JEB BUSH WOULD NOT RESCIND OBAMA’S EXECUTIVE AMNESTY IF ELECTED PRESIDENT~SUPPORTS OBAMA’S NSA SPYING~LIBERTY UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT SPEECH SHOWS ECUMENISM, PROGRESSIVE BENT~COMMON CORE PROPONENT DESPITE WIDESPREAD OPPOSITION

THE PROBLEMS WITH JEB BUSH 
BEING PRESIDENT;
JUST ANOTHER ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICAN MEANS NO SUBSTANTIVE CHANGE
SEE: 

Jeb Bush Would Not Rescind Obama’s Executive Amnesty if Elected President

by Warren Mass
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/20865-jeb-bush-would-not-rescind-obama-s-executive-amnesty-if-elected-president; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
During a recent interview with Megyn Kelly on Fox News, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (shown) said that — were he to be elected president — his first order of business would not be to repeal President Obama’s executive action granting amnesty to four million illegal aliens.  Bush, who has not yet announced himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016, said that although he did not support the Obama administration executive action — which he called unconstitutional — he would not remove it (presumably by another executive action) immediately after assuming the presidency. Bush said he would rather rectify the action as part of “meaningful” immigration reform legislation passed by Congress.
Kelly told Bush that she had talked to Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who was one of the “Gang of Eight” that drafted the bipartisan “immigration reform” bill that passed the Senate in 2013 but was never voted on by the Republican-led House because it provided amnesty to illegal aliens. She said that Rubio told her: “It’s going to be very difficult to undo [the executive action] once all these folks are here, if that legal challenge to his action does not succeed.”
The “legal challenge” that Kelly referred to is a temporary injunction that U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Brownsville issued last February, blocking implementation of the Obama plan. Hanen’s decision was in response to a suit (State of Texas et al v. United States of America et al) filed against the administration by a group of states led by Texas. The administration has appealed that injunction to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which heard arguments from both sides in the case on April 17, but has not yet issued a decision.
Bush replied: “By the way, I think [the legal challenge] will succeed.”
When Kelly asked Bush how he would go about undoing the executive actions (presuming they were still intact should he become president), the former governor replied: “Passing meaningful reform of immigration and make it part of it.”
Kelly then asked Bush if he would have “supported that Senate bill that did not pass.”
Bush replied: “I would have had a different bill that was based on the, you know, my deeply held views on this. But I would have supported that to get beyond this, sure.”
Bush, apparently, is not opposed to granting amnesty to a large number of illegal aliens and differs with Obama solely on the president’s methodology. And his differences with the president are not sufficiently important that he would make it a priority of his, if elected to succeed Obama, to undo the action.
Bear in mind what Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said about the Gang of Eight bill in a national petition e-mailed to his supporters in June 2013, one week before the Senate passed it on a 68-32 vote:
This is urgent. We must stop this Gang of 8 immigration bill, which would give amnesty to an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants with no guarantee of a secure border.
The Senate debate is in the final stages and we need to send Washington a strong signal of the overwhelming grassroots opposition to this amnesty bill from Americans across the country.
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also opposed the bill, stating: “If [the immigration bill] got stronger, I could consider it, but since they rejected my call to have Congress involved with determining whether the border is secure, I can’t imagine how they can get me back unless they come back to me and say, ‘We’ve changed our mind.’”
Bush offered this explanation to Kelly about why he was opposed to deporting some illegal aliens, especially those who had been in the country for some time and are therefore eligible for amnesty under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program: “If you’ve been here for an extended period of time, you have no nexus to the country of your parents. What are we supposed to do? Marginalize these people forever?”
Presumably, since every president takes an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and that the Constitution requires that “ he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” it might be presumed that what Bush should do — were he to be elected president — is to enforce the law.
It is not the laws that “marginalize” people. Those who break the law marginalize themselves and must be required to come into compliance. It is up to Congress to pass laws to accomplish this, and to the president to enforce these laws. Among the steps required by existing law are border enforcement, apprehension of those who have entered our nation illegally, and deportation of those apprehended.
Unlike Hillary Clinton, who recently advocated “nothing less than a full and equal path to citizenship,” for illegal aliens and who was critical of those Republican presidential candidates who favor granting legal status for some illegal aliens, but still oppose citizenship, Bush said he backs legal status — but not citizenship — for those who have entered the country illegally. “A practical solution of getting to fixing the legal system is also allowing for a path to legalized status, not necessarily citizenship,” said Bush.
Bush has a history of attempting to straddle the fence on the issue of immigration, often bending language to make amnesty not sound like amnesty. During an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program in March 2013, Bush revealed that he would support legislation that provided a “path for citizenship” for illegal immigrants. During the interview, which coincided with the release of Immigration Wars, the book Bush coauthored with Clint Bolick, Bush said he favored a “path to legalization.”
When Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough asked Bush: “What’s the difference between a path to legalization and a path to citizenship?” Bush replied: “The principal difference … the principle underlying what we’ve proposed is that if you don’t have a difference between a path to citizenship or a path to legalization, you’re going to create a magnet going forward for more illegal…”
Scarborough interjected: “You’re going to repeat what happened in today’s … Reagan amnesty.”
Bush continued: “So going forward — we wrote this last year — going forward if there is a difference, if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn’t an incentive for people to come illegally I’m for it. I don’t have a problem with that.”
Near the conclusion of the interview, Bush replied to a question from political analyst Mark Halperin, who asked: “Governor, just to clarify an important point of a path to citizenship, if there was a piece of legislation that had a pathway to citizenship … people who came here illegally eligible to become citizens without touching back in their home countries, would you support that?”
Bush replied: “I would support it if it didn’t create an incentive for people to come illegally at the expense of coming legally.”
“If you change the system so that there is a legal path and you have a different term for people that are here already illegally so that the incentive isn’t to continue to have that process, then I would support that for sure,” Bush continued.
We think what Bush meant, amidst all that doubletalk, is that if you legalize illegal immigration, then illegal aliens would no longer be here illegally!
However, we would not guarantee that.
_____________________________________________________________

