IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Democrats from the White House to Congress have been beating the “income inequality” drum for the last several months in an effort to gain some kind of national issue that resonates with voters for the upcoming November elections.
The usual suspects of the gender income gap, 1 percenter’s, expanded healthcare and raising the minimum wage have all been thrown at the wall in a desperate effort to get something to stick. Unfortunately, many of these concepts have instead run into the wall called the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The CBO has made some pretty big announcements recently that have poured cold water on Democratic initiatives. According to the CBO, Obamacare will cause 2.5 million persons to drop out of the workforce. The CBO also stated quite bluntly that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour as proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats would eliminate another 500,000 private sector jobs.
Talk about job killers.
What has been the response to these job loss numbers? “We want people to have the freedom to be a writer, to be a photographer, to make music, to paint, to start a business, to unleash the entrepreneurship of America,” stated House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. That’s nice. While the rest of us have to work harder to pay more taxes thanks to Obamacare, “more people can write a book” and get their healthcare paid by the rest of us.
How ennobling. It’s part of the work-less, get-more mantra of the Democrat Party. Don’t have healthcare? We will force those “knucklehead” young people to pay outrageous money for a product they don’t want to cover it. Your children aren’t already obese? Here are some food stamps, be sure to fill them up on frozen pizza and save your cash for beer and cigarettes.
And now they want to raise the minimum wage. Thankfully the CBO’s numbers have put this idea on ice. While raising the minimum wage would raise income levels for some Americans, it would not come close to lifting people out of poverty in many states, particularly California, and would drive prices for goods and services up. Yes folks, that’s called inflation.
Can we really afford to shrink our economy by 500,000 jobs in the midst of an ongoing economic malaise? The simple answer is no.
Unfortunately, we aren’t hearing much from our Republican friends on the issue of economic growth. Obamacare is a led weight around Democrat necks in this election cycle, but we need to hear how Republicans will advance job creation and economic hope, particularly for millennials who are being largely shut out of our economy. These are the same folks Michelle Obama referred to as “knuckleheads” on the tonight show this week.
And please don’t stick to the old mantra of cutting regulations, taxes, and red tape. Those are important issues, but they are stale. Republicans need to provide a plan that GETS AMERICA WORKING AGAIN. That is the direct opposite of the Democrat plan to put more people out of work so they can “write a book.”
