New Jersey has a governor's race coming up. Kim Guadagno is the Republican candidate. A major Left-leaning NJ newspaper, the Star-Ledger, had some choice editorial comments to make about Guadagno back in December when she was the lieutenant governor and before she was nominated.
I left these comments under Guadagno's rules for working class: Suck it up, highlighting certain excerpts from the editorial:
"Should the government dictate to you what you provide to your employees?" she asked her audience of 100. "I personally do not believe so."
To follow that logic, we should rescind child labor laws, overtime laws, and minimum wage itself.
The moral and economically enlightened answer to Guadagno’s question is a resounding NO. But I would also add that the government should not prohibit any job-seeker from accepting a job that doesn’t fit some political elitist’s vision of what that job should pay. Yes, businesses should be left free precisely to pay employees whatever they want, and employees should be free to accept any job at whatever pay they willingly agree to. No job should be outlawed. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a tyrant or thug, and hiding behind law doesn’t change that. A job is morally a contractual matter between employer and employee. The government shouldn't step in unless there is evidence of fraud, breach-of-contract, and the like, or unless the “job” involves criminal behavior such as murder-for-hire or driving a bank robber’s getaway car.
As for “child labor laws, overtime laws, and minimum wage,” child labor laws do not belong in that category. Children have the same rights as adults but they need extra oversight from adults, mainly from the parents but also the state, to prevent child exploitation. But labor laws like overtime rules and minimum wage violate the rights of consenting adults to contract voluntarily to mutual advantage. I hope Guadagno is consistent enough to apply her principle against government dictates to all rights-violating labor laws. We have very few, if any, such principled free market Republicans in New Jersey.
Guadagno's second pander was her claim that private business should not provide paid sick leave.
This is undoubtedly a flat out lie—an example of Fake News.
What possible reason would Guadagno, or anyone, advocate such an idea? I don’t believe she ever advocated such a thing. Her point was that government shouldn’t be dictating it.
Being against government's legally dictating paid sick leave is not the same as being against private business voluntarily providing these benefits, any more than being against subsidies for solar companies equates to being against solar energy or being against food stamps equates to being against voluntary food banks. The statement above is fundamentally dishonest. Statists always use such package-deal tactics because they can’t rationally and morally justify their unconstitutional economic crony laws.
There's nothing wrong with being pro-business, even if supply-side drones have [been] spouting this government ethic since Hoover.
More fake news. Herbert Hoover was a major state interventionist, whose economic policies became a model for FDR. Hoover was a major progressive-era hero. As President Harding’s Commerce Secretary, Hoover advocated economic interventionist policies in response to the 1920-21 depression. Fortunately, Harding ignored him, the depression didn’t become “Great,” and a roaring job-filled recovery and expansion ensued. A decade later, President Hoover had his chance, responding to the much milder 1929-30 recession with major “progressive” interventions that turned the recession into a Great Depression. Hoover was no more a “supply sider” than Barack Obama.
I don’t yet know enough about Guadagno to endorse her for governor. But if this dishonest Marxist-inspired editorial is any indication, she may warrant a good look.
Related Reading:
The Forgotten Depression: 1921: The Crash That Cured Itself—James Grant (See my review for The Objective Standard).
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