. I’m flabbergasted that American taxpayers have sent $2.5 billion of foreign aid to Lebanon’s army, which gives the government fiscal leeway to pursue bad policies such as gasoline subsidies!
P.P.S. While gasoline subsidies are an insanely foolish policy for a
nation enduring a fiscal crisis, fiscal policy isn’t even Lebanon’s
biggest problem. As noted in this video, the country does even worse on trade policy, regulatory policy, and rule of law.
P.P.P.S. The post-war German economic miracle was triggered by the removal of price controls.
So let me get this right. President Biden has
proposed the highest capital gains tax in, probably, history. I’m not
quite sure. I know, though, that it’s the highest in the past 50 years. At 43.4% — added with the corporate tax — that gets you to more than
50%. And then, of course, state capital gains will get you close to 60%.
Nobody in Europe is even close to that. Not even Bernie Sanders’ beloved Sweden, which is at 30%. By the way,
China is at 20%. And, by the way, China’s 25% corporate tax would be
lower than our 28%. So it’s the combination of jacking up taxes on companies, and their
profits, and their gains, or any time you sell a small business —or a
farm or a ranch — you pay capital gains....
So it’s pouring taxes on taxes and attacking investment, which is the
key to blue-collar middle class living standards. They’re being
attacked.................Now, today, comes word that this isn’t enough. Mr. Biden wants a cool
$80 billion dollars to beef up IRS audits of high earners......as a way to level
the tax playing field between typical American workers and high earners
.....
Team Biden expects to raise $780 billion dollars in new tax revenues.
Believe me, folks, they won’t get half of that. They might not even get
a third. It’s been tried before and failed utterly. You know what this is?
Just another tax. Just another one. You know to what this leads us? Big
time politically motivated audits...........It’s one thing after another — taxes, spending, greening, laboring,
regulating — you name it. It’s the far, far left progressive agenda.........To Read More....
The USDA categorized 35 million Americans as food insecure, or having “limited or uncertain access to adequate food,” in 2019—a number that will rise amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Food insecurity is a genuine problem, affecting health outcomes and imposing steep costs.
Because higher incomes are associated with lower probabilities of food
insecurity, many advocates suggest raising the minimum wage to reduce
it. Such calls have received more attention lately, as prominent
Democrats call for a national minimum wage of $15. But these advocates are wrong: raising the minimum wage would likely worsen the problem of food insecurity in the U.S.
One group would almost certainly benefit: households with
wage-earners currently making the minimum wage. All else held equal, the
policy would lead to increases in income and declines in food
insecurity for that group. But a wage hike would have other consequences
that would generate higher rates of food insecurity among other
households and, for that matter, may diminish some of the benefits even
for households that see a rise in wages.
Raising the minimum wage affects employment and, consequently,
household income. A robust literature shows that increases in the
minimum wage lead to declines in aggregate employment, reductions in hours worked, and declines in earnings.
Households with individuals who have lost their jobs, seen reductions
in hours, or been unable to find work will experience higher
probabilities of food insecurity. The negative consequences would be
especially acute in areas with low median wages (in many states, the
median wage is less than $15 per hour). These happen to be, in the main,
counties with already-high rates of food insecurity.
An increase in the minimum wage will also cause prices to rise in
industries where a high proportion of workers receives the minimum
wage—such as food service. The consequences of this price increase will
fall disproportionately on the bottom quintile of earners. Higher food prices mean higher rates of food insecurity.
The argument that most people receiving the minimum wage are poor
and, therefore, that raising the minimum wage will help alleviate
poverty depends on an inaccurate premise. Almost as many people earning
the minimum wage in 2018 had total household incomes over $100,000—20
percent—as did the 23.6 percent with total incomes under $25,000. An
increase in the minimum wage would serve to raise the incomes of wealthy
households nearly as much as it would raise the incomes of lower-income
households.
