Student: A lot of people of color
are living paycheck to paycheck,
and it allows for very little room to move
upward. How would you address that?
Shapiro: By less market regulation.
By less regulation in housing,
for example. Let people build more
housing because that's what
drives the price down, better supply
of housing. By less government
regulation in rent control, which
leads to less supply of housing.
By allowing businesses to start up
and hire people without all of
the licensing fees and taxes that are
associated in the state of California,
for example, with that. By getting rid of
the minimum wage because if you want...
[Audience applause]
Shapiro: The minimum wage puts half
of the people who could get those jobs
out of work. Right now, if you put
the minimum wage up at 15 bucks,
college grads would be making the minimum
wage, and all the people who are 17
and want to get those jobs, they want to
start working their way out of poverty,
will not get those jobs. No one
is going to pay a 17-year-old kid
to flip burgers. It's not going to happen.
Less regulation allows for more
economic freedom, which is why,
in the past, when you had less
regulation, you saw more social
mobility. Social mobility slows as
government sticks in the gears
of the economy.
This is why the inner cities, for example,
areas that have been governed by leftists,
have very little social mobility. There is
permanent poverty, generation after
generation, because no one is starting
a business in the inner city
because of regulations and taxes.
This is what happened in Detroit.
Detroit got completely cleaned out.
Detroit was the industrial heartland
of the United States. Through
government subsidies, regulations,
and high tax rates that confiscated
property and wealth from the people
who were generating it all the
businesses left. They raised the taxes
again because they felt like they
still owed people there money
so they raised the taxes again. More
people left, and they had no tax base.
Now Detroit is a center of permanent
poverty and what looks like
zombie aftermath.
