The American Spectator

/p> p> AND THEY’LL CONTINUE SINGING IT FOREVER, JUST BECAUSE br> Re: G. Tracy Mehan, III’s Earth Day: Corporate Edition : /p>

While reading this article I was reminded of a story that appeared several days ago on the front page of our local paper. It detailed that some of the park and public land clean-up work that has traditionally been done by young people in the form of summer employment is not going to be done this summer because the Park Department cannot afford to pay the salaries. The story, only in the final paragraph on the jump page, barely mentioned that a large part of the reason for this situation is the increase in the minimum wage. It seems that this increase has priced the young workers out of the market.

At the risk of sounding like an “I told you so,” I was motivated to comment on this to some of my colleagues (fellow high school teachers) who are agonizing about whether to vote Clinton or Obama. I smilingly reminded them of my previous opposition to the increase in the minimum wage, and, in fact, my opposition to having a minimum wage at all. They looked at me as though I had just nailed a thesis up on the cathedral door. It wasn’t (according to them) the higher minimum wage that deep sixed the jobs, it was the low budget of the Park Department. It seems that the whole problem could be solved by INCREASING that budget so that the youths could be hired.

p>It is this kind of disconnect from reality that always frustrates me when I talk to liberals. I guess that their minds just refuse to go in straight lines from problems to causes to solutions. I shut up after this exchange because I knew that suggesting that the market set the wage for employees would be anathema to these people. What to do, what to do! br> — Joseph Baum br> Garrettsville, Ohio /p> p>