Why would anyone want to work in an economy where hard work has great value and a minimum wage increase is the reward? The kind of hard work politicians and activists are using to try to force a minimum wage increase is not effort directed at something the economy values.
No Work Permit? No Green Card? No Minimum Wage.
Which of these outrages is less believable, that immigrants with no work permit or green card are guaranteed the minimum wage, or that our elected representatives are pushing for a pay increase because they failed to deliver amnesty?
There is precious little in American politics that should surprise anyone except the terminally naïve, but imagine conservatives in Congress trying to pass a bill that denied mandatory wage protections to immigrants who have no work permit or green card.
Our Most Anti-American Value is Equality
Can you imagine anything more anti-American than guaranteeing economic equality? The Obama presidency is working overtime to replace equality of opportunity with a new, anti-American substitute: government-funded income equality. Our country was founded on the belief that all Americans are created equal, but the Founding Fathers’ words are a far cry from the notion of using government to fund economic mobility (see: Being Poor is the Fix for Income Inequality).
America’s Workers Should be Angry, Not Thankful
Being thankful is wearing thin. So is being reminded of how thankful we should be, a hard thing to avoid this time of year. Our tradition is to be grateful for what we have, no matter what. Is that why so many Americans still support the policies of a president who keeps telling us how much we have lost without doing anything to get it back?
Use Federal Government Waste to Pay Unemployed Americans?
Don’t expect much change in the number of terminally unemployed when the September jobs report comes out on Tuesday (Update: 4.1 million, “little changed” says the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Month after month over four million people have reached the 27 week benchmark, jobless long enough to end their prospects for finding work.
Will Illegal Farm Workers be the New DREAMers?
There was no uproar when it happened, but what John Morton pulled off for the Obama administration with his prosecutorial discretion memo was a political coup that is still paying big dividends. The ICE director paved the way for Barack Obama’s deferred action order and stuck a big foot in the door for illegal immigrants.
Crisis for Congress is Jobs, Not a Mideast War
After a long summer vacation the biggest crisis for Congress to ponder is not whether the U.S. should start a Middle East war in Syria. There is real work to do and Syria is only a priority because Washington has foolishly decided to make it one.