Redstate

"Administrative Law is not for sissies." - Justice Antonin Scalia

You did put Minimum Wage in the title, not "Mitt Romney: Shameless Flip-Flopper, Part III"
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It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge

Yes, if we permanently concede the issue, that surely will defuse it.

Just like if we were to support a Constitutional Amendment declaring an inalienable right to abortion on demand at any point in a pregnancy, that surely would defuse abortion as an issue, too.

People who are opposed to the minimum wage aren't interested in defusing the issue. We're interested winning on that issue by getting the right, pro-job, pro-growth policy in place.
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It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge

I'm not sure I see this as conceding the issue. I'm firmly opposed to the minimum wage but I would like to see the effects of linking it to inflation play out in a state that so chooses. The issue was huge here in Colorado, where it passed by fairly slim margins. Supporters kept saying "yeah the cost of living has gone up" to every logical argument against it. They were sheep. Furthermore, it went up by 33%. I haven't researched this, and I'm too lazy to now, but I imagine that's more than inflation has eroded in just 10 years. Sheep can't do math to figure that out. Democrats can, which means that every 10 years or so they will bring the issue up and tack on another 10 cents so that it rises in real terms.

So here is why I want to see this in action in a couple of liberal guinea pig states. Wages rise in real terms. Index the wage to inflation and gradually we will see fewer and fewer people be shackled by it (assuming those lacking skills who are initially locked in the unemployment closet don't gradually become employed at the minimum wage, but even then the point stays the same; the minimum wage will become obsolete as wages rise). People will notice far less that the wage becomes obsolete, so their sheepish "but the cost of living has gone up" won't work. They will watch with awe-filled satisfaction as the minimum wage rises.

A bit of a long shot I know, and it would require that the Dems don't smart up to it, but it would be worth trying in one or two liberal states where it's bound to be increased anyways. Of course, my argument also becomes void with regards to a Romney run for the White House, since we haven't actually tested by tacky back-of-a-napkin theory.

But on its own, it's still a bad idea. First, Ds will still want to increase it faster than inflation and it will never come down (in real terms) which it does over time in the current system. Second, why can't we have a federalist solution. States are passing MW increases. Good for them. If NY and CA want a higher MW than AL and OK, they can do that. Why do they want to "impose their values" on other state?

Social Security Choice - Club For Growth

The minimum wage is bad (but not really as important as some would like to imagine) and it will never be enough to suit some people. However it does have a great emotional appeal and there is something to be said for tying it to inflation as at least eliminating the demagoguing of it every two years for raising the minimum wage to “help working families keep up with the cost of living” or some other nonsense. It’s one thing to convince people that it should stay even with the cost of living and another to say “make it Fourteen Buck an hour!” People might go along with the former out of a sense of guilt but not as likely to feel obligated to support the latter.

Personally if I ran the nation, I would (after spending the afternoon inspecting the presidential harem) abolish all laws that try to set wages or prices at any particular level and let the market sort things out. But I don’t run the nation and nor do people who agree with me on this issue as evidenced by the last election and the fact that polls have pretty consistently shown overwhelming support for what I think most of us agree is a pretty dumb law.

But so long as the dumb law establishing a minimum wage has generally a minimal effect and we pretty much lose every time we try to stop it, we have to ask ourselves if the trade off in opposing this is worth the price we pay – particularly when it prevents us from going after larger issues. I tend to think that this isn’t a Hill worth dying on and if indexing it to inflation minimizes the damage of a policy that generally only has a minimal impact anyway, it might be worth it to strip the issue away from Democrats so we can deal with things that might actually matter.

solution idea better than a national one, mainly because wages in Alabama do not have the same buying power that wages in California have-at the very least with a Federalist solution, you end up with a minimum wage being somewhat set to the realities of the cost of living in a given area rather than artifically set in DC.

But honestly-I have said it before and will say it again, most people do not work for minimum wage-there isn't a single non skilled entry level job in my area that starts at minimum wage-most of them already start around $7-10 depending on the job and employer.

