bye bye and buy Bonds's blog: "mainer"

(This from World Net Daily, written by Joseph Farah)

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives did the predictable and expected this week – voting to raise the federally mandated minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25.

Leading up to this development, you have heard and read some impassioned pragmatic arguments – all correct – that it is economic insanity to do so.

You have heard, for instance, that it is counter-productive if your goal is to raise people out of poverty.

You have heard, for instance, arguments that raising the minimum wage costs jobs.

You have heard a few explain that such initiatives simply force U.S. companies to raise prices, pick up and move operations overseas and outsource jobs to foreign workers.

I'm not going to make any of those points today – even though I agree with all of them.

Instead, there are two arguments that should be much more compelling to real Americans – arguments not only against raising the minimum wage, but against the very existence of a minimum wage at any level.

First, the minimum wage is immoral. That's right – it is objectively wrong. By instituting and enforcing a minimum wage, government does what government should never do – that is to regulate the simplest economic transactions between you and your neighbor, between consenting adults.

Let's examine this as a hypothetical scenario. Let's say you need someone to cut your grass and you can afford $5 an hour. Let's also assume I would like to do that job for the price.

The federal minimum wage actually criminalizes such an arrangement.

Of course, that doesn't mean two consenting adults won't still go through with the transaction. We know it happens every day. It simply means the government has made it at least technically illegal.

It's ironic to me that so many of the very people who characterize themselves as "pro-choice" because they believe the government has no business protecting the life of unborn babies suddenly object to consenting adults making choices about how much money they will accept to do a job.

Of course, there is another very good reason the U.S. government in particular has no authority to pass and enforce such laws. It is unconstitutional.

It's sad but true that Americans no longer put much value in the words of the Constitution and what it says about the limits of power on government. After all, it is the document that protects us from tyranny.

Maybe you don't think America is in any danger of becoming a tyranny. Perhaps you believe we are truly a free society.

If so, explain to me how the legislative and executive branches of government can conspire to ignore the strict constitutional limits on their authority by criminalizing common interactions between U.S. citizens?

Explain to me how politicians in Washington can interfere in common economic transactions between consenting adults?

Explain to me where the Constitution empowers the federal government to stick its nose in the private financial business of otherwise law-abiding citizens?

I'm quite sure our Founding Fathers who gave us our Constitution would see this as a blatant example of tyranny – as immoral, perhaps, as anything imposed by the crown of England.

This is the problem with debates about whether the minimum wage should be increased. In fact, the debate over the establishment and enforcement of a federal minimum wage should have ended before it began. Two questions should always precede any such debate:

• Is it moral?

• Is it constitutional?

The minimum wage law clearly flunks both tests.