Mitt Romney’s statement about not worrying about the poor has been treated as a gaffe in much of the media, and those in the Republican establishment who have been rushing toward endorsing his coronation as the GOP’s nominee for president — with 90 percent of the delegates still not yet chosen — have been trying to sweep his statement under the rug.
But Romney’s statement about not worrying about the poor — because they “have a very ample safety net” — was followed by a statement that was not just a slip of the tongue, and should be a defining moment in telling us about this man’s qualifications as a conservative and, more important, as a potential President of the United States.
Mitt Romney has come out in support of indexing the minimum wage law, to have it rise automatically to keep pace with inflation. To many people, that would seem like a small thing that can be left for economists or statisticians to deal with.
But to people who call themselves conservatives, and aspire to public office, there is no excuse for not being aware of what a major social disaster the minimum wage law has been for the young, the poor and especially for young and poor blacks.
It is not written in the stars that young black males must have astronomical rates of unemployment. It is written implicitly in the minimum wage laws.
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Mr. Sowell you are spot on as usual and I applaud you for your intelligence in seeing through the governments attempt at manipulations of poor people wages everywhere with these minimum wage laws. These minimum wage laws tells employers that all a prospective worker is worth is a minimum wage, so that is all I am going to pay them to start out with, no matter what their experience level is in any particular field is.
Minumim Wage laws keep people down,out, and poor by not allowing a perspective worker to negotiate with their perspective employer for their wages, showing or describing their experiences in the field they are attempting to gain employment in.
A perspective worker might have exceptional skills in a field or area of work, but if an employer is allowed to only pay minimum wages to start out, then the perspective worker is being cheated by being able to perform the same level of work as a long term worker is yet receiving much less of a wage for this work performed. If a politician was just starting out in the House of Representatives, the Senate, or even State offices, should these minimum wage laws also apply to politicians with less experience or time in service in office. Something to think about.