I did read an interesting article recently that the people most hurt by minimum wage increases were teenagers.

"I did read an interesting article recently that the people most hurt by minimum wage increases were teenagers."

If this is true, it's because most of your min. wage employees are teenagers. I think this is an obvious truth. However, I have yet to see any hard statistics that proves this point.

I always hear this theory about how minimum wage increases hurt workers because employers will hire less of them. If this were true then we would have to believe that businesses hire people just to hire people. No, they hire only as many people as they need to get the job done. I've never seen a McDonald's close because min. wage went up. I have however seen the price of fast food go up; perhaps to offset the higher costs of labor.

www.scottbomb.com

At least according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But I did once here Medved quote the statistic that the majority of Minimum wage earners live in housholds that earn over 60,000 a year. Can't cite his source for you.

www.mymanmitt.com
www.illinoisansforromney.com

It appears that Romney, however the media has characterized his position on this issue (shame on me) has never said anything other than what he currently says. In my view, it's wrong, but hey, not something I'm going to get extra worked-up over. When it comes to raising the minimum wage, and supporting affirmative action, Romney's not a flip-flopper, he's just been consistently not conservative. On other issues...

"Administrative Law is not for sissies." - Justice Antonin Scalia

The minimum wage generally has only a minimal effect on employment and wage levels unless you go gangbusters and raise it above a certain level (kind of like how change in tax rates will raise or decrease income depending on what point on the Laffer Curve you’re on). Romney actually made pretty much that same point on David Brinkley’s show:

Questioned by ABC newsman Sam Donaldson, Romney said, "I think the minimum wage ought to keep pace with inflation. I think the minimum wage is a good thing to have in our economy and I think it ought to be updated. We've had some inflation since the time it was set at $ 4.25 in April 1991, so I think an inflationary increase is appropriate."

Inflation has risen about 11 percent since the beginning of 1991, so Romney's plan would raise the minimum wage by about 45 cents, or 50 percent more than the Kennedy-proposed increase that Kennedy asserts Romney opposes. Murphy said that throughout the campaign Romney has backed inflation-indexing for the minimum wage.

Romney added: "I think at some point, however, if you raise the minimum wage too high you . . . cause people to lose jobs and make it more difficult to come out of welfare and out of unemployment and get into entry-level positions."

The minimum wage is a bit like ANWR or that dumb phone tax used to pay for the Spanish American War – it does not matter much in the bigger picture but it has taken on a symbolic value for both sides that sways people emotionally. Romney evidentially recognized that and by offering to index it to inflation, he would have taken away a popular issue (that he would have lost anyway as evidenced by the overriding of his veto of the minimum wage increase) that Democrats have been able to use every two years or so in Massachusetts right in time for election season.

The fact that the Democrats in the Massachusetts General Court didn’t take him up on his offer to index it to inflation IMO shows that they recognize that it’s better for them to be able to bring up the issue every two years in time for reelection than have to actually say that they “fixed” the “problem” of the minimum wage not keeping up with inflation.

Your right the Democrats do not want the issue to go away.

From a business perspective, Romney's policy does make some sense. The minimum wage will increase no matter what eventually. By indexing it to inflation, it lessens the blow over time as it is gradually eased into the system. Increasing it by 33% at once is a far bigger blow to businesses. This means they can ease the cost into their budgets instead of having to come up with 33% at once or cut back on their business.

Ideally I am against the minimum wage, but I realize it is not going anywhere anytime soon. Indexing it to inflation would solve two problems: 1) Businesses having to deal with one time 33% increases. Instead they would be able to ease it into their budgets and plan for it. 2) It would eliminate the issue and make it harder for the left to scream about it. Anyone wanting to raise the minimum wage excessive amounts would look like an idiot.

Furthermore, is it really against Republican principles to raise the minimum wage anymore? It has been raised by Republicans at the state and national level for decades now.

www.scottbomb.com

Assuming of course he counters his tax cuts with a tax increase, grants amnesty to millions of illegal aliens with the illusory promise of “enforcement,” tries to fix Social Security by agreeing to a tax hike and no PRA’s, cuts and runs from the Middle East if our troops get hit with a major attack there, and if either of his Supreme Court appointments turn out to be another Kennedy or O’Connor. On at least three of these issues, Bush 43 is appearing to be made of sterner stuff than Reagan.

