The Patriot Post® · Democrats Demand Economy-Killing Marxist Wages

As they try desperately to build a narrative to justify tossing President Donald Trump out of the White House next year, Democrats have made a couple of unforced and embarrassing errors over the last week.

We saw socialist hero Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign staff turn on him. After years of railing against evil corporations and their “starvation wages,” Sanders’s staff last week went to the media to expose him for paying them less than the $15/hour he is demanding of American companies.

After griping about his staff going to the press, Sanders announced raises to meet the $15/hour mark … though many staffers will see their hours cut to offset the additional cost.

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) captured the hilarity of the situation asking, “So does this fall under the category of hypocrisy, irony, or poetic justice? All three? Can’t make this stuff up.”

Poor Bernie, the millionaire socialist who didn’t get his first paying job until he was nearly 40 (and even that job was on the taxpayer time), and who never ran a business, is discovering in his 70s some very basic economic lessons.

Yet as embarrassing as Sanders’s exposed hypocrisy was, more damaging is the demand by freshman Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib. On Sunday night, speaking to the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Michigan and the labor-rights group One Fair Wage, Tlaib called for a $20/hour minimum wage, blowing past the current Democrat demand of $15/hour.

Said Tlaib, “Think about that for one minute. People cannot live on those kind of wages, and I can’t allow people to be living off tips, you know, relying on tips for wages. It’s just not enough to support our families. … It should be $20 an hour — $18 to $20 an hour at this point. … They say all of this is going to raise the cost, but I can tell you, milk has gone up. Eggs have gone up. Everything has gone up.”

Two things jump out in those comments.

First, Tlaib says she “can’t allow people to be living off tips, you know, relying on tips for wages.” That is the essence of the “progressive” Democrat mindset; the belief that they are more intelligent than their fellow humans, and therefore have a right to dictate what people can and cannot do. Forget the free market, forget the right to contract for your labor. Forget that most who work for tips earn well above minimum wage. No, Democrats want to control those decisions.

Second, the $15/hour wage demanded by Democrats more than doubles the current minimum wage, and a $20/hour minimum wage would nearly triple it. The proposal is detached from the laws of economics and human nature.

If it’s not, then why not a $20/hour minimum wage? In fact, why not $30, or $50, or $1,000 an hour? If there are no negative consequences for raising the minimum wage, then set it at $1,000/hour. Just think… with a $1,000/hour minimum wage, we could have a nation of unskilled workers making $2 million per year! We’d all be rich! Of course, milk would be $500/gallon, but who cares?

Of course, that is ludicrous. Economic history shows us that jumps in the minimum wage result in lost jobs and reduced hours. Some benefit, but others suffer. According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, raising the federal minimum wage to $15/hour would result in the loss of up to 3.7 million jobs, and a loss of $9 billion in family income.

Democrat presidential candidates should be forced to take a stand on Tlaib’s proposal at the next debate. Do they appeal to sane moderates and independents, or kowtow to their radical base?

President Donald Trump must be absolutely giddy with the Democrat Party. Demands for massive, job-killing increases in the minimum wage, the economy-crushing Green New Deal, open borders, free health care for illegals, Medicare for All — all of these things are alienating independent voters and even moderate Democrats.

With a Republican-controlled Senate, these proposals have zero chance of making it to President Trump’s desk. But they do have the benefit of exposing just how radically left the Democrat Party has veered, and that can only help Trump and the Republicans in the 2020 election.