Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
One of the chief conservative critiques of Mitt Romney is that he rarely misses an opportunity to miss the opportunity to challenge this or that liberal assumption. For the latest example, let us turn our gaze from RomneyCare toward the minimum wage.
Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he supported tying the federal minimum wage to inflation, a move that would result in automatic increases to the pay rate. The position is a break from fiscal conservative orthodoxy — which generally seeks to eliminate the minimum wage — but could help Romney rebound from damaging comments he made earlier Wednesday when discussing the "very poor" in America.
"I haven't changed my thoughts on that," Romney told reporters aboard his campaign plane on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press. He was apparently referring to a statement he made in 2002 when running for governor of Massachusetts, when he advocated an increase in the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation — a proposal President Obama touted in 2008 during his presidential run.
There Mitt goes, speaking truth to power--he seems awfully effective at challenging "conservative orthodoxy" doesn't he?--in order to combat the impression that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans. Tactically, Mitt's answer is probably sound politics. But in providing the easy soundbite Romney does nothing to move the ball downfield, failing to make any philosophical argument for firing an incumbent president.
Why can't Romney take a page from the Reagan playbook and challenge the planted axiom? Something like this:
REPORTER: Have you changed your mind on indexing the minimum wage to inflation?
ROMNEY: Let's step back for a moment. Wages and employment are critical. We need and want a high-wage full-employment economy. How do we get there? First we need to restore a private-sector where people who want a job can find one. Right now millions can't and as a result their maximum wage is zero. It's pretty depressing and a national disgrace that so many of our fellow citizens remain unemployed and without hope of finding work.
Barack Obama's record on this is a disaster: millions of people have dropped out of the labor force on his watch because of the president's single-minded fixation on implementing his ideology-- spend, borrow, tax and regulate--rather than shifting course and pursuing growth-friendly policies aimed at putting Americans back to work.
REPORTER: But what about your earlier support for indexing the minimum wage to inflation; you backed this in 2002 in Massachusetts?
ROMNEY: Look, this isn't 2002. Right now the problem facing millions of our fellow citizens isn't the minimum wage, it's a maximum wage consisting of an unemployment check and foodstamps. We need to focus on the big picture here and get this economy growing again.
REPORTER: So if you don't support a higher minimum wage, doesn't this mean you don't care about the poorest among us?
ROMNEY: If the federal government could create prosperity simply by commanding it, I guarantee you Barack Obama would have done it and it would be Morning in America today. One thing the president could do to increase wages is control the border. A flood of low-skilled illegal immigrants depresses the wages available to American citizens and legal aliens alike. Yet President Obama not only refuses to enforce our immigration laws but actively fights states like Arizona trying to step in and fill the gap. How is putting Americans on the dole and welcoming illegals to take their former jobs helping any of the poorest among us?
Getting the private economy growing again is the way to bring jobs and wage growth back. That's what this campaign is all about.
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Sep '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
. . . In order to be representative, it is not enough for a government to be representative in the constitutional sense (our elemental type of representative institutions); it must also be representative in the existential sense of realizing the idea of the institution. And the implied warning may be explicated in the thesis: If a government is nothing but representative in the constitutional sense, a representative ruler in the existential sense will sooner or later make an end of it; and quite possibly the new existential ruler will not be too representative in the constitutional sense.
-- Eric Voegelin
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Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Completely with you on this, George. And I think this is what gets a lot of people (including plenty who still recoil at the notion of him as president) excited about Newt: he's not so passive as to accept the premise of questions like this one.
If one of Romney's selling points is his business experience, then why on earth wouldn't he use this as an opportunity to educate people about the fact that a higher minimum wage means fewer employees (unless it's set below market rate, in which case it means nothing)? Turn it on its head and highlight how many young people and minorities would go without a paycheck as a result. The governor needs some lessons in rhetorical jiu-jitsu, even if it means mussing a few hairs.
To quote Pseud ... make mine a double.
Edited on Feb 1 at 8:46pmOct '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Shades of McCain and we're only four states in. He must have it wrapped up.
Um, George, that was a pretty long imaginary conversation. Who were you channeling? It sure wasn't Maverick Mitt, more like one of those also-ran guys, now who ...
And "miss the opportunity to challenge" liberal cant? He's going to be quoting it chapter and verse by September. This is only the beginning. Next will be a "maturing" of his immigration stance ...
Mar '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
How is it that such fundamental economic principles are lost on people--supposedly very smart people--like Romney? The most likely answer is that Romney perfectly understands that the minimum wage is a job killer, but is willing to tell the lie he thinks the electorate wants to hear. The answer to our problems is not in electing the right people, it is in educating the electorate so that they do not fall for this nonsense. Unfortunately such an education takes time.
Even more unfortunately, we may have run out of time.
Jul '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Somehow Romney is channeling his inner Ted Kennedy here rather than wearing the seldom used Reagan revolution teeshirt he discarded in the basement corner when he ran in Mass.
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
DJ ~
Apropos of nothing, may I just tell you how delighted I am every time that I see the colors of the Boston Bruins in your avatar? As an unrepentant Boston sports fan (sorry ... I still support the Lakers when they face off against the Celtics), I heartily approve.
