Raising Minimum Wage Would Spike Child Care Costs

• As families are still trying to cope with rising prices and declining real wages, a proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., to increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour would drive up costs, especially for childcare.
• Based on data of childcare wages across the states and the economics of childcare, a $17 per hour minimum wage would increase childcare costs by an average of 20% throughout the U.S., costing a family with two children an extra $4,185 per year.
• Such massive cost increases would almost certainly price some families out of childcare completely.
• Instead of mandating artificial wage increases that lead to unintended costs, lawmakers should implement policies that help workers earn higher wages of their own accord.

Schedule an Interview: Rachel Greszler

Destruction of Rule of Law in Fani Willis’ Georgia Star Chamber

• The politically partisan indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants (along with 30 unindicted coconspirators) is an attack on the First Amendment and the very structure of the American legal system by the Star Chamber of Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis.
• Willis is trying to criminalize free speech and have a chilling effect on anyone in the future who might dare to question the results of an election.
• Willis manufactured this egregious “case” with seeming unforgivable ignorance of the freedom to speak, to engage in political activity, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances that is protected by the First Amendment.
• Under the crazy legal theories being pushed in the indictment, every lawyer in Georgia who represents a defendant and makes statements that turn out to be wrong or legal arguments that are ultimately rejected could be accused of conspiring with his or her client to commit a crime.

Schedule an Interview: Hans von Spakovsky 

Latin America Needs a Wake-Up Call

• This July, more than 40 conservatives came together for the inaugural Carvalho Dialogue in Miami to discuss the regional threat of transnational organized crime as well as authoritarian socialism and political instability.
• The socialist network has spread far in the Americas. As the Biden administration looks the other way, malign foreign powers are taking advantage.
• China, Iran, and Russia are interfering in elections, infiltrating governments, and using strong-arm tactics to dominate crucial commercial sectors. Unfortunately, Latin America’s persistent corruption enables them.
• Latin America’s vast organized crime network operations move weapons, drugs, and migrants across borders with impunity, using the profits to undermine or co-opt weak governments.
• Working together, though not necessarily through their present governments, the people of the United States and Latin America can build durable, democratic societies that cooperate for mutual economic prosperity and security.

Schedule an Interview: Simon Hankinson