If I had a nickel for every time I had to go toe to toe with a liberal over the minimum wage, or came across literature petitioning my representatives to raise it, I'd almost be able to balance the budget.
The late great economist Milton Friedman has said it, Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams have said it as well: The minimum wage destroys jobs and slows the economy. And now El Rushbo is saying it. Because it's true.
Everything you need to know about the minimum wage is right here in these 13 minutes. School is open and the professor is in.
Some gems to listen for in this clip:
Have you seen the teenage unemployment rate in this country? Well, can you say 25%? It's 16%, 18%. It's way, way up there! The teenage unemployment rate, it's at record highs. Whatever it is, it is at a record high, and why do you think that is? In part, it's the minimum wage.
Businesses are having enough trouble as it is in this economy, and then to be told to go out and hire a bunch of people who have no experience and pay them an arbitrary amount of money that has no relationship to the business's operation or cost structure, is literally absurd! And so the only option the small businessman has is not hiring anybody. ... It's sort of like raising tax rates and these dummkopfs in Washington think, "Well, you raise the tax rate and these taxpayers just sit out there like a bunch of idiots and they'll pay it." And every time tax rates are increased, guess what? Revenue goes down!
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If you want more of an activity, you cut taxes on it. If you want less of an activity, you raise taxes. If you want more homes sold, then you allow the interest on a mortgage to be deducted. If you don't want a lot of homes to be sold, take that deduction away. If you want to spur teenage hiring, lower the minimum wage or get rid of it. If you want to retard teenage hiring -- if you want to slow it down, if you want to limit the amount of teenagers to get jobs -- raise the cost of hiring them. And that's what an increase in the minimum wage is!
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The national teenage unemployment rate in November, 21.4%. The teenage unemployment rate in Washington is over 50%. Now, who does the unemployment rate hit besides teenagers? It hits the unskilled worker. The unskilled worker who needs the first rung of that ladder. ...
The whole safety net idea is a disaster. It's robbing people of opportunity. It's robbing people of dignity. It's creating dependents. It's creating perpetual Democrat voters reproducing. That's what it is. That's what it was designed for. LBJ, FDR, that was the purpose in all it is, to create an ever-growing and perpetually renewing pool of Democrat voters who never learn to depend on themselves, who never learn the skills to support themselves. That's fine with the Democrat Party. That's fine with guys like Barack Obama.
Two things happen: Those people become dependent and then you run around and talk about how heartless and cruel the Republicans are for opposing ever more money in the policy to give them ever more benefits. So it's a double whammy for 'em. ... The real safety net is a job, and the minimum wage is one of the many obstacles in the way of people trying to find work in this economy.
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This is another part of the charade the Democrats play: They try to convince you that every minimum wage earner is a 40-year-old, bedraggled person who the Republicans don't care about, who the Republicans are trying to keep poor and homeless, trying desperately in this horrid country to support a family of four. And the vast majority of people on the minimum wage are teenagers, young people.
If the minimum wage gets too high and then they start cracking down on interns, what's the next place business will go? Illegal aliens. You see how this works? The minimum wage can be said to be responsible for a whole bunch of problems in this country -- while a bunch of dummkopfs run around thinking with their hearts, "Oh, boy, is that compassion!"
[Edited for long silences, commercial breaks, and extraneous talking]
(Download clip here)
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