Unintended Consequences

As the self-described socialist Bernie Sanders remains strong in his challenge to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sanders boasts the unusual distinction of making Clinton appear to be a fiscal Scrooge. Contrary to that appearance, Clinton’s policies pack just as much poison as those the Vermont socialist has proposed. Consider, for example, the policy field where Sanders and Clinton appear to differ most: health care.

The collateral damage is beginning to pile up from the FCC’s February decision to trigger Title II telephone utility regulation of the Internet. Long called the “nuclear” option, the FCC preemptively triggered Title II Internet regulation ostensibly to prevent potential new net neutrality problems, which the FCC admits it can’t yet identify.

Changing our country and its laws back to a manageable and sane state is more complicated than the average small-government advocate may think. One cannot simply look at the situation in black and white, right and wrong mindset. A longer term strategy must be established.

Timothy Noah of MSNBC recently informed us, “In theory, raising the minimum wage ought to increase unemployment, but in practice, economists (including a few at the not-exactly-left-leaning Goldman Sachs) have lately struggled to find any real-world evidence of that happening. Job creation is actually faster in the states that have raised the minimum wage.”

In Part 1 published by Thorner and O’Neil at Illinois Review on Monday, June 2nd, Common Core Language Arts and Math were evaluated and shown to be seriously lacking in content as a practical and common sense approach to education, assuming as it does that all children will learn what is prescribed at the same rate within each grade level.

It’s June, a month famed for marriages, but it is likely to be remembered for the high rate of teen unemployment which has been soaring for a long time. By February, the national unemployment rate for youth, age 16 to 19, had reached 20.7%. By November 2013 it was three times higher than the national average of 6.6% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.