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June 22, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
Rush Limbaugh and 24 on MyHeritage.org
Talk show host Rush Limbaugh will moderate Friday's counter-terrorism discussion with Heritage experts and the cast of 24.
Friday morning at 10:00 Eastern, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh will moderate a Heritage Foundation discussion about the public perception of the war against terrorism. As a special treat, Heritage’s national security experts will be joined by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and the cast and producers of the hit television show 24.
Senate blocks bill that would hurt poorest
The Senate yesterday blocked passage of legislation promoted by liberals that would have devastated America’s poorest families. Liberals had proposed a 40 percent increase in the minimum wage, a policy that would “hurt low-income workers, cost jobs, and hobble the American economy,” as Tim Kane explained when the idea was first put on the table last year.
It is a “fiction” that “increasing the federal minimum wage will push up real wages,” Kane wrote. In fact, without any government intervention, real wages have risen since 1997, and non-wage benefits have gone up as well. Kane added that “the credit for these gains goes entirely to the workforce and American business, not to micromanagement from Washington, D.C.”
There’s a simple reason these increases don’t work, a reason explained in every Econ 101 class. Employers only have so much money they can spend on their employees’ wages and benefits. If the cost per minimum-wage employee goes up suddenly, as it would with a government-mandated increase, the employer is forced to make a decision: he can either cut into his own bottom line or he can lay off the employees whose wages and benefits he cannot afford to pay. Since profit margins on most businesses are so very small, the employer’s decision in this situation is not hard.
Kane proposed that Congress return to one of our nation’s founding principles: federalism. If states are allowed to experiment with their own minimum wage laws, they could find out what works and what doesn’t. “The world will take note,” he said, when low-minimum wage states reap economic benefits and high-minimum wage states experience a decline.
But Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) said that he hasn’t given up hope that he can encourage employers around the country to lay off low-skill workers. “When the Democrats control the Senate, one of the first pieces of legislation we'll see is an increase in the minimum wage.”
So who is impacted by a minimum wage hike?
With their defeat, politicians who favored government interference in the economy repeated liberal distortions about the impact of a minimum wage hike. For example, the Associated Press reports that “Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said that contrary to some impressions, most minimum wage workers are adults, not teenagers, and many of them are women.”
The problem is that this simply isn’t true. It’s really just another tired liberal myth that increasing the minimum wage will help poor workers.
As it turns out, among workers making the minimum wage and just above it,
- Over half were teenagers or adults under 25 years old
- A third were enrolled in school
- More than half were voluntary part-time workers
- Only seven percent were heads of poor families
- Their average family income is $45,200
So it’s not really the most desperate poor who will be helped, especially since minimum wage hikes have a nasty habit of discouraging employment.
Coincidence?
- Late last month, the Bush administration offered concessions and direct talks if Iran backs down from its aggressive posture and halts development of its nuclear weapons program.
- Two weeks later, North Korea threatens to resume development of its long-range missile program and demands concessions and direct talks with the Bush administration.
In other news
- A recently-declassified portion of an intelligence document indicates that hundreds of chemical weapons have in fact been found in Iraq. Whether this will have any effect on the media consensus that no weapons were found in Iraq remains to be seen.
- In a decision that upholds the rule of law, the Supreme Court ruled that illegal aliens may not appeal to the courts to obtain legal residence no matter how long they have lived in the United States.
- Preliminary data released by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that federal tax revenues are on pace for another astounding year. This is clear evidence that the tax cuts are spurring economic growth. Not only that, Heritage’s Brian Riedl explained, but “the argument that low tax revenues are to blame for the budget problems is collapsing by the day.”
- The House of Representatives has postponed voting on a renewal of the Voting Rights Act after several members complained that it applies special rules to some states and requires ballots to be printed in several languages. The law currently requires nine states to seek federal approval before certain revisions to their voting rules.
- The House further announced that it will hold hearings this summer to discuss immigration reform, dashing the hopes of liberals who hoped the House would act quickly to enact the Senate’s amnesty bill.
- The House is also expected to vote today on the line-item veto, an important tool for fiscal restraint, and a very watered-down compromise on the death tax that may not include repeal.
- FEMA suspects that up to 3,000 of the 38,000 families living in trailers the government provided after Hurricane Katrina may not be eligible for the program. The agency isn’t moving to evict any of these families; instead, it’s conducting a study.
- In Hungary, President Bush celebrated the 50th anniversary of that country’s rebellion against its Communist rulers. The Soviet Union brutally repressed the rebels after it became clear that the free world would do nothing to help the fledgling anti-Communist uprising.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
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