SHOCK POLL: AMERICANS HATE JEB BUSH MORE THAN HILLARY

Americans have a more favorable view of Clinton (47%) and Biden (39%) than they do of Bush (35%)
BY KIT DANIELS
SEE: http://www.infowars.com/shock-poll-americans-hate-jeb-bush-more-than-hillary/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes: 
Sixty percent (60%) of Americans would not consider Jeb Bush for president, compared to 51% who said the same about Hillary Clinton, according to national poll of mostly conservative voters.
The George Washington University Battleground Poll of 1,000 registered voters, of which only 16% identified with the Tea Party, also found that 48% of voters have an unfavorable view of Bush compared to only 44% who have an unfavorable impression of Joe Biden.
Overall, Americans have a more favorable view of Clinton (47%) and Biden (39%) than they do of Bush (35%).
All three presidential candidates led the rest in name recognition.
“Voters are evenly split on Hillary Clinton (47% favorable, 48% unfavorable; 47% would consider, 51% would not) and strongly negative on presumptive candidate Jeb Bush (35, 48; 36, 60),” the poll’s press release stated.
In other words, if the 2016 election pits Bush against Clinton, the latter would likely win, but either way, don’t expect either candidate to act much different than Obama.
“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers,” establishment insider Carrol Quigley advocated in his book Tragedy and Hope. “Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.”
It’d just be more of the same regardless of the party label which misleads voters into thinking establishment candidates viciously oppose each other when in fact they play on the same team.
“I would say the best part of the Obama administration would be his continuance of the protections of the homeland using the big metadata [NSA surveillance] programs,” Bush said in an interview on the Michael Medved radio show.
________________________________________________

Jeb Bush Praises Obama’s NSA Spying Program

Published on Apr 23, 2015
Former Florida Governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush called the NSA’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records, which was revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the greatest accomplishment of President Obama’s presidency, during an interview on radio host Michael Medved’s program. We look at the story on the Lip News with Elliot Hill and Mark Sovel.

