Posted on 05/08/2015 9:42:14 AM PDT by SoConPubbie
Conservative presidential candidate Ben Carson says the $7.25 federal minimum wage should be raised.
“I think, probably, it should be higher than now,” Carson told CNBC’s John Harwood in an interview Friday.
Carson added that government assistance often provides more than the minimum wage in several states, allowing people to ignore the long-term benefits of a job.
"I don't necessarily blame people for saying, 'Look, I can stay home and make this money, or I can go and work this little chicken job that doesn't have many benefits,’ ” he said.
"However, recognize that if you go and take that chicken job, you gain skills, relationships, the possibility of moving up the ladder. So a year or two or five down the road, you're no longer in that position. This is what people have forgotten."
His stance on the minimum wage makes Carson an outlier among the likely field of GOP opponents and comes with Democrats looking to make it a key issue in the 2016 election.
Among fellow GOP contenders Carly Fiorina, former Gov. Mike Huckabee (Ark.) and Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), Carson is the only one backing a wage hike.
Two likely contenders, former Gov. Jeb Bush (Fla.) and Gov. Scott Walker (Wis.), don’t back an increase either.
Bush said that the federal government shouldn’t raise the wage during an event in March. Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in October that he doesn’t believe the minimum wage “serves a purpose.”
Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), who is weighing a bid, would be the only other Republican candidate open to raising the minimum wage. His advisers told The Hill in February that his stance could help him earn support from working families.
Democrats believe the issue will be a winner for them in 2016, with senators earlier this week proposing a measure that would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020.
That figure goes well beyond the $10.10 wage that Democrats failed to pass when they controlled the Senate.
President Obama initially suggested a $9 minimum wage before backing $10.10. The administration is now supporting the $12 push.
The doctor is a GREAT MAN...in his own field. The more I see of him the more I think he has no more business running for president than Joe Biden does. Even his beard puts me off, we have not had a bearded president in a long, long time. There is nothing wrong with a beard, I have worn one myself in the past but the doctor’s beard does not look good, it looks like it belongs on Maynard G. Krebs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGmekK8T1E
I’d like to correct your comment that the IRS would be “ . . . replaced with another hated agency to collect the consumption tax.”
The FairTax will be collected by retail businesses, in the same manner they collect state sales taxes.
I’ll grant that said state sales tax agencies are not beloved by retail businesses, but, after all, when a sale is made, the tax is collected, and the business has a legal and moral obligation to forward it to the state.
Likewise with the FairTax. Woe betide the COMPANY which does not collect and remit the tax!
HST, note that a COMPANY is the target, not an INDIVIDUAL.
And, therein lies the difference.
Surely you can see that?
Please see http://www.fairtaxplan.org/faq.php. #47 directly applies to your question re: stabilility of tax revenue.
I’m not going to comment on tariffs, as I believe we should have “Quid pro quo” tariffs; IOW, match % with countries we trade with. I believe in “Fair” trade, not “FRee” trade!
Right now the USA has perfected the Art and Science of disadvantaging itself in all matters Foreign and Domestic, and will continue to do so until Ophonybama is long gone!
God help us if we elect another Democrat or some wussy RINO in 2016!
He is by all accounts an excellent surgeon, and a fine man.
The office of the President, however, requires much more. At the very, very least, it requires a grasp of the issues facing our nation. It requires an understanding of our Consitition and its historical framework. All of which Dr. Carson has amply demonstrated he lacks.
My bartender is a great guy. But I don’t want him running the country either.
The 20 percent reduction comes from the reduction in corporate income taxes. Note that this assessment assumes a perfect inelastic demand for the product, so all taxes are passed onto the consumer...probably not too realistic for most products. However, it still agrees with my statement that fiscal policy is the better way to import exports.
I absolutely agree...the VAT tax is a nightmare. It means that each stage in the production process is taxed according to the “value added” by that stage. Friedman pointed out that something as simple as a loaf of bread has 67 steps. Can you imagine the bureaucracy that would be needed to track that in the US!? However, if that loaf of bread is produced in England but sold to a US customer, the 67 taxes increments still apply, but they don’t add another VAT to the export price.
True, most countries impose some kind of import tax on our goods. The sad thing is that the gov’t gets the funds...both sides of the actual transaction get nothing. Given that the gov’t did nothing to produce the good or the income to buy it, why should they get a windfall that ends up being passed onto both the producer and consumer (assuming the demand is not perfectly inelastic)?
Get rid of tariffs and quotas, get the gov’t out of international trade, and let comparative advantage do its thing. We’ll all be better off.
I’m glad we agree that the VAT is a bureaucratic nightmare, enriching everyone but the poor suffering taxpayer!
HST, VAT is border adjustable: items exported FRom VAT countries have the VAT rebated to them at their border. Essentially, goods FRom VAT countries are untaxed as they leave, thus lowering their retail price.
Advantage: VAT country’s goods exported to non-VAT countries; i.e., USA takes it in the shorts because, except for a small percentage business income tax levied on the US sales company, there is no US tax levied.
FairTax levels the playing field domestically and abroad: the FairTax is imposed in the USA on both domestic and imported goods (at the same rate) and, since the FAirTax is NOT imposed on US exports, VAT on US goods and VAT on their domestic goods balances everything out overseas.
IOW, the tax burden is shared equally and fairly in the USA and abroad.
That, my FRiend is but one of the reasons I like the FairTax. I have already mentioned the FReedom engendered by the FAirTax,
Your point re: tariffs and quotas is well made. I agree.
Picture this: competition between countries based on price and quality of product vice tariffs and quotas picking winners and losers. Countries with VATS would compete with the USA FairTax and vie with one another for competitive advantage, in time eliminating tariffs and quotas and forcing tax rates lower to the point that they would equal out. Stasis may not be the correct economics term, but I think you get the picture.
Thus, FAirTax, in the long run satisfies your concerns re: tariffs, quotas and the wrong people profiting FRom trade.
Please carefully consider incorporating the FairTax into your peer group discussions on the economy.
An adviser needs to explain to Ben that the real minimum wage is $0.00 per hour. It’s impossible to change that, but politicians can guarantee that a, ever larger number of men and women earn it.
I would prefer a flat tax first, the Fair Tax second, and the current system a distant 100th place. The prebate still bothers me and until that’s removed, my rankings would stay the same.
You need to read up on the special situations where comparative advantage doesn’t work. One is high unemployment. Another is where one country doesn’t buy the other’s trade goods and instead buys their equities and debt, like China is doing to us.
Comparative advantage is a good argument for trade of trade goods. But doesn’t apply in this case, because we are moving and selling the means of production.
If income taxes DEMAND and enforcement arm, and we are assured they do, then so long as the USA has ANY form of income tax, be it a Marxist inspired progressive one or a economist inspired flat one, the most odious manifestation of our insanity will remain in place.
The IRS MUST be abolished if we are to ever be a FRee people again!
FairTax is the only way to do that!
Please don’t let the prebate be a show-stopper for you. Cast your economit’s eye upon the legislation (H.R. 25 @ https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/25/text; read it and think it through. I think you’ll like it.
I can’t imagine any real conservative still supporting him. Maybe he’s in to draw the votes of dems during the open primaries and ruin everything for the real conservatives in the race.
While the Fair Tax may allow the IRS to disappear, something will replace it to make sure the Fair Tax is administered and collected properly. Simply changing from an income tax to a consumption tax doesn’t change the fact that it’s a tax. It’s far better than what we have now, but it still going to be a tax, it just shifts the burden from producers to consumers. And that is better than what we have now.
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