Who REALLY gives the raises vs who takes credit for it - Granite Grok

Who REALLY gives the raises vs who takes credit for it

It seems everyone can be “big hearted” when it isn’t their own money being spent (emphasis mine) but it is ONLY because of the raw naked force of Government demanding it.  The Left is perfectly fine with both the premise (“why ISN’T it moral to force redistribution?”) and the action (“If you don’t, we’ll either take more from you, take your Freedom away and put you into the klink, or (even better), both”).  It seems like the Republicans….

Dear Mr. Obama:

In last-night’s State of the Union address you said “And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, go try it.  If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America a raise.”

The premise of your plea is mistaken: raises aren’t given by votes, by you, or by Congress: they’re given only by employers.  And employers must fund these higher payments out of the revenues they earn by competing successfully in markets.  Employers, therefore, can afford to raise their workers’ pay only if their workers become more productive – an outcome that is not achieved by a legislature waving its wand over workers’ paychecks.

You are, however, correct in one sense.  Because the policy you propose would price many workers out of jobs, that policy would indeed change these workers’ incomes: it would drop them to $0.  So I say this: If you truly believe you could be unemployed full-time and support a family on $0 a year, go try it.  If not, vote to give millions of the hardest-working people in America opportunities to work that they are now denied.  Abolish the minimum wage.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030

…who go along with this really believe like the Democrats that it IS the Proper Role of Government to be redistributionist, or as Sarah Palin said, they have deflated balls.  In either case, they all have no problem in raising that tax upon business.

Yes, a tax.  Any time that Government demands something of others that has a price, it is a tax.  In this case, a redistribution tax in which the Government gets to walk away without being the middle man.  Businesses, especially the single shopkeep entrepreneur, must pay this “Welfare Tax” without having to cut a check to Government – such a deal to get an outcome that can’t be explicitly be protested as a tax.  And yes, it IS a Welfare tax, as the employee is doing no additional work, is not providing any more productivity, and not providing any more value than they were before a group of self-important (and oft, economically illiterate) politicians decreed got around the Altar and sacrificed that biz owner right then and there.

In effect, they have done a taking of private property under the combined rubric of “compassion” (which it is not – Government is Force, not Compassion as the latter is an individual act of charity but Government is certainly a Collective) and political avarice to win themselves votes.  In either case, they care not if it follows either the Letter or the Spirit of the Law in the Constitution.  They just don’t care.

Now the Left is overjoyed – one more step towards the Progressive / Socialist end goal and they care a LOT in achieving it.  However, every time a Republican goes along with this, they make us not to care just that much more as they, once again, have violated our Trust in them as once again, they have pushed Government away from that limited government model they say they support.

(H/T: Café Hayek)

>