Douglas Alexander: “sometimes we like to say something so often and so vigorously that we believe it actually does what we say it will do…”

“sometimes we like to say something so often and so vigorously that we believe it actually does what we say it will do, and I am afraid that is the case of the minimum wage arguments that have gone on since 1939. Perhaps it did in 1939, but I would suggest today that it doesn't do what we say it will do. I expect to vote for the minimum wage proposal the Senate produces if it includes the tax incentives and other measures that will help small business men and women pay the bill so they don't have to cut jobs as they compete with companies around the world, in China and in India and other places. I will talk for a few minutes this morning about whether the raising minimum wage does what we say it does. We are doing a fairly extraordinary thing here. The Government is intervening in the marketplace. We don't ordinarily do that. We are fixing prices. We are fixing the cost of labor.”