Seriously, I have never understood this fetish that some in the conservative movement have for treating Reagan as the gold standard for who is or is not a conservative. The fact is that while he did some good things, he was just as likely to do some pretty bad things or fail to follow through on his rhetoric with action. Reagan cut taxes and he raised them. He railed against overspending and then signed it into law. He complained about welfare programs but championed farm subsidies, Medicare, and Social Security (and even raised FICA to “fix” the latter). He complained about illegal aliens and granted millions of them amnesty. He complained about deficits but never sent a balanced budget to Congress. He sometimes talked tough on foreign policy but by cutting and running from Lebanon, he reinforced the paper tiger image from the Carter administration which has still haunted us to this day.

Perhaps instead of trying to follow in his footsteps, we ought to be looking to chart a better course.

Wow someone had the balls to say what I was thinking. Spending was as out of control today as it was under Reagan.

In this respect, we can say Romney is more conservative than either Reagan or Bush.

Something President Bush will need to finally discover. And unlike Reagan, Romney had a 100 percent pro-life record as governor.

But hey, why should we judge a potential candidate on their actual actions and policy proposals when we can parse comments from a decade ago for signs of “hypocrisy.”

Comments like this show how useless our public education system is. If it worked, more people would be taught and realize that Reagan, Bush and possibly Romney are of the Executive branch which does not pass legislation. True they can veto it, but when you have a Reagan working with a Democrat-Dominated congress, or a Bush (43) trying to buy Senior and Educator votes with two of the biggest entitlement programs in recent history (Prescription Drug Benefit and No Child Left Behind), your options are limited and you'll get the liberal law. Reagan is the most recent true Conservative we've had in the White House. Yes, he pulled us out of Beirut..because the Democrat controlled congress forced him to. He also bombed Libya because of their terrorist acts against us and thereafter they left us alone. He did little more about terrorism because he had something that was of bigger importance at the time, namely, destroying the Soviet Union.

I get the vibe from him that he is a "I choose my position by sticking my finger in the wind, and choosing the direction the polls indicate" rather than a "this is what I believe based on this principal and will advocate for that belief."

I don't care much for the sway with the wind type politicians, in general they tend to lean the liberal direction. Some give and take I think is neccessary, but he has a lot of issues where he doesn't seem to have just given a bit to compromise but changed his whole opinion (and yes from the updates it appears this isn't a change in opinion just one where he seems to have leaned to the democrat position).

I get the impression from what I have read about Romney, that rather than being influenced by polls, he gathers data, analyses it very thoroughly, then makes his decisions. If he doesn't follow a "party line," it is because the facts don't lead to that conclusion. He seems to be able to think outside the box.

Check this article out.

Unlike most charges leveled at him, I don't think Romney's going down a checklist saying "This is what people call conservative, so this is where I have to be." You are spot on with you comment. That approach is why he's been successful in his career and his life.

If I were running for office in a State as far to the Left as Massachusetts in which I’d have to deal with a legislature that something like 90 percent Democrat where they could pass any bill over my veto that they wanted to, I’d be careful about picking my battles.

Considering the political cost of opposing increasing the minimum wage – particularly when the other side cries “working families are falling behind because it hasn’t kept up with inflation” and people seem to buy that argument, tying it to inflation is probably less harmful than what actually happened in having it jump up by a buck or so and it could take a popular issue away from Democrats.

Massachusetts is one of the most liberal States in the nation. Campaigning for office there by saying that you’re against the minimum wage (particularly when your opponent is going after you for supposedly downsizing companies and hiring back workers at lower wages) when the public overwhelmingly supports it and the legislature is more than capable of raising it over your veto doesn’t strike me as a battle worth fighting. Proposing instead to just index it to inflation rather than raising it to even higher levels every few years would probably minimize the (already minimal) damage the minimum wage causes and take the issue away from the other side.

