Brooklyn, New York – The Conservative Party of New York State issued an additional memo to the Members of the NYS Legislature stressing the fact that raising the minimum wage will harm the economy of New York by reducing job growth. The memo follows:

Governor Cuomo has repeatedly stated that he wants New York to serve as a nationwide model for progressive policies all the while denying facts that prove progressive policies fail to produce the utopia progressives demand. We did not achieve Empire State status by being an experimental laboratory for liberal tinkering. We lost our Empire State status when New York chipped away at the free-market standards that established New York as a financial magnet only to become a struggling state at the precipice, ranked second-to-last for the worst business climate in the nation.

In a Wall Street Journal article published December 15, 2015, the WSJ acknowledges the various articles by economists over the past 100 years that both sides tend to rely on. It concludes that “the vast majority of these studies point to job losses for the least-skilled. They are based on fundamental economic reasoning—that when you raise the price of something, in this case labor, less of it will be demanded, or in this case hired.”

The WSJ goes on to say that “among the many studies supporting this conclusion is one completed earlier this year by Texas A&M’s Jonathan Meer and MIT’s Jeremy West, which reaffirmed that ‘the minimum wage reduces job growth over a period of several years’ and that ‘industries that tend to have a higher concentration of low-wage jobs show more deleterious effects on job growth from higher minimum wages.’

Clearly an indication of New York’s economic decline as its minimum wage increased through the years.

The leading progressive voice in the current presidential race, Sen. Bernie Sanders, calls for Americans to embrace the Scandinavian economic model. We question if he realizes that Sweden, Denmark and Finland do not have a minimum wage and that countries that do not have a minimum wage have on average unemployment rate four percent lower than those with a minimum wage. Denmark has long been held as the model for progressives – they have the world’s lowest level of income inequality – remember no mandated minimum wage – due to the powerful collective bargaining system gaining a $20 wage for fast food workers. However, fast food restaurants, and related industries, are less profitable. Furthermore, the economic future of Denmark is rapidly declining.

Forbes’ notes, “You can’t suspend the laws of economics. You can’t expand a welfare safety net to cover an entire society.”

The Conservative Party unequivocally states that you cannot increase the minimum wage in New York State without facing the consequence of losing jobs.

When did putting people out of work become the role of legislators? Tell Governor Cuomo NO to a $15 minimum wage. Your role, as a New York Legislator, is to help New Yorkers, not put them out of work.

LM 2016-02

Chairman Michael R. Long sent the following legislative memo opposing Governor Cuomo’s call to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. The memo follows:

The NYS Conservative Party would be ecstatic if every citizen in New York State earned enough wages to be considered a one-percenter or at least a six-figure salary. That is the American Dream…a dream that will be shattered if government insists on mandating a raise in the minimum wage to $15.

Most earners of the minimum wage are those entering the work force with little experience and unskilled workers hoping to climb out of poverty. According to the AFL-CIO website, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act established a federal minimum wage to serve as “a floor below wages,” to reduce poverty and to ensure that economic growth is shared across the workforce.

The original concept for a minimum wage changed dramatically when Micah White, PhD wrote in Adbusters.com – Anarchic Swarms – The Emerging Model, an article calling for a worldwide, multi-front mutiny against the way our economic and military leaders are running the world, giving birth to the radical movement, Occupy Wall Street that has morphed into today’s demands for a “fair and just” $15 an hour minimum wage.

Social media helped organize a scrappy group of anarchists and made them the driving force demanding an increase that most economists say will hurt the people it supposedly seeks to help.

 The Cato Institute lays out four reasons not to increase the minimum wage here.

 Slate.Com writes that Raising the Minimum Wage to $15 Would Hurt Millions of Vulnerable People.

 American Action Forum writes that government — despite many in government saying it will save taxpayers — savings are minimal compared to the labor market consequences.

 Noted author, John C. Goodman, opines on Why Raising the Minimum Wage is a Bad Idea.

The American Dream has and will always be a beacon to free-market entrepreneurs’ creating businesses and giving people jobs. Micah White, PhD proved his social experiment worked – he has changed the way government looks at the minimum wage, albeit a misconstrued goal based on the public’s approval for increased wages.

Raising the minimum wage, to the extent being called for, may give birth to an American nightmare, where there are no jobs available to escape poverty.

We urge New York State Legislators to reject what has become a populist call for a $15 minimum wage.

LM 2016-01

Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky should be ashamed of himself for sponsoring legislation that could increase his own salary as a state legislator from $79,500 to $174,000 a whopping 219% increase.

Worse yet, Kaminsky’s legislation would provide him and other state legislators regular cost-of-living adjustments without even requiring the Legislature to vote on these salary increases.

Also included in his proposed bill is a tax-payer funded campaign finance system with a 6:1 match ratio. (Every dollar raised by the candidate equals 6 dollars from the taxpayer.) New York City’s history with its public campaign finance system is fraught with fraud.

New York State taxpayers want honest, hardworking public servants who put the state’s best interest ahead of their own.

Todd Kaminsky’s legislation fails that test.

Brooklyn, NY — Justice Antonin Scalia appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 used his wisdom to guide America as our Founding Fathers outlined in the greatest constitution the world has ever known.

His wisdom and wit will be sorely missed. The world has lost a man who truly understood and fought for the American Dream for every American and every person who sought to be American.

We will continue to fight the good fight with the wise decisions he has left us.

Thank you Justice Antonin Scalia, we will carry on, now rest in peace.