Things to come!!! 
Posted on 04/06/2016 7:15:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In a less cynical age, the Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that each of the 50 states that make up the U.S., "may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” These days, any reference to states as the “laboratories of Democracy” is as likely as not to be ironic — just Google the phrase plus the word “Kansas” if you need evidence.
But every now and then, a state takes a huge policy risk — Massachusetts under Mitt Romney’s governorship comes to mind, when the state instituted an individual mandate for health insurance as part of a plan to achieve universal health insurance coverage — with outcomes that produce far-reaching effects for the rest of the country.
On Monday, New York and California both embarked on an experiment that could go a long way toward settling questions about how the country’s lowest-paid workers should be treated. The two states, on the same day, enacted laws that will raise minimum wage to $15 per hour.
This will create what social scientists call a “natural experiment” that will be used to try to settle longstanding arguments about the effects of mandating wage increases for low-paid workers. Economists will be able to compare multiple cities, counties and regions within two relatively large states with similar areas nearby in states that did not raise the minimum wage.
If jobs disappear from Binghamton, New York while remaining steady in Scranton, Pennsylvania, there will be a strong argument that mandated wage increases are damaging to the economy. If employment levels in Blythe, California and Ehrenberg, Arizona don’t deviate much after the change, it will support the claim that minimum wage increases don’t make a big difference to employment levels.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefiscaltimes.com ...
For better or worse, an irresistible trend. Will be the national norm, sooner rather than later.
so Disney is going to pay 15 an hour? Ha, the cast members are going to be anamitrons.
Until all our “trade partners” are required to do this too (including the schmoes who assemble Nike sneakers in Bangladesh) it is insane.
Why isn’t the American allowed to negotiate whatever he or she well pleases?
The “laboratories of Democracy” are now the stomping grounds of socialists.
The most important question that was ever proposed to your decision, or to the decision of any people under heaven, is before you, and you are to decide upon it by men of your own election, chosen specially for this purpose. If the constitution, offered to your acceptance, be a wise one, calculated to preserve the invaluable blessings of liberty, to secure the inestimable rights of mankind, and promote human happiness, then, if you accept it, you will lay a lasting foundation of happiness for millions yet unborn; generations to come will rise up and call you blessed. You may rejoice in the prospects of this vast extended continent becoming filled with freemen, who will assert the dignity of human nature. You may solace yourselves with the idea, that society, in this favoured land, will fast advance to the highest point of perfection; the human mind will expand in knowledge and virtue, and the golden age be, in some measure, realised. But if, on the other hand, this form of government contains principles that will lead to the subversion of liberty — if it tends to establish a despotism, or, what is worse, a tyrannic aristocracy; then, if you adopt it, this only remaining assylum for liberty will be shut up, and posterity will execrate your memory.
Momentous then is the question you have to determine, and you are called upon by every motive which should influence a noble and virtuous mind, to examine it well, and to make up a wise judgment. It is insisted, indeed, that this constitution must be received, be it ever so imperfect. If it has its defects, it is said, they can be best amended when they are experienced. But remember, when the people once part with power, they can seldom or never resume it again but by force. Many instances can be produced in which the people have voluntarily increased the powers of their rulers; but few, if any, in which rulers have willingly abridged their authority. This is a sufficient reason to induce you to be careful, in the first instance, how you deposit the powers of government.
So far therefore as its powers reach, all ideas of confederation are given up and lost. It is true this government is limited to certain objects, or to speak more properly, some small degree of power is still left to the states, but a little attention to the powers vested in the general government, will convince every candid man, that if it is capable of being executed, all that is reserved for the individual states must very soon be annihilated, except so far as they are barely necessary to the organization of the general government. The powers of the general legislature extend to every case that is of the least importance — there is nothing valuable to human nature, nothing dear to freemen, but what is within its power. It has authority to make laws which will affect the lives, the liberty, and property of every man in the United States; nor can the constitution or laws of any state, in any way prevent or impede the full and complete execution of every power given. The legislative power is competent to lay taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; — there is no limitation to this power…
And are by this clause invested with the power of making all laws, proper and necessary, for carrying all these into execution; and they may so exercise this power as entirely to annihilate all the state governments, and reduce this country to one single government. And if they may do it, it is pretty certain they will; for it will be found that the power retained by individual states, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of the government of the United States; the latter therefore will be naturally inclined to remove it out of the way. Besides, it is a truth confirmed by the unerring experience of ages, that every man, and every body of men, invested with power, are ever disposed to increase it, and to acquire a superiority over every thing that stands in their way. This disposition, which is implanted in human nature, will operate in the federal legislature to lessen and ultimately to subvert the state authority, and having such advantages, will most certainly succeed, if the federal government succeeds at all.
