Further proof that “progressives” have no understanding of basic economics comes from Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney.
Kenney was the driving force behind implementing a tax on soda and other sugary drinks (effective Jan. 1), supposedly to fight obesity and, by extension, to fund a number of public services. For every ounce of soda sold, a 1.5-cent impost is added. Thus, the tax has exploded the cost of such drinks and, with it, so, too, the outrage of consumers.
But now, Kenney is blaming retailers for “gouging” customers to create that outrage. How’s that?
The tax actually is on the wholesale price of such drinks that retailers pay their distributors. And as Eric Boehm writes at Reason.com, “In the mayor’s mind, it seems, distributors and retailers are supposed to eat the cost of the tax and continue selling products at the same price as before the tax went into effect.”
To give you an idea how outrageous the Philly situation is, the tax on a five-gallon $60 box of syrup used in soda fountains is $57.60. Given the thin profit margins already, eating the cost of the higher tax is not an option. The only option, other than passing along the cost to consumers, would be to stop selling soda and other sugary drinks.
Perhaps that’s what “progressives” really want. But then that would eliminate a source of money for the government gougers’ pet projects.
Speaking of “progressives,” some have begun circulating “historical research” suggesting that right-to-work laws are “racist” in nature.
As but one example, they cite a 2002 commentary by Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, “a media/research center working for a better South.”
As Kromm’s argument went, right-to-work laws, which bar forced unionism as a condition of employment, “find their roots in extreme pro-segregationist and anti-communist elements in the 1940s South.”
The intent, he argued, was to prevent the kind of “race-mixing” that critics said accompanied unionism.
The nod-nod, wink-wink implication here is that right-to-work still is racist.
Right to work, by the way, was part of 1947’s Taft-Hartley Act, which allowed the respective states to bar unionism as a condition of employment. Kentucky became the 27th state to pass such legislation on Jan. 7.
Simply put, the right to work is a basic human right, no matter one’s color.
But here’s a fact seldom, if ever, mentioned by those opposed to right-to-work laws: Minimum wages, the darling of organized labor, actually do have racist beginnings and have racial implications to this day.
As Carrie Sheffield reminded in a 2014 Forbes.com commentary (and citing the research of the National Center for Policy Analysis):
“(T)he 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, requiring ‘prevailing wages’ on federally assisted construction projects, was supported by the idea that it would keep contractors from using ‘cheap colored labor’ to underbid contractors using white labor.”
And as Thomas C. Leonard reminded in a 2005 article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives:
“Progressive economists, like their neoclassical critics, believed that binding minimum wages would cause job losses. However, the progressive economists also believed that the job loss induced by minimum wages was a social benefit, as it performed the eugenic service (of) ridding the labor force of the ‘unemployable.’”
Wow.
And we all know what government-mandated wage floors lead to — fewer entry-level jobs that affect all minorities, blacks in particular hard, limiting their ability to gain valuable work experience so critical as they climb the employment ladder.
Pittsburgh City Council is considering legislation — six bills in all, reports the Post-Gazette — that would, among other things, bar the city from withholding public services from illegal aliens.
Additionally, one of the provisions would prevent the city from doing business with companies recently convicted of “wage theft.” Says Councilman Dan Gilman, sponsor of the package of measures:
“We want to be doing business with companies that are treating their workers legally and ethically.”
But what’s legal or ethical about disbursing public services to illegal aliens?
Ah, “progressivism.”
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
