Liberals Double Down on Inequality

American Thinker ^ | 1/7/2014 | Christopher Chantrill

[markomalley]

It was on December 4, 2013 that President Obama opened the Year of Inequality with his speech on economic mobility A month later liberal hounds are baying for extended unemployment benefits and higher minimum wage, and conservatives are drawing up lists of what liberals know that ain't so.

Here is John Hawkins' enumeration of how liberal inequality politics hurts the poor.

1. Minimum wage prices poor out of jobs.
2. Minimum wage makes people comfortable, not succeed
3. More government equals more economic stagnation.
4. More inequality programs make it harder to get ahead.
5. Inequality politics ignores real causes of poverty.

And here is John C. Goodman exposing "Five Myths about Inequality."

1. Average family income has stagnated. No it hasn't.
2. People at the bottom are there through no fault of their own. Except they don't get out and work much.
3. Transfer programs are an effective remedy for inequality. No, they discourage people from seeking work.
4. Raising minimum wage reduces inequality. Science says: no evidence that minimum wage increases lift people out of poverty.
5. Income is best measure of inequality. Except that poorest quartile consumes twice its money income.

We know what is going on here. Right now liberals aren't going to win votes by airy promises of Hope and Change. That dog won't hunt, not with ObamaCare hammering ordinary Americans in the pocketbook. They have to turn the clock back to basic tribal instinct: vote for the Dems and we will give you loot. So 2014 must be the Year of Inequality. Democrats will extend long-term unemployment benefits even though science says that any period of unemployment is damaging to basic job skills. They will raise the minimum wage even though it will make it harder for your kid to get a job. And anyone that disagrees wants to starve little children.

[FES0844]

I guess the dems were never taught...”Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s goods.” How devisive & evil. Shame on all those who play this card.

[logic101.net]

Minimum wage makes people comfortable, not succeed

No it doesn’t. Raising the min wage does make some people more comfortable in the short term (if they don’t loose their job), but in the long term it is inflationary so the benefit doesn’t last long.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”They have to turn the clock back to basic tribal instinct: vote for the Dems and we will give you loot. So 2014 must be the Year of Inequality. Democrats will extend long-term unemployment benefits even though science says that any period of unemployment is damaging to basic job skills. They will raise the minimum wage even though it will make it harder for your kid to get a job. And anyone that disagrees wants to starve little children.”

More free stuff.

Look how well it worked with Obamacare.

I don't see Republicans on TV effectively arguing against these, they look like they want to hide.

[clearcarbon]

Universal poverty.

[Atlas Sneezed]

If they want to talk inequality, let’s start with the DC area having nearly double the median income of the rest of the nation.

[jsanders2001]

> Universal poverty.

Obama’s economy has certainly depleted much of my savings. I had a dream about him last night for some reason and in it he was becoming richer by stealing tax dollars through some scheme. I just can’t remember how. Maybe it will come back to me later. I hate old age....lol

[Enterprise]

"Liberals Double Down on Inequality"

Understandable. When brains were passed out they got short changed. They have been sulking ever since then.

[FlingWingFlyer]

They sure as hell don’t want to talk about their failed ObamaCare scheme.

[MrB]

Yep, the first proposed law should be that income levels in DC cannot exceed 120% of the median income of the rest of the nation.

Breaking this threshold will result in an instant dismissal from your government job.

[Cheerio]

linkie thingie no good?

[The Duke]

I wonder if we Americans will ever stop lying to ourselves about the source of prosperity, roll up our sleeves, and get our collective asses to work?

[MrB]

There was a paragraph in “How Evil Works” that was worth the whole book...

People WANT TO BE LIED TO by politicians.
“It’s not your fault” is much more palatable than “get to work”.

[Vaduz]

Inequality is liberals new scam of diversion to cover up all the problems they have caused.

[Atlas Sneezed]

I’m working on a new tagline...

[clearcarbon]

"I had a dream about him last night for some reason and in it he was becoming richer by stealing tax dollars through some scheme. "

[supercat]

Give some people $100 of marginal wealth and within a year they'll turn it into $200. Give others $100 of marginal wealth and they'll turn it into $0. If today a person of each type were to have the same amount of wealth, it's likely the person of the first type would after a year's time have more wealth than the second, and that difference would increase year after year.

The more wealth is in the hands of people who use it to create more wealth, the more new wealth will be created. Even if wealth-redistribution policies didn't discourage those who would be prone to create more wealth from doing so, it would still reduce the amount of wealth created by reducing the capital they had available.

A common rhetorical question asked by those who would want to tax the rich is "Why should someone with $100 million need more than that? He should be able to live just fine on what he has." The proper response is "Someone with $100 million won't be able to build as many businesses and put as many people to work as would he would if he had more". Indeed, I would argue that the fact that someone with $100 million wouldn't have many material needs that couldn't be met with much less would imply that such a person would reinvest a larger portion of any marginal wealth than would a typical person who had only $100,000.

[jospehm20]

Will Obunghole and the millionaires in congress pushing this start working from minimum wage to make things equal?

[Lazamataz]