Posted on 06/19/2002 9:31:40 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Genghis Khan, Democrats and the Minimum Wage
Joan NagyWhen Genghis Khan invaded China he vowed to destroy the country. Seeing nothing of value he planned to level its cities and obliterate its culture. "It would be better to exterminate the Chinese and let the grass grow,” the 12th-century warrior Khan was said to exclaimed. Khan was shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious. Mongol armies ruthlessly eliminated any resistance, even slaughtering entire populations in conquered cities.
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
One man stood between Khan and the destruction of China. Yelu Ch’u-Ts’ai, was a foreigner to China, but had come to love and appreciate the superiority of the Chinese culture. Ch’u-Ts’ai managed to become a trusted adviser to Khan, and he advised him if he simply taxed the Chinese he could acquire great wealth. Khan, seeing the wisdom of this fact, took his advice and spared the cities and its residents.
When the city of Kaifeng was conquered after waging a long battle with the Mongolians, Khan ordered that all the inhabitants be massacred. Ch’u-Ts’ai, again, stopped the destruction by telling Khan that all the finest craftsmen and engineers in China had fled to Kaifeng and, by sparing the people, he could reap great benefits from their talents. Khan, again, took his advice and spared the city.
Never before had Khan showed such mercy on people in conquered lands, but then Khan wasn’t really showing mercy; he was showing greed. Ch’u-Ts’ai, without an army of his own, without firing one shot or uttering one threat, had stopped a murderous Mongol warrior.
Ch’u-Ts’ai was able to achieve this because he understood the art of asking for help and assistance. Most people never succeed at this art because they assume that other people will have a selfless interest in helping them. They naively appeal to the big picture of love, gratitude or mercy instead of appealing to mutually practical issues that would have greater value for the giver.
Ch’u-Ts’ai knew that he had to appeal to Khan’s greed; after all, he was a conqueror who seized and pillaged other nations. When someone oozes greed, you don’t make a case for mercy. Ch’u-Ts’ai succeeded where others failed because he understood what motivates people.
Ch’u-Ts’ai was good at this, but the American Democratic politicians have taken this art to an all-time high and have perfected the art of succeeding at achieving their personal goals, while appealing to greed in other people. Example: increasing the minimum wage.
The dynamics between the Democratic politicians and American voters are amazing. They appear to support one another, yet unlike the relationship between Khan and Ch’u-Ts’ai, which was a win/win situation, the one between the Democratic politician and the American voter is a win/lose situation, but the voter keeps falling for the same faulty argument.
Imagine the Democratic strategy meeting with politicians asking the question, "How can we persuade the American people to give up more of their money and yet, at the same time, convince them that it is in their best interest to do so?” Answer: increasing the minimum wage.
The first thing you must understand about increasing the minimum wage is that nothing the politicians say about it is true. First, it does not help the poor, and second, it is not offered by the politician because he or she cares and wants to help the poor working people. Let's examine both of those statements.
Increasing the minimum wage does not help the poor. In fact, it hurts the poor in two distinct ways. It diminishes their job availability, and it diminishes their buying power. When government demands that business increase their employees’ wages overnight when there has been no accompanying increase in that companies’ profit, that equates to immediate job layoffs and firings. In many cases jobs paying minimum wage routinely disappear and never reappear as the minimum wage slowly increases.
When the minimum wage is increased, that additional cost to businesses is passed on to consumers at every level of production on every goods and services. So, every product and service that the minimum-wage earner must purchases for his or her family will have gone up in price as well.
When the minimum-wage increase of $1 an hour produces a $2,000-a-year increase in the worker’s pay, the overall increase of the total goods and services which that worker must purchase in that same year might go up by $8,000 or more. This means that the minimum-wage worker has a diminished buying capacity of $6,000 a year. It is as if the American worker was robbed $6,000 or more every time the minimum wage is increased. The poor get poorer, and the government gets richer and bigger.
Which is why, during my lifetime, I have seen the head-of-household of a family of four earning $20,000 being able to afford a comfortable lifestyle consisting of a house, two cars and a pleasure boat during the late 1950s to today’s standard of a head-of-household of a family of four earning $20,000 existing below the poverty level and eligible for food stamps and other government assistance.
Increasing the minimum wage is not done because politicians care or even want to help poor working people. If you are one of those voters who supports politicians who promise to raise the minimum wage, please know that the economics of the minimum wage as just explained above are fully understood by every politician who proposes its increase. They know you are getting poorer, but they don’t care because with everyone’s wage higher they, the government, can collect more tax dollars.
When politicians have more money, they have more power. They can set up social programs and convince even more voters that their lives would be too burdensome without Democrats in power looking out for the working poor, thereby insuring their continued political success at the expense of your families’ wealth and well-being. They’re buying your vote with your own tax dollars and, quite frankly, as long as you are too stupid to realize that fact, they will continue doing so.
A Better Plan
Several years ago a young Republican congressman, David McIntosh of Indiana, proposed a genuine solution to the plight of the minimum-wage earner. He proposed that instead of raising the minimum wage, which contributed to upwardly spiraling prices and diminished buying power for low wage earners, the government simply cease taxing the minimum-wage earner. The government would not deduct: federal, state, local, Social Security or Medicare taxes from minimum-wage earners’ paychecks. This allows their gross earnings to be their take-home pay.
This is a win/win situation for employers and employees. This would solve the problems for small businesses, which would not have to eliminate jobs or raise their prices to offset the increase cost in wages. The minimum-wage earner would keep his job and gain an actual windfall of buying power. With prices staying the same, his economic level and buying power would increase.
The only one losing ground in this situation would be the government, which is why the bill never got out of committee. Those caring Democratic politicians would not be able to deduct all that tax money from those working-poor minimum-wage earners or gain the added windfall tax revenue from all those rising prices and other wage increases. Plus they would never have the minimum-wage issue to demagogue and beat Republican politicians over the head with at election time.
So, the next time some slimy, soft-spoken, bleeding-heart liberal Democrat says he wants to help the working poor by raising the minimum wage, why don’t you ask him how he can take tax money from the poorest of the poor and still look at himself in the mirror?
Understand this: The party that reforms the American tax system will prove itself to be the real champion of the poor.
Understand this: The party that reforms the American tax system will prove itself to be the real champion of the poor.
Yup!
Well, I think inflation has something to do with this. And think inflation is a big issue that goes beyond taxes and the minimum wage.
Also, it seems that this article is calling for tax cuts for the poor. Hey, I like tax cuts and I usually don't argue against them. But my understanding of the tax situation is that the bottom 50% of the population pays just 4% of the taxes.
Working hard for tax relief for the poor (who receive the services that others pay for) is not where I like to put my energy.
I like the idea (given the income tax) of a low, say 10% tax on ALL, no exemptions, no deductions, real individual income. Then everybody has a stake in the system. Do that and eliminate CapGains and corporate income tax and the boom will make the recent Gay 90s Reagan economy look stodgy. Of course, that will exacerbate the problem of big government all over again because 10% after a couple of years, will bring in far more tax revenue than the 15-40% taxes we have now and the direction will be steeply up.
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