DETROIT: THE TRIUMPH OF PROGRESSIVE PUBLIC POLICY

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted:

• A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.
• A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
• A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.
• A powerful government employee union that does the same for its members.
• A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.

Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all? We don't have to guess, because there is such a city: Detroit, says Jarrett Skorup of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

• In 1950, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America on a per capita income basis.
• Today, the Census Bureau reports that it is the nation's second poorest major city, just "edging out" Cleveland.

Could it be pure coincidence that the decline occurred over the same period in which union power, the city government bureaucracy, taxes and business regulations all multiplied?

While correlation is not causation, it is striking that the decline in per capita income is exactly what classical economics predicts will occur when wage controls are imposed and taxes are increased.

Specifically, "price theory" predicted that Detroit's artificially high business costs caused by excessive regulation and above-market labor compensation rates imposed by so-called "living wages" would lead to an increase in unemployment - now the highest of any city in the U.S.

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image toon - libs fnn - Libs at gas station = sock it to the rich