In a free republic…
Brutus #1 - Anti-federalist
Because we no longer have a government that truly values the free enterprise system. Nor is that likely to change any time soon, barring an electoral miracle.
New York’s governing body is stuck on stupid (liberalism).
People like Mr. Cuomo will not be happy until they create their own slice of Venezuela within the former Empire State.
We usually point to job losses associated with higher minimum wage. Perhaps Mr. Cuomo should explain how raising the COST OF HAVING EMPLOYEES creates jobs?
Wait until those who are more skilled and are currently making $15 or more demand higher wages as well.
Now the laboratory is in Washington DC. Everything is invented there by progressive social-engineers using debt and printed money, and then its forced on the states.
That’s exactly what the tenth Amendment protects. If one state wants to do something, either stupid or brilliant, they are allowed to.
The other states should study the experiment and choose based on the results.
Unfortunately, liberals are incapable of anything but instant gratification, so as soon as Colorado legalizes pot, everyone wants to jump in, instead of waiting to see how well or poorly it works.
$15 minimum wage and this stupid flamer bathroom crap is the same.
And because people who could have been shouting to what is left of a democratic republic to do things sanely, have been blowing the opportunity being bought off with their own tax money.
Well no, not every state has unbanned pot, though.
And it isn’t a question of just unbanning it. What does the unbanning look like? Is it diving out of the frying pan of the street into the fire of a scheme of favorites-playing etc.?
People have been hypnotized into believing that making sense doesn’t matter.
You're right. Pray for a convention and then, electoral miracle. Perhaps The Almighty will mercifully deign to favor this country one more time.
Things to come!!!
Racist! You cannot call anyone a Guinea anything!
I have the biggest hunch that this depends on a variable that we can’t see. How many potentially willing souls are there being staged onto the scene?
Sometimes this can approach 100%. It reportedly did for a period in John Knox era Scotland. I think those “brash” Calvinists prayed for God, really convinced that He could grant it, to predestine large groups in Scotland to be saved... and lo and behold God heard it from His seat amidst all eternity and appointed souls to fulfill it. Just to prove He could. This sounds crazy but I don’t see it violating anything in the bible.
I didn’t say that. Once Colorado legalized pot, Washington state, Washington DC and a few others did it, and several others are looking.
My contention with this example, one among many is that it’s perfectly fine for a state to try something, but that the others should step back for a reasonable time and see how well it works or fails.
Pot is a good example. As I understand, in Colorado, people flocked in droves to the pot sellers. Did this lower the price? raise it? did legal sellers lessen the illegal trade? Did car crashes increase? Has it helped or hurt employment? Is there a change in other recreational drug use? Does Colorado suffer from a heroin epidemic like many other places? Is it increasing or decreasing?
If the libs all jump on and legalize pot, there’s no way to test the experiment because there is no control sample.
Notice I made no claim on the right or wrong regarding Colorado and pot. I have my opinion as do you. However, in an experiment, opinions don’t count. data does.
Same thing with the bathroom thing and high minimum wages.
I’d like for a state to try another experiment. Eliminate minimum wage laws and let the market determine wages. Will jobs increase or decrease? You can make up your own experiment criteria and hypothesis on that.
Eventually, the minimum wage of 15/hr will be a subsistance wage.
When the minimum wage was $1.65/hr back in 1969, if you made $15,000/yr, that was a decent salary.
So when the minimum wage is $15/hr for the entire country, $100K/yr will be a “decent” but not great, salary.
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