Thursday, April 03, 2008

The Consequences of Legislative Actions

Hillary Clinton on the Tonight Show:

I was in Indianapolis the other day, and I was shaking hands after I spoke. And there was this young boy, about 11 years old. And he was trying to tell me something, ya know, and the crowd was yelling. So I leaned over and he said, "You know, my mom makes minimum wage, and even though it went up, her hours were cut so were not making any more money. Can you help her?" You know, when somebody says something like that to you, it really does energize me and, yeah, I can, I'm going to really try to help you.

Point number one: This is a typical bullshit political story. I don't care who tells it, be it Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Socialist, etc., etc. This is always a made up story. And Hillary should hope that it is a made up story, because if it isn't, then it proves what any number of conservatives have been saying from the get go, and that is that wages are something that a politician can't just decide to increase. When business are faced with forced increases in their labor costs, they have to find ways to absorb those increases. One way is to employ fewer people. Another is to offer fewer hours to those they employ already. I know that Hillary was pandering to economic divisions with this bogus story, but she did more to prove what her opposition says about minimum wage than her opponents could ever hope to.

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