A wage hike will also have distributional consequences. In response
to an increase in the minimum wage, firms would need to make decisions
about who will keep their jobs and who will lose them (or not be hired
in the first place). As the minimum wage goes up, those with
disabilities and criminal records—two groups that already experience high levels of food insecurity—will have an even harder time landing jobs.
Advocates should focus instead on reforming the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The program has proved successful
in reducing
food insecurity among recipients. Unlike the minimum wage, SNAP doesn’t
discourage work (benefits gradually diminish as incomes increase),
doesn’t interfere with the success of our agricultural
supply chain, has no demonstrated effect on prices, and assures that
benefits go to those who need them. Raising benefit levels by about $160
per month would cut food insecurity by up to 60
percent among SNAP recipients. Expanding eligibility to the millions of
households that are near-eligible for SNAP but are food insecure
because of raised income thresholds could further reduce
it. And cutting the tax associated with SNAP—currently, for each
additional dollar of earned income, benefits fall by about 24
cents—would lead to increased incentives for work and higher SNAP benefits per recipient.
Food insecurity remains a leading indicator of well-being in the
U.S., and reducing it is an important goal. Increasing the minimum wage
is a policy that will do the opposite.
Craig Gundersen is an ACES Distinguished Professor in the department of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
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Mike Rowe knows the value of hard work. The former star of “Dirty Jobs”
gained notoriety for the Discovery Channel program, which featured him
going undercover at some of the toughest and grossest jobs imaginable.
From cleaning bat poop to testing shark suits by jumping into a shark
feeding frenzy, Rowe has more appreciation than most for the dignity of
labor.
So, it’s worth taking the actor’s recent warning on the perils of minimum wage hikes seriously.
Advocates for a federal $15 minimum wage argue that it’s the bare
minimum that workers deserve and that more than doubling the mandated
wage nationwide would uplift workers who are struggling to get by.
Critics often point out that minimum wage hikes cause unemployment.
However, in an interview with Fox Business,
Rowe instead emphasized the way that such an arbitrarily high minimum
wage would take away the first rung on the ladder that many workers
eventually climb.
“I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper,” Rowe said.
“I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just
pull the money out of midair you’re going to create other problems.”
“There is a ladder of success that people climb,” he continued. “Some
of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an
hour, in my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers. They’re not
intended to be full-time jobs. They’re rungs on a ladder.”.............To Read More....
Over the years, I’ve shared many amusing memes and cartoons about minimum wage laws. But this one, based on a skit from The Eric Andre Show, may be the best of all. Not because it’s making a different point than the others, but because what has just happened in Southern California. Local politicians in a couple of cities recently mandated higher wages (labeled “hero pay”) for workers in grocery stores. The immediate consequences of that legislation provide a clear-cut example of why it is so foolish for politicians to mandate levels of pay that make it unprofitable to operate a business.
Let’s look at a couple of news reports.
We’ll start with a story from the local CBS affiliate in Los Angeles. Here are some excerpts.
Kroger is closing three more of its stores in Los Angeles
after the city passed a “hero pay” ordinance mandating a $5 pay bump
for grocery and pharmacy workers. …“It’s
never our desire to close a store, but when you factor in the increased
costs of…an extra pay mandate that will cost nearly $20 million over
the next 120 days, it becomes impossible to operate these three stores,”
Kroger said in a statement.
Ralphs and Food 4 Less recently announced that they will
be closing two…stores in Long Beach after Mayor Robert Garcia approved a
city ordinance that would impose a $4 “hero pay” salary boost… “As
a result of the City of Long Beach’s decision to pass an ordinance
mandating Extra Pay for grocery workers, we have made the difficult
decision to permanently close long-struggling store locations in Long
Beach,” said a company spokesperson. …The permanent closures will happen
on April 17 for long-struggling locations and will impact nearly 200
employees between the two locations.
What happened in Los Angeles and Long Beach is obviously a lesson in economics. But it’s also a lesson in politics. I’m guessing that most of the local politicians knew that they would
be throwing many people into the unemployment line when they mandated
“hero pay,” but they simply didn’t care.
