Grafton, NH

Not much of a Libertarian if you promote telling somebody else what they should pay their employees. That appears to be more government control of people not less.

Quote: kenarman

Not much of a Libertarian if you promote telling somebody else what they should pay their employees. That appears to be more government control of people not less.

The whole, "You're not really a Libertarian unless you're an Anarchist," position wasn't that great of one the first 14,287 times I've heard it and it's no better now.

You have to look at things on balance. On balance, we're less socially restrictive than both Democrats AND Republicans, generally speaking. We definitely want the central Government to have less economic control, and fewer regulations, than Democrats...and arguably also Republicans.

If you look at my other positions, here's what you have:

1.) Eliminate Social Security (except disability) in its entirety. Pay out all monies that were paid into the system on a first-in, first-out basis.

2.) Eliminate Medicare and Medicaid, on the Federal level.

3.) Eliminate Federal Personal Income Tax.

4.) Eliminate all Federal funding of public education.

5.) Eliminate food stamp funding, at the Federal level, as well as all other social safety nets.

6.) Eliminate A LOT of departments, in their entirety. Sell lots of Government-owned property to private interests.

7.) Eliminate HUD and make that the purview of individual states.

I would say, on balance, I am for less Federal Government control than there currently is, but maybe you disagree.

Oh, discontinue the Federal funding/backing of student loans. That's a big one. This list is by no means comprehensive.

I like it, if it involves removing the Federal Reserve.

Quote: Mission146

We done, here? I just set the trap; I didn't make you walk into it.

What trap? How many times do I have to tell you I agree with proposals to increase the min wage. You argue best when you argue my point.

So what happened in 2021 with the bill?

Quote: DoubleGold

I like it, if it involves removing the Federal Reserve.

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I wouldn't completely eliminate it. I'd take a very liberal scalpel to it and narrow their areas of focus significantly. For one thing, you'd still want them working with the FDIC, in many ways. It's not as if, were a bank to completely go under (without paying out deposits made into it) that you can just say, "Oh, the free market will handle it," no, the money's gone.

Basically, it would handle interstate banking type stuff and consumer protections. If you somehow had a bank that operated entirely within an individual state, and did not take customers who were not residents of same, then the Federal Reserve would have no reason to have anything to do with it...unless the bank itself actually asked for such regulation, which I think many would. Banks not FDIC-insured would be seen as unsafe.

It would also ensure fairness in lending to such extent as no discrimination on the basis of race or religion. It would create baseline regulations as far as the conduct of default secured loans is concerned. Some protections against predatory lending.

I think they could also modify interest rates and check the money supply, but not nearly to the extent that they do now. They could put the kibosh on hyperinflation, as needed. Everything that they have done since 2020-2021 has been trying to make up for the fact that, in its infinite wisdom, the Federal Government gave anyone with a pulse thousands and thousands of free dollars due to Covid. It made absolutely no sense. People were spending less anyway; there was nowhere to spend any money for the states that were locked down.

Of course, the lockdowns themselves never should have happened, but that was state level. I'd have been fine, assuming the lockdowns happened, doing expanded unemployment to keep people whole in the interim, but +$600/week resulted in many getting more from unemployment than they were making when they were working in the first place.

Basically, the Federal Reserve, over the last couple of years, is mostly trying to mitigate a disaster that they weren't responsible for creating.

Quote: GenoDRPh

What trap? How many times do I have to tell you I agree with proposals to increase the min wage. You argue best when you argue my point.

So what happened in 2021 with the bill?

Died in the Committee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which has a Democratic majority. Cotton (one of the Republicans to sponsor the bill) also happens to be on that committee. The current version is referred to same and is co-sponsored by five Republicans, who are the only co-sponsors of the bill.

As I understand it, the Democrats want a more drastic increase. The bill introduced on their side wants $17/hour by 2028, which also comes with annual increases between now and then. For one reason or another, the Democrat bill doesn't seem to index to inflation after it hits that peak number, which I guess for them seems fine enough, because it would be some number of years before (starting at $11/hour) the Republican bill ever got it to $17/hour. It certainly wouldn't happen by 2028.

Per the usual, there will be no compromise and no bill will be passed. The lowest income Americans will continue to lose relative spending power. Both parties will blame the opposite party. The Republican bill (as is) would definitely make it through the House, if Congress actually truly wanted to raise the minimum wage, but I don't think the Democratic bill would have a chance. You couldn't get enough Republicans on board, I don't think. You'd also be talking about a 234% increase over a four-year period, so I think that would be devastating to small businesses to an extent that is less than reasonable.

Quote: Mission146

Died in the Committee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which has a Democratic majority. Cotton (one of the Republicans to sponsor the bill) also happens to be on that committee. The current version is referred to same and is co-sponsored by five Republicans, who are the only co-sponsors of the bill.

As I understand it, the Democrats want a more drastic increase. The bill introduced on their side wants $17/hour by 2028, which also comes with annual increases between now and then. For one reason or another, the Democrat bill doesn't seem to index to inflation after it hits that peak number, which I guess for them seems fine enough, because it would be some number of years before (starting at $11/hour) the Republican bill ever got it to $17/hour. It certainly wouldn't happen by 2028.

Per the usual, there will be no compromise and no bill will be passed. The lowest income Americans will continue to lose relative spending power. Both parties will blame the opposite party. The Republican bill (as is) would definitely make it through the House, if Congress actually truly wanted to raise the minimum wage, but I don't think the Democratic bill would have a chance. You couldn't get enough Republicans on board, I don't think. You'd also be talking about a 234% increase over a four-year period, so I think that would be devastating to small businesses to an extent that is less than reasonable.

Per the usual, there will be no compromise and no bill will be passed. The lowest income Americans will continue to lose relative spending power. Both parties will blame the opposite party. The Republican bill (as is) would definitely make it through the House, if Congress actually truly wanted to raise the minimum wage, but I don't think the Democratic bill would have a chance. You couldn't get enough Republicans on board, I don't think. You'd also be talking about a 234% increase over a four-year period, so I think that would be devastating to small businesses to an extent that is less than reasonable.

You argue best when you argue my point. The main obstacle to a MW increase are Republicans.

Both parties are being an obstacle to each other. The Democrats are asking for something that is flatly unreasonable; they also won't accept the Republican bill as significantly better than nothing because, spoiler alert, they don't actually care enough to risk losing the political points and opportunity to blame.

As you can see by my proposal, I don't think the Republican bill sets the target minimum wage high enough before transitioning to the inflation-indexed model. They're looking to hit $11 after four years where I'd want to hit $12-$13 (I'd have to dig very deeply into it to get you to a penny) after three years.

The Republicans should not pass the model that goes to $17/hour after four years because the proposal is objectively ridiculous. It would be devastating to small businesses, thus to overall employment levels (after those businesses fail) and would otherwise create hyperinflation on a level that we've never seen in this country's entire history.

If I wanted to be extremely cynical, I'd say that the Democrats intentionally made their proposal ridiculous.

While I always vote Libertarian in all elections, I am not really a Libertarian, I just like to be contrarian, to stir the pot.

Having voted i feel I have the right to bitch and moan about how messed up things are.