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    • The Sunset Statement: Republicans get it wrong on the Raise the Wage Act by: Emily Baker Washington DC - The Republican Party has made a push on trying to become the party of working Americans but instead of just working to help Americans they are just playing political games on the minimum wage without actually planning on raise the minimum wage. Every working American should be earning a living wage, and it is a shame that the Republican Party isn't actually interested in delivering the raise Americans so desperately need. Make no mistake reader if they Raise the Wage act passes the Senate it will result in the House passing a version of it without E-verify where the bill will die. Supposedly both parties agree on raising the minimum wage but if it dies it will be because the GOP is not interested in passing a minimum wage increase without a program that is expensive and ineffective.  E-Verify is the wrong answer to addressing the immigration situation in this country. Nationwide E-verify would cost over 40 billion dollars when you adjust the CBO report for inflation. Not only is the program expensive to the American taxpayer, but it is also expensive to small businesses. Bloomberg estimates that the program will cost small businesses 2.6 billion dollars. That could result in many small businesses going under or being unable to get off the ground in the first place and give billion-dollar corporations like Walmart more market advantage to push local shops out of business. In addition, states that already have E-Verify know that the system is not perfect and often leads to mistakes that cost the employee and their employer money that the employee must go out of their way to correct. That means losing multiple days' pay and having to fight against government bureaucracy just to prove that you are following the law, instead of the presumption of innocence every American is going to be assumed to working illegally until the Government gives its stamp of approval. I make it a point not to agree with Vox Libertalis often, but I have to agree here because they are right this is a step too far in government overreach. The CATO institute stated on E-Verify: An audit of the system by the firm Westat found that an estimated 54 percent of unauthorized workers were incorrectly found to be work authorized by E‑Verify" You hardly find many issues where the CATO Institute, the ACLU, Vox, Sunrise and Sunset Media all agree but we all agree that nationwide E-Verify is the incorrect choice. We can only hope that Congress will give Americans the wage increase they need and then sort out an effective immigration solution instead of trying to create the TSA but for employment.   
    • Requiem for a Dream by Rondal Goldfarb The news today of President Kyle Allred passing away unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm at only 48 years old is a tragedy for not just the people who loved and supported him but signals as well the last dying gasp of the Grand Old Party.  For better and worse, at his heart of hearts, President Allred represented the last of a now dead breed, the traditional conservative Republican archetype that believed in limited government, social conservatism, and a strong foreign policy and defense posture that was not afraid to intervene around the world to preserve an inflated ideal of American imperialism disguised as exceptionalism. Allred was a traditional conservative at his core, but he recognized that the road to power was littered with the bodies of failed resistance to President Trump. We have regularly pointed out the on again off again revolving door romance that was President Allred’s relationship with Donald Trump and his loyalist base. One week they were calling each other names in the press, and the next week they were back together, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Like the bad boy you just can’t shake, Allred knew he needed Trump for his tradionalist message to go anywhere in today’s Republican Party. President Allred was forced to walk a tightrope between competing factions that led to a myriad of often contradictory words and actions. He regularly denounced and campaigned against Trump but nevertheless came around to supporting him in every election he ran in. He decried protectionism but pledged to keep the Trump/Biden tariffs in place. He spoke of fiscal restraint and the need to root out corruption in Medicare but insisted he would not reform the system rapidly speeding towards its demise. President Allred was a politician. What they say is rarely what they do. Nevertheless, we held out some small hope that he would be the chosen one to throw off the shackles of his party's recent authoritarian past and return to an ideal of limited government and free market ideals. And that the choice of Vice President Van Horn would temper his imperialist ambitions. There were fits of promise between the political posturing, but alas they shall not come to pass. Gone is the opportunity for President Allred to manifest his values into actions, and so too is the Party of free trade and limited government. In its wake, President Kyle Van Horn's faction reigns supreme. In his first statement as President he spoke plainly that he is 'not going to be Kyle Allred.' The balance to Allred’s interventionist neoconservatism is now the top of the ticket, projecting noninterventionism back into the mainstream but at the cost of borderline Democratic populism at home. The next four years under the uniparty (Van Horn’s word) in Washington will now instead have riveting debates about exactly how high the minimum wage should be, not if but by how much government should control free enterprise, who is the bigger ally to union bosses, and which who can dance around the looming apocalypse to entitlement programs without acknowledging the elephant in the room. Promises that cannot be kept will be made to disaffected working class Americans across the country while the U.S. Treasury self-immolates as domestic spending propels itself permanently over the fiscal cliff. In the meantime, we wish him godspeed in his pursuit of a fresh and long overdue new direction in foreign policy. President Van Horn’s America First policy will finally get us out of costly foreign entanglements abroad, but promises of reinvesting those dollars here without taking a serious look at the nation’s finances, sets the U.S. up to be more beholden to international financing (including from China) in the future, and at higher interest rates.  Perhaps we are wrong and fate will intervene to force President Van Horn to become the fiscal hawk we hoped Allred would ultimately become, but only time will tell. In its wake, America is mourning once again, not just for a President, but for the death of an idea ironically as old as the nation itself, that trusting in the invisible hand of the free market will always yield optimal results. #ChooseFreedom
    • The Sunset Statement: President Allred is Dead by: Anthony Clarke Washington DC. - Last night it was announced that President Allred died of a brain aneurysm. He is the first president to die in office since John F. Kennedy and the shortest serving president since William Henry Harrison. The passing of the President is a very sad occasion coming off the recent news about Jimmy Carter. It is unclear what legacy President Allred will leave behind.    Vice President Kyle Van Horn took the oath of office last night. Immediately he made it clear that he would not try to be Kyle Allred. With that it was announced that he would withdraw the disputed cabinet nominations at Treasury and Education to appoint his own nominees. Levi Koenig stated on twitter that all current cabinet officers resign. Clearly there is some push from the anti-Ukraine side to immediate give all of Allred's policies the boot. However, I think it is important to remember for the GOP and for Van Horn that Allred was fairly popular so is Ukraine aid. They might be better off long-term trying to find a balance between completing Allred's popular promises and making Kyle Van Horn his own man. It could go a long way in extending this new honeymoon period they have.   
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