What mattered to them is that they got headlines for “caring” when
they enacted the legislation. They don’t care about the unintended (but very predictable) consequences. Which is yet another reason we should have a very low opinion of politicians.
P.S. If you want more memes and cartoons about the minimum wage, click here, here, here, here, and here.
While I understandablydon’t like
politicians, I rarely think they are stupid. They do lots of idiotic
things, of course, but they are making calculated decisions that it’s
okay to hurt the economy if they achieve some political benefit. That’s immoral, but not dumb.
However, sometimes politicians say things so absurdly inaccurate that
it makes me wonder if they actually are…what’s the politically correct
term?…cognitively challenged.
And now Joe Biden is showing he can be similarly detached from the real world, claiming this past weekend that a $15-per-hour minimum wage is a good idea because, “all the economics show that if you do that the whole economy rises.”
Though maybe that’s true if one can somehow claim that “1 out of 40” is the same as “all.”
Moreover, it appears that “all” doesn’t include the Congressional Budget Office.
The bean counters at CBO don’t have a reputation for being fire-breathing libertarians, so it’s especially noteworthy that its new estimates
show that a higher minimum wage will reduce economic output, destroy
1.4 million jobs, raise prices, and increase the burden of government
spending.
As the old joke goes, “other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?”
And “all” doesn’t include America’s premier source for financial news. The Wall Street Journalopined on Biden’s plan this morning.
…his proposal for a $15 federal minimum wage…by 2025,
according to the CBO’s new average estimate, would result in a loss of
1.4 million jobs.The idled workers would be disproportionately younger
and less educated, and CBO projects that half of them
would drop out of the labor force. …The federal budget deficit through
2031 would increase $54 billion, CBO says, as the government spent more
on unemployment benefits and health-care programs. …setting the minimum
wage at a high of $15 would essentially put the country through an
economic experiment. This would mean imposing the urban labor costs of
San Francisco and Manhattan on every out-of-the-way gas station in rural
America.
Of course, we’ve already experienced some real-world experiments.
Assuming they behave ethically and earn money honestly, I applaud big companies and their wealthy owners.
That’s why I recently defended Jeff Bezos’ large fortune. The owner of Amazon mostly (but not entirely) became rich by providing value to the rest of us.
Today, though, I’m very disappointed in Bezos and Amazon. Why?
Because the company wants to use the coercive power of government to
screw over its competitors in the small business community.
But it’s utterly despicable to then climb in bed with politicians and urge a costly mandate on small-business competitors.
And it’s utterly callous for the company to take such a step when it will means unemployment for hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of workers with marginal skills.
P.S. Don’t forget that many state governments already screwed over
small businesses by mandating their closure while not imposing the same
pandemic-related restrictions on Amazon and big box stores.
P.P.S. It is possible that Amazon is also motivated by a desire to
appease the Biden Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
In other words, the company openly endorses statist policies such as
the higher minimum wage in hopes that it won’t be targeted with other
actions (antitrust, wealth tax, etc). Or maybe Amazon has a deal to support the higher minimum wage in exchange for the Biden Administration opposing the European Union’s tax raid on American tech companies. But those excuses don’t justify screwing over small businesses and low-skill workers.
President-elect Joe Biden’s plan for pandemicrelief contains a $15 minimum wage mandate which Congress has estimated would lead to the loss of 1.3 million jobs.
Biden introduced the minimum wage provision in a speech laying out
his priorities for a tax-payer funded stimulus package to tackle the
damage wreaked on the economy by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus.
According to a July 2019 estimate
by the Congressional Budget Office, raising the federal minimum wage to
$15 would lead to the loss of 1.3 million jobs while boosting the wages
of 17 million workers.
“People tell me that’s going to be hard to pass. Florida just passed
it. As divided as that state is, they just passed it. The rest of the
country is ready to move as well,” Biden said.............To Read More....