http://www.inquisitr.com/2033414/jeb-…

_________________________________________________

Jeb Bush Praises NSA Spying Under President Obama

BUSH: BEST PART OF OBAMA IS NSA SPYING


_________________________________________________

Jerry Falwell Jr. Introducing Jeb Bush
at Liberty University – 05-09-2015

Liberty Commencement 2015 – Former Gov. Jeb Bush

S.O.B. (Son of a Bush) Touts His “Christian Conscience”

Published on May 12, 2015
If there was any doubt that JEB would be more of the same, he confirmed that he would have invaded Iraq without questioning fake intel, just like his brother. Then he went on to tout his “Christian Conscience” as evidenced by his acquiescence as Florida Gov when a probate judge slowly starved Terry Schiavo to death.

_____________________________________________________


Michelle Malkin Rips On Jeb Bush, Common Core;
Disgusted With Jeb Bush:

Jeb Bush supports the “higher standards”
in Common Core

Published on Apr 6, 2014
One of the topics in Shannon’s interview with Jeb was education and Common Core. Jeb is a supporter of Common Core and considers the idea that Common Core is the Obamacare of education is nonsense. He said it is not the federal takeover of education.


Rand Paul: ‘The invasion of Iraq was a mistake’; but Jeb Bush doesn’t think so:

TEXAS VETERAN IMPRISONED FOR 35 DAYS FOR REFUSING TO SURRENDER HIS FACEBOOK PASSWORD~GIVEN DONUTS & INSULIN INJECTIONS

TEXAS VETERAN IMPRISONED FOR 35 DAYS 

FOR REFUSING TO SURRENDER 

HIS FACEBOOK PASSWORD;