I suppose you could fault him for not falling on his sword based on the principal that we shouldn’t even have a minimum wage (a point I agree with in principal). But if that’s enough to cost you the election and the chance to work on larger issues like health care reform and taxes where your opponent is diametrically opposed to your positions, then you have to weigh the costs and benefits. People who actually run for and hold elective office have to thing about these things and make their decisions based on what they think is the best possible outcome. That’s hardly the same as “sticking my finger in the wind, and choosing the direction the polls indicate” IMO.

If you think the minimum wage is a huge weight tied on the backs of those trying to enter the labor force, then a regular minimum wage ties it on loosely with a rope. After a while, it falls off.

An indexed minimum wage, however, superglues that weight in place. You can't just wait a while and let the problem go away, as with the federal minimum wage's gradual slide into obscurity. It'll NEVER go away.

Plus, inflation calculations aren't an exact science yet, so we run the risk of CAUSING inflation by rasing the minimum wage too much!
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It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. -- Calvin Coolidge

The difference, of course, is that Medicare growth is already tied to an index - except that the index is 7.6%. And that's not a scary figure that the Democrats might shoot for, that's what it is. For perspective, if Congress had tied the minimum wage to this rate of growth in 1996, the minimum wage would currently be $11.52 an hour. Tying Medicare growth to inflation would be a drastic slowdown in growth.

There's also the point that during this entire process, the Democrats never get the increase they want, and we always get major concessions out of them for giving the increase they get. Tying the minimum wage to inflation pretty well eliminates that, and it furthermore practically invites - as the next logical step - tying the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index, or LIBOR, or some other stupid thing that will make it really bad.

"Administrative Law is not for sissies." - Justice Antonin Scalia

I wasn't atrguing the wisdom of it. I was arguing that you make a point that by taking the concession that Minumum wage can increase is some how not conservative but you making the concession that Medicare can increase is somehow not cnservative.

In a purist mind it's not apples and tanks. Since the basic principle in question is how much should we let goverment get involved. I believe a purest captilist would say zero on both, yet we both agree that will not happen and so does Romney. Therefore his tying it to inflation (whether for good or for ill) is a way to get a concession out of liberals who want 40 percent markups. I think this would put you both in the same camp.

www.mymanmitt.com
www.illinoisansforromney.com

In an earlier diary immediately after the 2006 election, I predicted that Democrats would raise the minimum wage and Republicans would go along with it. Tying it to tax breaks for “small business” will only help insulate them from the “anti-small business” charges in 2008 while also giving them political cover to go after “big business” with nonsense like “windfall profits” taxes and price controls on pharmaceuticals particularly when heating oil costs go up this winter as they almost always do.

As a waiter, I lived on less than half the minimum wage for about four years. Look at the glassy, pro-growth gleam I still have in my eye! Going to college and getting a marketable set of skills hasn't knocked that out of me one bit!

"Administrative Law is not for sissies." - Justice Antonin Scalia

to increase my education or to learn a trade.

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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes

And as I started to realize that it wasn't enough to live on, I magically started doing things to increase my marketable skills.

Is it some kind of miracle that the vast, vast majority of American workers earn something considerably higher than minimum wage? Why do you suppose that is? As an employer myself, I'd love it if all my employees would work for minimum wage....and I'd appreciate some tips on how to pull that off.

"Free market" is hardly mumbo-jumbo. It's what is -- just as things like gravity and magnetism are what are. We can certainly choose to interrupt the free-market, and do so frequently. But it comes at a cost, each and every time.

Fortunately, for the context of this discussion, the current minimum wage is considerably lower than the going rate for most entry-level, unskilled jobs. As such, raising it a buck or two probably wouldn't come with many negative repercussions (in most places).

But that's not universally true. All labor has a particular value -- and that value may not always be whatever we decide to set the minimum wage at. You may decide, as your job, to do cartwheels down the street. That is, after all, labor. But it's probably not worth $5.15 an hour to any employer I know of.

