Tuesday, January 30, 2007

The Most Ridiculous Statement Of The Day

That award has to go to the senior senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy. His sarcastic question found in this article, has to win hands down:

"Why can't we do just one thing for minimum wage workers, no strings attached, no giveaways for the powerful?"


The subject here is tax cuts.Sen.Kennedy doesn't like them. Let's look at the senator's flawed thinking a little closer, shall we?

1. Tax cuts are not give-aways.They are GIVEN BACK, not given away. Money is earned by the individual person, business, or corporation; and then, they surrender a portion of that to the federal government, as tax. That money is not earned by the government, but collected. When there is a tax cut, it means that the government is going to collect less money.

2. Small businesses are not all powerful entities, corporations are. Small businesses account for most minimum wage workers. Small businesses, many times, work on lower margins. By forcing them to pay more, it puts them into a predicament and will likely force them to layoff. But that could be avoided, if the government (which, by definition, is powerful) would just let the business owners keep more of their own money.Most of that will go to the workers, not the business owner.

3. One has to question the real intention here. Do they want to have a minimum wage hike, for the sincere purpose of helping workers earn more money? Or do they just want to punish the bourgeoisie? Having a minimum wage increase, accompanied by a tax cut to help offset the cost to the people that will have to pay, is only fair. Well that is, it's fair to everyone except greedy politicians that take your money by force, before you ever see it.

The bottom line here is simple. Ted Kennedy has been in Washington long enough that he has become the symbol of the career politician. He is a politician who thinks that people should bow to government, not the other way around. Anyone that would be so presumptuous to make a tax cut out to be a giveaway, is someone that has been in Washington way too long.

Just shut down every small business for a week or two and we'd soon see how much revenue is lost, all across the board. Lost wages mean no withholdings. No wages mean no purchases, which means no sales tax collected. Inflation resumes. The spiral is endless.

It's all simple economics, nothing too complicated.
But apparently, either Mr. Kennedy has forgotten much over his years of hard drinking, or he thinks we are all stupid enough to believe his rhetoric. Maybe, it's a little of both.

So again, congratulations to Sen. Edward Kennedy, the distinguished gentleman from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This one is well-deserved. In fact, Massachusetts is blessed to have two senators that deserve recognition for saying ridiculous things.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes. We're quite blessed here in Massachusetts. Actually, people are leaving the state at an alarming rate. The studies say it's due to a combination of high cost of living and high taxes. Where do they go? A lot move over the border to NH where the cost of living is quite low, and there are NO taxes. Others are moving in droves to the Carolinas. It's a migration from blue to red state.

Anyway, I have no problem raising the minimum wage as long as everyone understands there will be consequences that aren't all positive.

And what's Teddy screaming so hard about anyway? Most states have already raised their minimum wages, and do so on a regualar basis.

LA Sunset said...

Greg,

//Anyway, I have no problem raising the minimum wage as long as everyone understands there will be consequences that aren't all positive.//

I have no problem with it either. But if we can help those people that it will hurt the most, by giving them some tax relief, why not do it? It's not the government's money to start with.

All_I_Can_Stands said...

For some funny reason when I read Kennedy's statement a picture comes in my mind of men in white coats dragging a hysterical Kennedy to a padded cell while he is screaming "It's MINE, ALL MINE I TELL YOU".

LA Sunset said...

AICS,

//For some funny reason when I read Kennedy's statement a picture comes in my mind of men in white coats dragging a hysterical Kennedy to a padded cell while he is screaming "It's MINE, ALL MINE I TELL YOU".//

If and when that does happen, I hope it makes it to "You Tube". That would be "must see" video.

Anonymous said...

Ted already has a few classics up on youtube. Such as this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APx2YJ-_jos

can't...stop...laughing

Anonymous said...

Interesting. The questions comes to mind: why didn't the Reps seize the idea and run with it before the elections when they had the congressional majority? I.e., increase the minimum wage along with some compensatory tax relief for affected businesses (partial or full). People who earn minimum wage will likely spend the newfound money, boosting the economy to whatever modest degree this may amount to. Businesses aren't the only entity footing the bill; government takes some or most of the burden, which in the final analysis may be negligible or non-existant due to potential additional revenue from the said economic activity. Akin to tax-cuts energizing the economy, resulting in increased government revenue. Who loses? Dems who are making a political issue out of this. Sounds like it would have been a trivial pre-election stunt to pull knocking one missile out of Dem's arsenal (however significant or insignificant this missile may be).

LA Sunset said...

Anonim,

//The questions comes to mind: why didn't the Reps seize the idea and run with it before the elections when they had the congressional majority?//

Beats me. I cannot understand why the GOP didn't do a lot of things, while they were in power.

BabyHair said...

I agree that the minimum wage should be increased and the tax cuts or credits for businesses such as restaurants should be included in the final bill as well. Let's have the best of both worlds! One question: Why does Norway have a higher standard of living than the United States has although their minimum wage is substantially higher than ours? Having a high minimum wage hasn't hurt Norway's economy.