FED DONUTS AND INSULIN INJECTIONS


(NaturalNews) Texas entrepreneur and U.S. Army veteran Jeremy Alcede has been imprisoned for 35 days (and counting) over his refusal to turn over his Facebook account password as part of a business bankruptcy court order. Federal bankruptcy Judge Jeff Bohm of the Southern District of Texas ordered Alcede thrown in jail for an indefinite period of time until he surrenders his Facebook account password, potentially creating a dangerous precedent that threatens the privacy and control of all our social media accounts.
Jeremy Alcede is now being incarcerated at the Joe Corley Detection Center in Montgomery County, a for-profit “private prison” run by a corporation. Jeremy Alcede has not been charged with any crime and has been denied a jury trial. He is a “prisoner of conscience” for standing his ground on the issue of social media account ownership, and to my knowledge he is the only American currently being held under indefinite detention for refusing to give up his Facebook password.
Why does his Facebook account matter so much that he’s willing to go to jail to protect it? Before being incarcerated for committing no crime, Alcede told Natural News that his Facebook account contains privileged conversations with his attorney, and that forcing him to turn over his account would violate attorney-client privilege. It would also violate the Facebook terms of service, which states that no Facebook account can be assigned to another party without the written permission of the Facebook company. Turning over his own account password to another party, as ordered by Judge Jeff Bohm, would constitute Jeremy Alcede committing his own identity theft on Facebook because it would allow the party receiving the account to impersonate Alcede to his entire list of friends and followers.
“If this judge is able to force me to surrender my Facebook account password,” Alcede told Natural News, “it would set a dangerous precedent that could see federal courts seizing social media accounts from any person targeted by the government, in gross violation of due process and their First Amendment rights.”
Judge Bohm claims the Facebook account in question belongs to the new owners of the Tactical Firearms business, who acquired it through bankruptcy proceedings. But the Facebook account in question — which has thousands of likes and followers — was used almost exclusively for personal messages, not business communications or promotions. The question posed here is whether a business bankruptcy can cause that business founder’s personal social media accounts to be stripped from them by order of the court. Because there is no precedent on this question, Judge Bohm invented his own answer and appears to be willing to keep Alcede imprisoned until he complies with his demands, no matter how unreasonable they may seem.
Targeted for being a patriot?
Alcede stirs controversy in many quarters, and he’s an outspoken critic of Obama administration policies. He’s the co-founder of the Katy, Texas, firearms retailer known as Tactical Firearms, which made headlines throughout 2013 and 2014 for carrying provocative, satirical messages on its signage visible from a major thoroughfare in Katy called Mason Rd.
The following image shows one of many such signs posted by Tactical Firearms. This one reads, “Criminals obey gun laws like politicians follow their oaths of office.” Other signage poked fun at President Obama, Harry Reid and gun control zealots.
Just as the Obama administration’s IRS targeted conservative non-profits for their political and religious beliefs, Alcede believes he is being held as a “prisoner of conscience” because of his outspoken speech on controversial topics like gun control, Obamacare and illegal immigration. He says that the courts imprisoning someone for an indefinite period of time is a violation of federal and state laws against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“I have always stood up and voiced my opinion regarding the civil liberties that our founding fathers created. I would not be true to myself or to you if I laid down and blindly obeyed an unlawful order which has currently been placed upon me,” Alcede writes on his GoFundMe page, which has so far raised $3,000 for his legal bills. “I desperately need legal representation but cannot afford it as I have been robbed of everything.”
To prevent Alcede’s story from getting out, Judge Jeff Bohm has denied media visitation access to all reporters, including Andrea Watkins from a local Fox affiliate. As this email shows, the request to interview Alcede was denied.
What kind of prisoner gets held without charge, is sentenced to “indefinite” imprisonment in a for-profit prison run by a corporation, is denied access to the press and fed a health-destroying diet? Welcome to the new Amerikan police state.
Fed donuts and insulin shots, Alcede turns to fasting to protect his health
According to reports from those in direct contact with Alcede, he was fed donuts and processed cereal by the prison staff, causing his blood sugar to experience wild clinical swings. In response, the medical staff at the facility began administering insulin shots to control his blood sugar.
Because prison food is so disastrously malnourished and imbalanced, Alcede’s health status only worsened. It wasn’t long before they tried to put him on metformin, a diabetes drug widely known to cause permanent liver damage. In essence, the prison is now waging a chemical war on Alcede’s physical health, subjecting him to punishment that goes beyond the incarceration itself. Alcede refused the metformin drug, and in a desperate attempt to protect his health from the disastrous diet forced upon him, he went on a six-day fast, during which his blood sugar stabilized.
“I wrote this post at 5 pm after waiting all day in hopes of getting a normal meal which did not happen,” Alcede wrote from prison on April 30. “The medical doctor on staff was ordered yesterday to specify the exact foods I am to be fed. He said that the warden denied the MEDICAL ORDERS and I am being poisoned. I am curious as to why a Muslim is allowed a special diet to appease their God, but a life and death diet is not worthy. Every day that passes I am uncovering MORE and MORE CORRUPTION! With the Texas prisons generating 13 plus billion dollars, yes with a b, a year…it makes perfect sense…”
Human rights violations committed by the government
Alcede remains in isolation at the facility, living in a cell no more than five feet wide. He remains the only known prisoner in America who is serving an indefinite detention for the “crime” of protecting his own social media account.
As this is happening, the United States government is being heavily criticized by a scathing human rights review from the United Nations, which accuses the U.S. government of repeatedly violating fundamental human rights.
“The United States was slammed over its rights record Monday at the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, with member nations criticizing the country for police violence and racial discrimination, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility and the continued use of the death penalty,” reports Al Jazeera. The news publisher also states:
The March findings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on torture were not overlooked by international delegates. Many echoed the concerns of the Danish delegate, Carsten Staur, who recommended that the U.S. “further ensures that all victims of torture and ill treatment, whether still in U.S. custody or not, obtain redress and have an enforceable right to fair and adequate compensation and as full rehabilitation as possible, including medical and psychological assistance.”
With the case of Jeremy Alcede, the United States federal government now stands as a tyrannical regime that will throw someone in prison for daring to protect their control of their own social media account.
Resources
Jeremy Alcede’s Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/Tacticalfirearms
Go Fund Me page for Jeremy Alcede:
http://www.gofundme.com/Fborjail
Written by Mike Adams
Learn more: Natural News


SPECIAL FORCES TRAIN WITH COPS FOR HOUSE TO HOUSE RAIDS IN SOUTH CAROLINA

SPECIAL FORCES TRAIN WITH COPS 
FOR HOUSE TO HOUSE RAIDS
EXCERPT:
Special Forces out of Fort Bragg are training with SWAT officers in Richland County, South Carolina this week for house to house raids, another unnerving sign of the militarization of domestic law enforcement.
_____________________________________________________
SEE: http://www.patriotortraitor.com/leon-lott/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:


Leon Lott is a traitor.