Think about it.

and don't want to do that again. So I'd say my experience that involved hard work, getting an education and work skills pretty much invalidates your view of minimum wage as a final destination rather than a starting point.

High school and college, working for the Scotsman.

Then I went and got a real job.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

A spot of nostalgia for you. :-)

PS. I think you had a real job.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

Contrary to liberal thinking, the majority of republicans were not born with silver spoons in our mouths.

My husband worked for minimum wage after he got out of the Navy and started going to school, he supported me, and our two kids, for about 2 months, when his first raise kicked in.

The realities of minimum wage is that they are entry level, and most people who work hard and have a good work ethic quickly earn raises, and in many areas entry level wages aren't even the minimum. Around here nobody hires at minimum wage.

Which brings us to the big question, where does it end? At what point is the wage too high for entry level work?

How neat that you conceded immediately that you can't make any argument on the facts, and instead went personal.
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Run like Reagan!

Working my rear off to be the best possible employee, earning good reviews and raises....

...then, as soon as I'd managed a decent jump above the min, the goverment would come along and raise the minimum wage, thereby putting me right back where I started. I think it happened to me three times while I was in high school and college.

Yeah, loved that. Taught me how wonderful minimum wage hikes were.

When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. -- Abraham Maslow

Student loans are available to everyone, regardless of credit history. For the truly poor, there are also Pell grants.

Look, I slept in my (very old) car for three months once because I was literally homeless. I ate sandwiches with mustard and crushed potato chips for the filling. I used the spigots of water the surfers have to shower and shave. And I got up and went to work, every single day, even if I wasn't on the schedule, in the hopes that I could take someone else's shift - and eventually, I got things to where I am now. I guess that's all thanks to my "denuded node of brain flesh." Either that, or the fact that everyone in America has the opportunity to make something of themselves. There's nothing that demands everyone should have equality of condition - that's a fairly tale world that even the magic Democrats can't create.

But hey, good luck with the Great Society II!

"Administrative Law is not for sissies." - Justice Antonin Scalia

Which I'm betting has never involved manhandling twenty boxes of forty pounds of shortening down a walkway not particularly designed for it.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.

Hey I paid my way through college without parental help. This was done though a mixture of waiting tables, delivering pizza, working in mortuary, reading electric meters, and teaching music lessons. Also a healthy dose of school loans. I don't consider myself any smarter than the average guy.

Everything mentioned here is available to all, even the college part through community colleges. The problem with those stuck on the bottom isn't ability (you are selling them short) it's mindset. And I am afraid it's the liberal establishment telling them they are stuck there and need the handouts who are guilty of that.

www.mymanmitt.com
www.illinoisansforromney.com

maybe for you life would be more bearable in a country with a Five Year Program.

But somehow I doubt it.
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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes

You're what he'd call an "Eeyore" -- blaming your problems on external circumstances rather than simply taking responsibility for them.

There isn't an able-minded, able-bodied person alive who can't do something to enhance their marketability. I know disabled people who have done it. The only people who don't are those who choose to buy into your pathetic Dickensian worldview.

Their problem is their attitude and their accepted belief that it's society's job to provide for their needs -- since they've been convinced that they can't provide themselves.

This isn't about "the rich", BTW. It's not about everybody being rich. It's not about "saving" the rich. It's simply about personal responsibility. Those societies which demand that are infinitely better off than those who try to find ways around it.

We're not France -- and, what's more, we don't want to be.

maybe for you life would be more bearable in a country with a Five Year Program.

But somehow I doubt it.
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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes

Despite your beautiful, Swiss-Family-Ribonson vision of America, it isn't a level playing field.

My vision of America doesn't resemble Swiss Family Ribonson, or Robinson for that matter.

My vision of America is not of a "level playing field" - not the way you describe it.

You and your lefty friends' problem is that you feel you have the right to tell me what my vision is. You DON'T...just as you don't have the right to dictate anything else about my life, my thoughts or my feelings.

Your friends at Kos are waiting for you. Go tell THEM what to think.

When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. -- Abraham Maslow