Posted on 02/27/2005 8:31:56 AM PST by Willie Green
In politics, goes the proverb, a man must learn to rise above principle. Republicans certainly are doing a good job resembling that maxim -- and with bad results assured.
President Bush's political savant Karl Rove was the cock-of-the-walk this month bragging that conservatism has become "the dominant political creed in America." Surely it must be one of those off-brands because what's been passing for conservatism these days is quite troubling.
Let's start with Rick Santorum.
Pennsylvania's junior U.S. senator this week is planning to introduce a bill that would raise the minimum wage.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
He did not say how much the proposed increase is. Folks on Social Security got a cost of living increase this year. Why can't there be a cost of living increase to the minimum wage?
no they're not. Because you can't fathom how a conservative thinks, and, therefore, are thrown by every original thought that one has, you assume that they are "abandoning their principals." In reality, they are abandoning you're pigeon-holing of them and leaving you in the idealogical dust, you pitiful imbecil.
. . . there's never a good time to raise the government-mandated wage floor because the "good" of minimum wages is a fallacy
The debate over Social Security reform rapidly has devolved into an unseemly contest among "conservatives" to see who can snooker the American people into believing that taxes must be increased to "save" the supplemental retirement system.
. . . Mitch Daniels, President Bush's former budget director, wants to jack up taxes 1 percentage point on those making $100,000 or more. It's billed as a "temporary" increase
. . . several GOP governors who are eschewing market solutions to the growing Medicaid problem.
. . . some key Republican senators, including Ted Stevens of Alaska, appear to be succumbing to the nonsense that humankind must curtail certain activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to "save" the planet
That particular grey area can tough to distinguish. But certainly a conservative Democrat (Zell Miller) is considerably better than a liberal Republican (Olympia Snowe).
LOL! Good Point, I concur.
"you're pigeon-holing" ought to be "your pigeon-holing."
I was about to agree until I took time to think.
How about Joe Lieberman vs Arlen Specter?
Adlai Stevenson, Jr., during one of his runs for President against Eisenhower, said, "Sometimes one must rise above principle."
Sheesh.
Congressman Billybob
Because government should have absolutely no say in how much one person agrees to pay another.
--And, yes, many so-called conservatives are Republicans-In-Name-Only (RINO).--
Or should we say that there are many republicans who are conservative in name only?
Well, that makes sense. Unless someone is treating an employee like a slave. You know, a "sweat shop".
For the most part I agree. But compare Zell Miller to Lincoln Chafee, John McCain or Christie Todd Whitman. I'll take Zell. It's not even competitive.
"Because government should have absolutely no say in how much one person agrees to pay another."
Currently the minimum wage serves only as an excuse not to pay more. Forty years ago anyone in this area who earned double the minimum wage could afford to marry, buy a home and raise children and if a man managed well his spouse could stay home and raise the children without an outside job. Today someone earning double the minimum can barely afford to support himself. The minimum wage should be scrapped.
Mornings do that to the best of us...
I see no real conservative actions from the majority of Republican lawmakers anymore, and many of us realize we have been betrayed.
Everything has turned left. The time has come for a strong third party, a real conservative party.
And how exactly does one treat an employee "like a slave."
That being said, what do you think is reasonable for a minimum wage?
Try living under George Pataki, He is the most liberal "Conservative" out there.
Actually he is the BY FAR the most liberal "Liberal" governor in the country
I would take Lieberman. Better the devil you know.
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
While I find myself disagreeing with you on many occasions about protectionism (which I tend to disfavor), I agree with the article's author that there is nothing 'conservative' about raising the minimum wage or throwing more money at Social Security.
By a long shot..and I know Specter and wouldn't take him under ANY circumstance.
Ditto..100%
Apparently there are not yet enough who realize the D/R political consortium is thoroughly corrupt and scripted toward the same goal.
Perhaps that is just too difficult a reality for many. Most seem willing to ignore reality and pursue banal discussions of who is least objectionable among the same old corrupt political players.
Why would it "shock" you?
As a true America First! conservative, I have ALWAYS opposed government policies that place our domestic businesses at an economic disadvantage. And consistant with that principle, I am opposed to raising the minimum wage.
However, with such government regulatory burdens in place, I am also opposed to the Anointed One undermining our domestic market with cheap imported goods and labor.
Tancredo in '08 would be a good way to change that. The GOP kicking members like Snowe, McCain, and Spectre, instead of making excuses for them, would go even further.