Leon Lott is a treasonous Sheriff in charged of law enforcement for the unincorporated area’s of Richland County, South Carolina.
Only a year after the joint drills of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department and the US military raised eyebrows, Sheriff Leon Lott of the RCSD has once again announced that the department will be conducting drills that involve the joint training of civilian law enforcement and the US military.
On May 8, 2015 it was reported by WLTX that the Richland County Sheriff’s Department will be conducting drills in conjunction with the 3rd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The exercises will take place at late-night and pre-dawn and will run from May 8 until May 15, 2015.
Citizens have now been informed that Sheriff’s Department and Military vehicles will be traveling in the Lower Richland County community near Eastover and Hopkins as well as Elgin near Screaming Eagle Road. The vehicles will also be traveling in the North Richland County area near Monticello Rd.
The Sheriff’s Department has announced that residents in these areas may hear explosives being detonated and ordinance being set off as well as shots being fired.
Sheriff Leon Lott stated that the department’s Special Response Team, a SWAT-like team formulation that is becoming ever popular in South Carolina Sheriff’s Departments, with the 3rd Special Forces Group. Lott announced that the Sheriff’s department will “provide simulated scenarios for the military” and added that Richland County “an ideal location for training that cannot be replicated at Fort Bragg.”
There were no elaborations as to what these scenarios might be or what the training will involve. This is perhaps because the last time the Richland County Sheriff’s Office conducted training with Special Forces, it was simulating and training to raid farm houses and engaging in domestic raids as well as to set up checkpoints and chopper insertion. See my article “Local Police Train With Special Forces To Raid Farm Houses, Conduct Domestic Raids.”
It is worth nothing that the drills will be taking place in the exact same location as last year’s drills.
With this in mind, and taking into consideration not only the increasing number of military and joint military/law enforcement drills taking place over recent years practicing the round up, disarming, and relocation of American citizens as well as the ongoing Jade Helm exercises taking place across the country, it is highly likely that these drills are of the same category. After all, the last time they were conducted, they apparently contained a number of these elements.
The fact that the police and military are engaging in joint drill exercises in violation of Posse Comitatus and a long-standing American tradition of separation between domestic policing and military activity is concerning enough. However, if they are training for domestic operations such as raiding American farm houses, setting up domestic checkpoints, and conducting other related raids on the home-front should be terrifying to every single American that desires to keep what little shred of freedom they have left.
Unfortunately, it has become abundantly clear that the American military and indeed Sheriff Leon Lott of the Richland County Sheriff’s Department see the American people and the people of South Carolina as the enemy.

Additional Information

Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1385

Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
BREAKING: Special Forces Drill 
with Local SWAT for Domestic Raids

Published on May 12, 2015
RICHLAND | In what appears to be the second such drill, Special Forces have been deployed domestically alongside local Sheriffs to train for midnight raids in Richland County South Carolina.

The footage you’re seeing right now is the 3rd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg conducting a nighttime raid during an exercise. This is the special forces unit deployed.

Sheriff Leon Lott stated that “Richland County is “an ideal location for training that cannot be replicated at Fort Bragg.”

Coordinating with the Special Forces will be the county’s Special Response Team – or SWAT to “provide simulated scenarios for the military”

What’s more chilling than coordinated domestic raid training is that official reports state that live ordinance and gunfire will be employed.

To top it off the media has been restricted from any kind of embedded reporting to provide Transparency for the drills.

