By Peter Burrows 11/3/16 elburropete@gmail.com  - silvercityburro.com 

I attended a forum last week that featured the three candidates for Grant County District 5: Harry Pecotte, Harry Browne, and DeAnn Bencomo. I agreed with each of the candidates in some areas, disagreed with each in other areas. In my opinion, the most prepared, articulate candidate was Harry Browne (hereafter GǣHBGǥ). He was also the candidate I personally found most polarizing, i.e. the candidate I was both very much in agreement with and very much in disagreement with.

I wouldn't vote for HB for a number of reasons, perhaps the most trivial being that if elected he will hold two government jobs. I have the cynical opinion that we taxpayers are going to get shortchanged on one or both of the jobs, in spite of HB's assertion that he normally works a 60-hour week and can cut back on his school administrator job, proving my point.

Another not so trivial reason I'd never vote for HB is that people who describe themselves as GǣprogressiveGǥ or GǣliberalGǥ are usually people who think they are imbued with moral and intellectual superiority. Think about it: When you meet someone who says they are a progressive or a liberal there is always an implied superiority. After all, who wants to be illiberal or regressive, or -- GADS! HEAVEN FORBIDE!! -- conservative.

HB displayed this attitude in spades when he said Grant County should explore a $15 minimum wage law, both because it was within the County's power to do so and because he considered it a Gǣmoral imperativeGǥ to do so.
A moral imperative! Oh, my. There you have it in a nutshell, folks. Given the opportunity, GǣsuperiorGǥ people will pass laws to implement THEIR vision of Gǣmoral imperatives.Gǥ

HB cited a study that shows cities that enacted higher minimum wages saw no slowing of job growth. Gosh, normally higher prices mean lower demand, but not for labor markets? To make that nasty supply-and-demand effect go away, I guess you just have to pass a law.

However, for whatever study HB might cite, there are three or four that come to the conclusion one would expect if the law of supply and demand is still operative: higher minimum wage laws produce lower employment in the relevant labor markets.

Furthermore, minimum wage laws have had an especially negative impact on minority teenagers, blacks and Hispanics. In an interview in 1973, OVER FORTY YEARS AGO, the economist Milton Friedman pointed out that black teenage unemployment had been lower than that of white teens until minimum wage laws began to bite in the late 1950s. Since then, black teenage unemployment has been about twice that of white teens. Friedman called minimum wage laws Gǣthe most anti-negro laws on the books.Gǥ What's changed? Nothing.

For an update on the disparate racial effects of minimum wage laws, I strongly urge HB to go on Amazon and buy the economist Walter Williams' book, GǣRace and Economics.Gǥ Chapter three, Race and Wage Regulation, is the chapter HB should read first. Pay especial attention to footnote 44 on page 40 which refers to numerous studies supporting the conclusion that minimum wage laws cause unemployment.

Williams follows that footnote with this statement: GǣWhile there is debate over the magnitude of the effects, the weight of research by academic scholars points to the conclusion that the unemployment effects of the minimum wage law are felt disproportionately by nonwhites.Gǥ

Put another way, if white supremacists had the brains, they'd support minimum wage laws. I'm sure HB is not a white supremacist. I'm not so sure he isn't one of those people Williams writes about on page 49: GǣThe fact that a well-intentioned policy such as the minimum wage can foster and promote racial discrimination might be incomprehensible to some people.Gǥ

Is it incomprehensible to you, HB? I hope not. I think you have both the brains and the moral imperative to study this issue before you propose a minimum wage for Grant County, which I hope you never get the chance to do.

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