See what the author wrote further down:
"'As Henry Hazlitt, the late, great economic journalist once put it: "You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less. You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering. In brief, for a low wage you substitute unemployment.'"
Raising the minimum wage creates more unemployment because employers must give the money they would spend on other employees or services to the employees they already have.
Okay, please explain how raising the minimum wage agrees with "how a conservative thinks." I've always understood conservativism to mean that the government controls economic choices between individuals as little as possible. The minimum wage is a bad idea because it makes hiring less valuable workers unprofitable for employers. Either the workers won't be hired or the employers must take a loss to pay them minimum wage. Please explain the new way that "a conservative thinks" to justify abandoning this wisdom. Please explain how endorsing what has been a liberal idea for forty years has suddenly become "an original thought."
Likewise, how is increasing taxes on those making $100,000 a year an original conservative idea? Liberals have always been in favor of adding taxes on those making over a $100,000 a year. Heck, make it easy on yourself. Try explaining how doing what the liberals have advocated for fifty years is "original." I haven't yet seen evidence that you even understand what original means.
Bill
I am not following your so-called 'logic'. What does your freinds health problems have to do with minimum wage?
Don't they have freinds and family to help? Or do you and they think WE should pay for them?
So lets raise the minimum wage to 20 an hour so your freind can do better- is that what you think? What happens then? Your freind and every teenage boy and girl can make a 'living wage'?
Oh, and in case you dont think I am sympathetic- My brother had the same problems. We all pitched in and helped them with no government help
Isn't that what President Bush is saying? Reform Social Security? Allow the people to invest their own money?
Of course we will have a certain number of people who never earned enough to do that. What will we do for them?
For those of us who have earned enough to invest our own money, I am all for it!
While I find myself disagreeing with you on many occasions about protectionism (which I tend to disfavor), I agree with the article's author that there is nothing 'conservative' about raising the minimum wage or throwing more money at Social Security.
I agree, thanks for the post.
You have to examine carefully all that nonsense labeled "protectionism" by the purveyors of phony Marxist type "free trade". Unfortunately the global money monger version of "free trade" is all about destroying the liberty cherished by most Americans.
"Because government should have absolutely no say in how much one person agrees to pay another."
Hello Mr. McNickle,
I agree and enjoyed reading your article titled, “Conservatives abandoning their principles,” in the Sunday, February 27, 2005, on-line edition of the Tribune-Review.
Besides your correct assertion that you make in your following remark, “The Santorum proposal would discourage capital accumulation at exactly the wrong time. There would be fewer jobs paying less. And that's the mistake of a liberal, not of a "conservative," there is also a very fundamental Constitutional question about the minimum wage law that needs to be addressed by “conservatives,” as well.
The minimum wage law violates Amendment V of the Bill of Rights, which states:
“nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”
Money is property as the Supreme Court has acknowledged most recently in:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No. 98—963
JEREMIAH W. (JAY) NIXON, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MISSOURI, et al., PETITIONERS v. SHRINK MISSOURI GOVERNMENT PAC et al.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
[January 24, 2000]
Justice Stevens, concurring, states:
“I make one simple point. Money is property;”
So, who benefits from the minimum wage law? The public.
Who owns the money (property) that Congress wishes to distribute to the public? Private property owners, whether sole proprietors, partners, or millions of stockholders.
Is there “just compensation” for this taking? No.
The minimum wage is unambiguously unconstitutional.
A moment of silence for the people of Pennsylvania that don't live in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. They're forced to share the burden of financial mistakes made by these models of mismanagment.
When the minimum wage is raised, businesses will simply retain the workers they have and pass the higher labor costs onto the consumer in the form of higher prices. Democrats love the minimum wage because it creates perpetual poverty to justify the existence of big government programs, and unions love it because their pay is automatically tied in any minimum wage increases.
I was rebutting the headline. Santorum has been known to flip-flop before. This cannot be construed as "conservatives abandoning their principles." It's more like "Santorum trying to be pragmatic."
There are new challenges in the world following the trainwreck of Communism. The Ds seem to be hung up at the point where it was still not certain that Marxism was dead and that deconstructionism had done its job so that it has become time to build new regimes around the planet by coming to the aid of weak and failed post-colonial states.
Indeed it would, but the owners of political parties have gone to great lenghts to install these minions of "the new socialism". Not likely to happen.
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