Now you can add this drill to the long list of domestic training exercises that have occurred so far this year. FEMA Camp Roundup drills in Florida, martial law training in California, Marines Prepping for Riot Control in Virginia and of course the mother of all drills JADE HELM.

This is another glaring example of the militarization of local police nationwide who have received nearly half a billion dollars in military equipment from the department of defense.

So this begs the question. Who is training who? When local sheriffs receive military equipment and then the special forces train alongside SWAT the lines are blurred. The color of authority is transferred to local police as they become a militarized force. Local Law enforcement can’t violate Posse Comitatus… but they can use the same equipment and tactics as the military making them one in the same… just a different jurisdiction thus skirting the law and violating the constitution.

The next question is who is the intended target? I’ll leave that up to you in the comments section below the video… I’ll give you a hint. “You Train where you deploy”

http://www.wltx.com/story/news/milita…

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/u…

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/02/l…

Footage courtesy Department of Defense, Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, and Maine National Guard. All footage resides in the public domain. 


BEN CARSON: TEA PARTY DARLING, BUT IS HE REALLY CONSERVATIVE?~BEFRIENDS RACIST RADICAL AL SHARPTON & SUPPORTS MINIMUM WAGE LAW FAVORED BY SOCIALIST DEMOCRATS

BEN CARSON HAS A DREAM:
“HOPE AND CHANGE” 
QUASI-CONSERVATIVE STYLE

MY BLACK BROTHER, THE RACIST?

JESUS WAS A FRIEND OF SINNERS, 

BUT WAS SINLESS

BIBLICAL SEPARATION FORGOTTEN WHEN 
POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY IS MORE IMPORTANT

Ben Carson: Al Sharpton and I 

“Have the Same Goal”

SEE: http://www.mediaite.com/online/ben-carson-al-sharpton-and-i-have-the-same-goal/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Dr. Ben Carson has previously rejected liberal arguments about race, but last week he spoke at Reverend ‘s National Action Network and, in a piece for National Review today, talks about how both he and Sharpton “have the same goal.”
Carson says he was encouraged by the “productive dialogue and conversation” he engaged in at the event, and said both he and Sharpton just want an America “that provides equal opportunities and access to the underserved and forgotten.”
Carson touts how he rejects a “victim mentality” that others have perpetuated.
For his part, when Carson spoke days ago, Sharpton spoke of the potential GOP candidate in good humor:
“I think Dr. Carson and I don’t even agree today is Wednesday. We’re going to show we can listen and we make intelligent decisions. You cannot deal with putting things on the agenda in 2016’s election unless those that are running can be heard—and they have to hear us.”

____________________________________________________
AL SHARPTON:
SEE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton



Ben Carson Befriends Al Sharpton; Color of Skin Bonds

Ben Carson Will Blow Up In The Tea Party’s Face; Remember Colin Powell, Who Was Thought to Be “Conservative”, But Voted For Obama?

QUOTE: Powell donated the maximum allowable amount to John McCain‘s campaign in the summer of 2007 and in early 2008, his name was listed as a possible running mate for Republican nominee McCain’s bid during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. However, on October 19, 2008, Powell announced his endorsement of Barack Obama during a Meet the Press interview, citing “his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities,” in addition to his “style and substance.” He additionally referred to Obama as a “transformational figure“.”
FREE SOCIETY, FREE MARKET, 
WITH EXCEPTIONS?

“Ben Carson Favors Raising Minimum Wage, 

But Is That a Good Idea?”

