The Heritage Insider: New overtime rule will hurt workers, so will Calif. minimum wage, FCC is shaking down firms, too much Medicaid is bad for the poor, and the Iran lies are revealed

May 21, 2016

 

 

The Department of Labor’s new overtime rule is going to hurt both workers and employers. California is also getting in the way of opportunity with its minimum wage hike. How too much Medicaid spending hurts the poor. The FCC is using its power over broadcast licenses to shakedown private firms. And the truth about the Iran deal is now plain for all to see. Plus, over 60 new studies, articles, speeches, videos, and events at The Insider this week. Visit to see what the conservative movement has been thinking, writing, saying, and doing to win battles for liberty. 

 

 

 

Making work more complicated and costly: The Department of Labor has proposed a new rule that it thinks will increase the number of workers who will either receive overtime pay or see the salaries increase. The new rule more than doubles the earnings threshold for workers to be exempt from the requirement to pay time-and-a-half for hours worked beyond 40 in a week. As Diana Furtchgott-Roth writes, however, rather than increase workers pay, the rule is most likely to reduce flexibility in setting work schedules, while increasing the administrative costs to employers. That can only reduce employment and economic growth. [e21 – Economic Policies for the 21st Century]

 

The real minimum wage, however, remains zero. California has raised its minimum wage, which by 2023 will be $15 an hour. The mandate, as James Sherk notes, is projected to eliminate approximately 900,000 full-time jobs in the state by 2023. [The Heritage Foundation]

 

The FCC v. the Rule of Law. The Federal Communications Commission has the power to approve or deny the transfers of broadcast licenses. What’s it doing with that power? Just extracting agreements from firms on matters that the agency would otherwise have no power over—like programming decisions, hiring practices, and net neutrality compliance. And since the agreements are “voluntary” they are “practically unappealable,” write Brent Skorup and Christopher Koopman. [Mercatus Center]

 

Over Medicaided. Safety-net spending, notes Oren Cass, has more than doubled over the past 40 years, and health care spending is responsible more 90 percent of that increase. But does that allocation of safety-net spending really the best way to meet the needs of low-income households? Cass calculates that low-income households would be better served by reallocating $100 billion of Medicaid spending to housing, food, and transportation needs. [Manhattan Institute]

 

False advertising. A New York Times profile of National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes has revealed that the Obama administration engaged in deceit to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the American people. The damage to America’s security is grave, says Michael Rubin: “In essence, the White House argued that any fault in the Iran deal—especially given its sunset clause—could be offset by the gamble that Rouhani might fundamentally change the nature of the Islamic Republic. What Rhodes reveals, however, is that the Obama administration knowingly left the Islamic Republic with an industrial-scale nuclear program capable of building not only a bomb but also an arsenal when the White House understood that the that Iranian regime—which would have unfettered nuclear access upon the expiration of the [agreement]—would not be fundamentally different than it is now.” [American Enterprise Institute]

 

 

Have a tip for The Insider? Send us an e-mail at insider@heritage.org with "For Insider" in the subject line.

Looking for an expert? Visit PolicyExperts.org.

 

The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002 | 202.546.4400

You are subscribed to Heritage Foundation e-mails as johnmhames@comcast.net. If you want to change your e-mail preferences, please click here to update your subscription.

-