Nov '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Can someone please spin this and tell me that indexing the minimum wage to inflation is actually conservative? Surely, there must be a brave Romney supporter out there who can construct such an argument.
Mar '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Just wait for Ann Coulter's next column.
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Barfly, just thinking of Reagan the candidate and the setting--the conversation was reported from the relatively relaxed confines of Mitt's campaign plane.
In my imaginary dialogue the reporter won't give up, trying to force Romney to answer the gotcha question. But there is absolutely no need to go on defense, not ever given the record of this administration. Romney could riff on Keystone XL and the torpedoing of 20,000 high-wage jobs, all the foregone oil and the downstream jobs snuffed out, Solyndra, stifling EPA rules for home contractors and power plants. The list is endless.
Yet Romney--all offense all the time against Newt--immediately falls to a defensive crouch when challenged on a jobs policy too liberal even for Pelosi/Reid/Obama in their super-majority heyday.
And if the minimum wage is so great why settle for indexing to inflation? Why not usher in universal prosperity by jacking it up to, say, $100 per hour in one fell swoop?
Sep '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Yet Romney--all offense all the time against Newt--immediately falls to a defensive crouch when challenged on a jobs policy too liberal even for Pelosi/Reid/Obama in their super-majority heyday.
In the fall, I expect the full fetal position.
Jul '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
That's cool Troy, thanks. My Tim Thomas jersey just arrived as well as Thomas shirts for the family. Back to the topic, Mothership Greg, is there an answer as to why? Yes, he's appealing for votes and does not really have true conservative principles. I am changing my vote Saturday and will vote Santorum just to keep my semblance of conservatism. My wife talked me in to it. She wants Rick to have some representation somehow and he seems quite a bit more honorable than Mitt or Newt.
Jun '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
The best thing would be to get rid of it completely, so that the economic ladder has plenty of rungs near the bottom. But, that's not likely to happen.
So, if you index it to inflation, that should eliminate the need to keep going back and fiddling with it every two years, as Democrats would probably like to do. They'd like to increase a static minimum wage greatly above the rate of inflation every two years, and then dare Republicans to do any less when they're in power. If it's just tied to inflation, it takes all the political gamesmanship out of it.
Aug '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Byron York:
Aug '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Also, I did not know this until I read the York piece above, but in the week prior to the Florida primary, 100% of Romney's campaign ads were negative.
One hundred percent! That is astounding. No message about why voters should pick him. Just attack ads -- largely lies -- about why they shouldn't pick Newt (or, I assume, Obama, but it sounds like Newt was the main focus).
So hey, there's something he does well: tear down others. But what has he got to offer conservative voters? Not a heck of a lot.
Edited on Feb 1 at 9:33pmOct '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
George, your points regarding the minimum wage are spot on, of course, as are your broader observations regarding the inevitable one's instincts. I'm starting to think that Mitt doesn't have any business experience, just corporate experience, which isn't the same thing at all.
Are we really going to do this, nominate this loser? Obama will beat any Republican who doesn't run strongly to the right. Others here have made the point that our biggest challenge is educational, not directly electoral. The regressive left owns today's center, and the only way to win this one is to move the center.
Jul '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Milton Friedman once described the minimum wage as "the most anti-black law on the books." I guess Romney disavows him, too?
The only positive in this thread is finding out Troy Senik is a fellow Big, Bad Bruins fan.
Dec '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
George Savage
Why can't Romney take a page from the Reagan playbook and challenge the planted axiom? Something like this:
Don't be silly, George. If Mitt could do that, why, he'd be Newt.
And we wouldn't be having this dust-up.
Dec '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Let's take one step back to: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net in place for them."
Someone who really cared about the burdens on the middle class would recognize that the very poor constitute one of those burdens. We have to pay for direct assistance to them, we have to pay for social ills that derive from or are exacerbated by poverty, we get to shoulder the tax burden that they would be paying if they were gainfully employed.
So instead of dismissively saying: "Safety net: check. Yep, the very poor are squared away," wouldn't it be nice if he'd said something along your lines about how much better off not only the very poor but the middle income taxpayers and every American would be if a growth agenda -- coupled with programs to help very poor kids learn the value of work and a good work ethic -- helped move the very poor out of the safety net and into productive employment?
Jun '10
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Whiskey Sam: Milton Friedman once described the minimum wage as "the most anti-black law on the books." I guess Romney disavows him, too?
The only positive in this thread is finding out Troy Senik is a fellow Big, Bad Bruins fan. · 3 minutes ago
The minimum wage is an obstacle to economic progress for young people, and for the undereducated, but so are video games, and we're not going to be able to get rid of those either. So, you do what you can now, while trying to change minds over time.
Mar '11
Re: Immanentizing the Eschaton, Romney Edition
Typical. I don't expect the man to be capable of spontaneously defending, say, the electoral college (well, okay, let's be honest--I sort of do expect that, but I'm not so unrealistic as to expect we'll get a candidate capable of doing it any time soon) but would it be too much to ask the business executive and efficiency expert to explain what is running through the head of a business owner when faced with this set of circumstances?
Especially because, whether he seems like a nice fella or not, he's inevitably going to get the "wait, so you don't support an endlessly higher minimum wage and outrageous benefits packages? So, basically, you're for people starving to death in the streets, right?" question