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson (shown) answered “probably” to the question of whether the federal government should increase the minimum wage. The retired neurosurgeon has staked out a position that is at odds with the view that the free market — not government — should decide wages and prices.
In an interview with John Harwood of CNBC, Carson appeared to favor a higher minimum wage as a way to encourage those who draw government benefits to join the work force. “In several states you can get as much or more on government assistance as you can by working a minimm wage job,” said Carson, adding that he could not “necessarily blame people” for taking the attitude of simply drawing government assistance rather than working. “I can stay home and I can make this money, or I can go and work this little chicken job that doesn’t have many benefits,” is how Carson summed up the attitude of many beneficiaries of government assistance.
“However, recognize that if you go and take that chicken job, you gain skills, relationships, the possibility of moving up the ladder,” Carson argued. “So a year or two or five down the road, you’re no longer in that position. This is what people have forgotten.”
Carson’s reasoning seems clear. If the government were to raise the minimum wage, then the higher wage would make a job more desirable than the government “assistance” the person is presently receiving. Following through on his line of thought, if the government forced a business owner to pay his workers higher wages, then the taxpayer would not have to pay for their government benefits, and the person would become a productive member of society, instead of a drain on others in society who must pay taxes to fund those government benefits.
While this may seem logical, Carson’s scenario neglects to mention the negative consequences of the minimum wage. First, if the government should be able to set a minimum wage, why not a maximum wage? After all, why should neurosurgeons make more than a bus boy in a restaurant? In a free enterprise situation, the supply of those who can perform highly techical surgeries is quite limited. The supply of those who can bus tables, on the other hand, is quite high. The argument usually made by advocates of raising the minimum wage is that those receiving the present minimum wage cannot support a family on it. Under this reasoning, since Carson received far more as a neurosurgeon than what was necessary for him to make a living, then the government should have capped his wage.
Why does a business owner hire anyone? The answer should be obvious. He believes he can make more money by adding that additional employee than by not. In a growing and strong economy, the minimum wage usually becomes irrelevant. This is because more businesses are in need of more employees to care of the increased number of customers, making them pay a higher wage for those additional employees.
In an economic downturn, however, the minimum wage forces the business owner to make some difficult decisions. While he may need an additional worker, with business activity down, he may simply not be able toafford another employee. Because of the minimum wage, the business owner often decides he can make more money by laying off one employee. After all, the owner opens up a business to make money for his own family, not to give someone a job. It should also be noted that a person takes a job for his own family’s benefit as well, not to help the business owner make more money.
As Adam Smith observed many years ago in his famous book Wealth of Nations, the butcher does not prepare us our supper for our benefit, but his own. However, the only way the butcher can benefit himself is by preparing us our supper.
The cold, hard reality is that if the minimum wage is higher than the market price for that worker, then the business owner has limited options. He can, of course, raise his prices to pay for the additional worker; but in a stagnant economy, this may not be possible. Raising the price of the product might actually lead to even fewer customers, and reduced income for the business. If the business owner is unable to get his customers to pay the higher wage through higher prices for the product, then he must resort to cutting staff. Whereas before, the business may have operated witth seven workers, now it might have to cut back to six, or even five.
Another tactic used by business owners who are looking for ways to reduce their costs of doing business (and labor costs are usually the most expensive single item) is to experiment with some technology. After all, if you have a machine to take orders, you don’t have to worry about it calling in sick (or just not showing up). If a machine is cheaper than a human being would be after an increase in the minimum wage, then a business owner who must put his own family first could very well opt to cut staff.
While these basic economic principles are no doubt not taught in medical school, there are multitudes of physicians who have demonstrated their understanding of liberty and free market principles. Former U.S. Representative Dr. Ron Paul and now-deceased former U.S. Representative Dr. Larry McDonald are just two examples who come to mind.
Carson’s scenario that a person may opt to take a job rather than continue to simply draw government benefits no doubt could happen. As the great French philosopher Frederic Bastiat said, however, that is what is seen. Not seen are those employees who are willing to work for a lower wage, but cannot get a job because the minimum wage has priced them out of a job. It is also not seen when the minimum wage actually forces a business owner to close. Perhaps the owner would have taken a chance on a low-skilled, inexperienced person at a lower wage, but would not take that chance at the higher wage. All this is not seen.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an open socialist, favors raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. That should really get some fellow off the couch to take a job! But, we must ask Sanders (running for president on the Democratic ticket) and even Carson a pertinent question: If $10 an hour is good, and $15 an hour is better, why not just make it $100 an hour? Ludicrous? Of course. But once one accepts the premise that it is the proper role of government to set wages at all, why not?
The truth is, wise men have always realized that in a free society, wages and prices should be set by the free market, not by government.