The beauty of satire

The unique patriot Jon Swift provides a wonderful insight into the fight over minimum wage. Here is an excerpt:

Because American workers get paid so much, many businesses are outsourcing labor or moving overseas. If we want to compete, we are going to have to lower the minimum wage below the levels in countries such as China and India, whose economies are booming. In parts of China, for example, the minimum wage is about 20 cents an hour. In some states in India, the minimum wage is about 10 cents an hour. If we want to stop hemorrhaging jobs to these countries, we are going to have to undercut those rates.

Lowering the minimum wage would also solve our immigration problem. The minimum wage in Mexico is about 50 pesos a day, or $4.53. In an 8-hour workday, that's about 57 cents an hour, a little more than one-tenth of the U.S. minimum wage. If we just set the minimum wage below 50 cents an hour, how many Mexican immigrants do you think will risk their lives sneaking over the border for that? By significantly lowering the minimum wage below Mexico's, we could end the immigration problem very quickly.

Some Republican Senators have an even better idea: Abolish the Federal minimum wage altogether. They sponsored a bill that would let states set their own minimum wages below the already inflated Federal minimum wage. This measure would have given states the ability to compete to see who could pay workers less, helping small businesses and attracting new businesses. Some of the poorer states in the South, for example, could set their minimum wages at zero, which would allow family farmers to pay their workers by giving them room and board or scrip instead of cash. They could import workers from places like Africa, where just earning a little food and a roof over their heads would represent a significant improvement in their living standards. The South would finally rise again with this kind of economic stimulus.

Unfortunately, this measure didn't pass, but 28 Republican Senators voted for it, including potential Presidential candidates John McCain, Sam Brownback and Chuck Hagel, both of the Senators from Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina, and the bill's sponsor Wayne Allard. These Senators know that if we are going to compete with Third World economies we need to start paying Third World wages.