Why Tom McClintock should be the Next President (if Sec. Rice's denials about Running in '08 are to be believed)

OpEd in today's LATimes.

Key paragraphs

The proposal is couched in the soothing and smarmy rhetoric of leftist populism. It is described as a modest proposal to raise the minimum wage by $1 over the next two years, increasing annual wages of minimum-wage earners to a paltry $16,000. "It will help the lowest-paid workers in California to improve their purchasing power and reduce their needs for public assistance," according to one proponent.

But if that's all it takes, why stop there?

If a simple legislative act increasing the minimum wage to $7.75 is all that is needed to improve the lot of the working poor by just a little, then why not raise it to $10 an hour and get them to the poverty level? For that matter, why not raise it to $50 an hour, assuring every working Californian a comfortable living? The truth is that if your labor is worth $6.75 an hour and the minimum wage is raised to $7.75, you simply become unemployable. The first rung of the ladder is gone, and there's no place to start.

He's someone I could be a speech writer for (I know, scary thought)

Or even better, he could be a speech writer for me (I know, even scarier thought)

Personally, I'd go for the whole deal and advocate the total elimination of minimum wages, that would eliminate the competitive advantage illegal workers now enjoy and would encourage more jobs to come out from the 'underground' economy that high minimum wages have pushed many low skill jobs into.

Most employers would prefer to hire legal folks in a legal manner if they could do so and remain competitive. Set up a system where the chance for success increases with an employers willingness to ignore the law, and many will choose to do just that (as happens now). Set up a system where there is no advantage to hiring outside of current legal parameters and employers will do what's right and what's profitable.