Chuck Schumer Injected With Truth Serum

Only on the rarest occasion do I find myself agreeing with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.  I do agree with Schumer’s most recent assertion that Russia and James Comey are not to blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 Presidential Election.  Speaking to The Washington Post, Schumer said “When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t’ blame other things—Comey, Russia—you blame yourself.  So what did we do wrong?  People didn’t know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump.  And still believe that.”  Obama’s Former Advisor David Axelrod made similar comments a few months ago, saying “Jim Comey didn’t tell her not to campaign in Wisconsin after the convention. Jim Comey didn’t say not to put any resources in Michigan until the final week of the campaign.”  The best part is, it didn’t take a sting operation from Project Veritas to get these people to tell the truth; they did so of their own volition. 

 

 

 

So now that they’ve finally admitted that they lost last year’s election due to an incoherent message and failure to recognize their opponent’s strength in some traditionally blue states, the Democrats have unveiled a new platform; which refreshingly omits their obsessions with Russia and identity politics.  They have decided to call their platform “A Better Deal.”  Not all of the ideas are bad, but some of them are just the same old progressive talking points that illustrate the Democrats’ failure to understand basic economics.        

Let’s start out with the worst idea.  The Democrats have completely embraced the idea of a national $15 an hour minimum wage; failing to realize the economic consequences this will cause.  For one thing, the cost of living is different in every state.  Some states, like California, are extremely expensive to live in; while others, such as South Dakota are quite cheap.  Therefore, it is probably a better idea for the individual states to decide the minimum wage.  Artificially raising the minimum wage hurts those liberals supposedly want to help.  A $15/hour minimum wage will only accelerate the automation that is occurring all across the country as a result of the technological revolution.  Young people who want to work minimum wage jobs will now have to compete with robots for those jobs. From an employer’s perspective, robots are much more attractive employees than humans.  They don’t call in sick or expect their employer to provide them with health insurance.   Also, some business owners may respond to the minimum wage hike by raising the prices of their products.  Perhaps liberals should heed the warning of the old adage “Be careful what you wish for.”  

 

 

 

 

Massive minimum wage hikes are already in effect in some of the most progressive parts of the country.  The results have not exactly turned out the way liberals hoped they would.  In Seattle, the City Council voted three years ago to incrementally raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. Just last month, the University of Washington released a study showing that the minimum wage hike from $11 to $13 an hour led to a loss of 5,000 jobs as well as lower take-home pay for low-wage workers.  Seattle hired the UW research team to analyze the effects of the minimum wage hike.  Seattle responded to the results of the study by dismissing the results and turning to Michael Reich, a professor from UC Berkley, to conduct his own study.  Reich is the co-founder of an anti-capitalist group called the “Union for Radical Political Economics”.  It should not come as a shock that the results of his study will likely reflect positively on the minimum wage hike.  

 

 

Ann Coulter gave an idea of how to raise the minimum wage but don’t expect liberals to take her advice.  The minimum wage debate illustrates how little some people know about the purpose of the minimum wage.  The purpose of a minimum wage job is not to support a family but to gain workforce experience, knowing that further education and training as well as development and acquisition of skills will allow an individual to earn a higher wage later on in life. Fox News Contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy accurately described the purpose of the minimum wage, saying “Listen, these minimum wage jobs, by the way, were never meant to be family supporting jobs, supposed to be starter jobs, where you learn a skill. This summer my daughter had her first job working at Dairy Queen. I can tell you right now and say this, I love her to death, but she’s not worth $15 an hour.”  The fact that there are adults competing with teenagers for minimum wage jobs speaks volumes about the state of our economy. The large pool of low-skilled workers certainly does not help the efforts of those “fighting for 15.”

 

 

 

 

Democrats could find common ground with the Trump administration in implementing some of the other aspects of the “better deal”, especially the infrastructure project.  President Trump has repeatedly compared our country’s infrastructure to that of a third-world country.   Democrats hope that their new economic message will help them win back some of the working-class voters that once formed the backbone of their party by proving to them that they stand for something other than fighting the President’s agenda tooth and nail.  Many of these voters abandoned the Democrats in last year’s election and decided to cast their ballot for President Trump.  Some on the far, far left argue that the “better deal” does not go far enough in dismantling our capitalistic society.  These are the people who will never be satisfied until America becomes just like Western Europe.  The Democrats’ “Better Deal” is still in its early stages, so it is too early to tell whether or not it well serve them well in next year’s midterms.  On the bright side, they finally have something to talk about besides Russia; which the American people are so sick of hearing about.