Freedomworks descends into self-parody, by @DavidOAtkins

Freedomworks descends into self-parody

by David Atkins

Just when you thought Freedomworks couldn't get any lower, the honorable organization is conducting a grassroots campaign against the minimum wage, replete with Facebook ads like this:



The pitch is remarkable in its cruel tone-deafness:

Among the number of economically disastrous policy prescriptions offered by President Obama during his State of the Union address, a hiking of the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour was one of the saddest. For a President who believes you can spend your way out of debt, the proposal wasn’t surprising. But now many in Congress are reportedly ready to back the measure. If enacted, the minimum wage hike will only make the economy worse.

No serious thinker in the 21st century believes a higher minimum wage will help low-skilled workers. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. Wages are not determined by employers- they are paid by much each worker produces.

The freedom to choose means the freedom to accept wages offered. By hiking the minimum wage, all Congress will do is outlaw employing those who will work for less than $9 an hour. For young aspiring workers with little experience, this is a senseless policy.

Contact your representative in Congress and tell them to oppose any hike of the minimum wage now.
It's uncertain which of these statements is most risible: the notion that "no serious thinker" believes that a minimum wage worker would be benefited by an increase in their wages? The idea that in a world in which median wages have stagnated while productivity and executive pay have skyrocketed, each worker is paid according to their production value? The amazing statement that there are many workers desperate to work for below minimum wage, but prevented from doing so by law? It's so hard to choose.

This ultimately is why the Republican Party won't be able to reinvent itself so easily. The people who run organizations like Freedomworks have considerable power, and they're careening farther and farther out of step with common decency.


.