Say Anything Blog

Hillary is upset that “we” aren’t rewarding workers enough.

“We also have to reward work more,” Clinton told a small group of Ohio residents today. “and by that, I mean, I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives. Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50 million dollars, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That’s very discouraging to people.”

Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi responds:

I’m not an economist, but I’m relatively certain “we” don’t “reward” anyone for work, per se. Last I heard, folks negotiate the worth of a service or item in a competitive marketplace. (Though teachers typically work in a monopoly, but that’s another story.) You’re worth as much as someone is willing pay you. There is no way to remedy this truth without destroying the economy and allowing the government to decide who is worth what.

Quite right.

What always fascinates me about the proponents of big government is the level of economic illiteracy that goes along with it.  The very same people who complain about the price of gas at the pumps, or the price of food in the grocery stores, are the same people who complain about the wages people make.  They support things like the minimum wage not understanding that if the gas station or grocery store they shop at has to start paying employees higher, government-inflated wages the products they buy there are going to be more expensive.

We’d all like to see our fellow citizens be affluent and successful, but the reality is that the market only supports wages at a certain level.  If you start forcing those wages up the money has to come from somewhere, so that forces the cost of goods and services up as well.  What do we want?  $5.00/gallon gas and $4.00 loafs of bread while cashiers and shelf stockers make $15/hour?  Or the way things are now?