Just as predicted, now that so many Democrats are on board with the lunatic drive for a national $15 minimum wage, progressives are starting to up the ante: Three days after the House passed a $15 bill, Rep. Rashida Tlaib started talking $20.
At a Detroit event held by radical groups aimed mainly at ending “tipped wages,” Tlaib claimed, “People cannot live on those kinds of wages . . . It’s just not enough to support our families. By the way . . . Now I think it should be $20 . . . . $18 to $20 an hour at this point. They say all of this is going to raise the costs, but I can tell you milk has gone up. Eggs have gone up. Everything has gone up. The cost of food has gone up. The cost of a lot of things that we need has gone up already.”
With inflation running 2 percent a year, prices haven’t gone up that much. But they’d soar if the wage floor more than doubled thanks to the “Fight for $15,” and soar more at $20. And millions more Americans would earn $0 because their jobs would go away.
Meanwhile, President Trump’s policies have wages solidly rising and unemployment at record lows.
But with progressives only talking to other progressives these days, and shouting down any voice of basic reason, the only way to stand out is to go even more extreme. Thus half the Democratic Party now seems to support open borders and abolishing private health insurance — with most of the 2020 candidates leading the charge.
If they keep talking only to themselves, they’re going to hand Trump a landslide re-election.