Americans Are not Fooled by Obama's Minimum Wage Bribe

Today is George Washington's birthday. Here is one of his observations that sounds as if it might have been spoken yesterday : "Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder." George Washington would have added an 'Amen" if he were following the girations now going in Washington about raising the minimum wage. President Obama, in an apparent effort to bolster Democrats in this fall's midterm elections, announced in his State of the Union Address in January that he wanted Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.75 to $10.10, a 40% increase. Obama also announced that beginning in 2015, he was by Executive Order raising the minimum wage for federal contractor emloyees to $10.10, to be paid for by US taxpayers one way or another at a time when the size of the budget deficit and the rapidly rising national debt are a major concern for everyone, except, it seems, Barack Obama. Add to this the recent calculation by the independent Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that if the minimum wage is raised to that level over the next three years for 16.5 million Americans, it could result in the loss of around 500,000 jobs - and possibly as many as a million - with major employers cutting back on staff to afford the wage hikes. Of course, Obama knew that if a minimum wage hike were to be enacted, it would require the support of his nemesis, House Speaker John Boehner, who in 1996 declared that he would rather kill himself than vote for a "clean" minimum wage bill. President Obama surely knows what Speaker Boehner's position on a high minimum wage is, and with the CBO's report that an increase could cost up to 1 million jobs, it's highly unlikely John Boehner will change his mind soon. Former Ohio Representative Steve LaTourette, a Republican who is close to Boehner, said the Speaker has "always believed that it's a job killer" and the CBO report has just fueled his fears. So, as far as Boehner is concerned, nothing is going to change when wage legislation comes up in the House in the next few weeks. Former Representative Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, said, "John and House Republicans right now see Obamacare and the economy as being the No. 1 issues. I think it would be very, very difficult, if not impossible, for John to schedule a clean up-or-down vote on a minimum wage bill. "There's no hiding it, John just believes it's bad economic policy. [Boehner] is a guy that is very fond about talking about growing up in a bar and starting work at a young age." ~~~~~ Dear readers, we may conclude that President Obama, knowing full well that Speaker Boehner would never support his minimum wage hike, asked for it to create an embarassment for Republicans during the Fall congressional elections. He calculated that the GOP, opposing the wage hike, would be seen as being "against the middle class...the little guy." Nothing could be farther from the truth. Look at Obama's handiwork -- a lingering unemploynent rate at around 7%, if we accept Obama administration questionable figures, that Obama makes worse by : refusing to sign the Canadian-US pipeline bill, by refusing to agree to tax code changes that would allow business to create more jobs, by piling on regulations that cost business more and more of their profits that could better be spent on expansions that create jobs, by allowing illegal immigrants to fit into the American workforce and by encouraging the acceptance of 11 million illegals into favored employment positions as citizens, by forcing through Obamacare that will cost Americans millions of jobs and reduce fulltime employees to part-timers as employers attempt to avoid Obamacare's crushing costs and taxes for noncompliance. And now Obama wants an employment-destroying high minimum wage. All of tbese job destroyers are opposed by the GOP, which has for five years asked the President to approve the pipeline, reform the tax code, reduce the burden of wasteful and unneeded regulations on business, enter into reasonable immigration reform negotiations and repeal Obamacare. Where is the job killer? He is sitting in the White House, hoping that George Washington was right : "Few people have the virtue to withstand the highest bidder." Obama is betting that the false allure of a higher minimum wage will save the Democrats from becoming the minority party in the Senate, as they are now in the House. Let us prove that Americans are above taking such cheap bribes.