Yesterday we shared the statistics about the flood of people coming to Texas from various states, namely California. Many are departing the once known Golden State because of its onerous and insidious leftist policies. Then there are those departing California as part of the relocation of corporations and businesses, and resentfully so. The latter are the ones failing to comprehend why their corporation or business moved.
As well, we have an issue with leftism, Marxism, socialism, progressivism, statism overtaking our schools, which are becoming indoctrination centers.There are some other states that are hemorrhaging population — Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut come to mind. However, due to the recent change in electoral leadership, we may need to add another state to that list, a recently converted blue (sad) state, Virginia.As reported by CNSNews:
“The Virginia Senate’s Commerce and Labor Committee has voted to gradually raise Virginia’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 by 2025, or $11.75 for employers that provide health insurance. A subcommittee in Virginia’s House of Delegates went further. It voted to raise the minimum wage to $15, even for employers that provide health insurance, and to eliminate longstanding exemptions to the minimum wage.
As NPR notes, “business groups maintain that Virginia will lose jobs — and its business-friendly reputation” — as a result. The Virginia chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business estimates that increasing the minimum wage to $15 would cut 130,000 Virginia jobs over 10 years.
The Senate bill increasing the minimum wage now goes to the Senate’s Finance Committee. Before voting on the bill, the Finance Committee should study the cost of such a large minimum wage increase to state taxpayers. A big minimum wage increase will increase the cost of products and services purchased by the state government, and the state’s own labor costs.
In 2016, California’s legislative analyst estimated that the gradual increase in California’s minimum wage to $15 an hour would cost taxpayers $3.6 billion more each year in government pay alone. A $15 minimum wage also increases the cost of the products that everyone purchases. As economist James Sherk notes, “Economists find that businesses pass minimum-wage costs on to their customers by raising prices.” As the Associated Press reported in 2018, “Prices rise as the minimum wage increases.”
Oh, those pesky little things called facts that the progressive socialist left despises. As the venerable liberal Democrat Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan once quipped, “you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” I will never forget the time when a leftist loudly stated at one of our town hall meetings when I was a Congressman, “I disagree with your facts.” That person was given an emeritus “Stuck on Stupid” recognition.
I think we should all remember that it was Bernie Sanders who released campaign staff and cut hours when he implemented his own $15 minimum wage standard (at their demand). It is the very same champion of the “living wage” absurdity who recently admitted that he did not know how much his socialist schemes, which all begin with the operative word “free,” would cost the American taxpayer.
The facts have already proven true in Washington State, California, and New York. Wherever the $15 “living wage” mandate is imposed upon businesses, workers lose their jobs, businesses shut down, the cost of goods and services increases, and overall, nothing good comes from this typical leftist ideological agenda item. As Sir Winston Churchill asserted, “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.”
The $15 minimum wage job undermines the aspiration of young teenagers to acquire a nice part-time job. In my day, the minimum wage was $3.25, and I was glad to have my part-time job. I learned responsibility, accountability, budgeting, and self-reliance, all true intangibles. Now, ask yourselves: why does the progressive socialist left want people to believe, to aspire, to be fast-food workers for the rest of their lives? It is simple, this is just the way the left buys votes.
This $15 minimum, living, wage fiasco reminds me of the sage and wise words of one Scottish political philosopher, Alexander Fraser Tytler, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Never forget, all socialist dictators promise largesse from the public treasury, the productive taxpayers. Socialism is truly the economic model of shared misery, and its end goal is not economic empowerment, but rather economic enslavement.
I pray that the good Patriots and citizens of Virginia do not flee, but rather steel their nerves and resolve, and those 91 2nd Amendment sanctuary counties cast off the yoke of the tyranny of the other four counties, namely Fairfax and Prince William Counties.
This column was originally published at The Old School Patriot.
The views expressed in CCNS member articles are not necessarily the views or positions of the entire CCNS. They are the views of the authors, who are members of the CCNS.
