Rebecca Parson, an academic in Washington state, is running for the House to represent Tacoma.
Like the New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Parson is running a longshot campaign in a primary race against an incumbent Democrat… and like Ocasio-Cortez, she touts her membership in the nonprofit group Democratic Socialists of America.
Parson went viral last month by calling for a $30 minimum wage over Twitter, and she defended the tweet Thursday during an appearance on Fox News Channel.
The Fox News host, Jesse Watters, tore into Parson… and he continued his record as a force in revealing left-wing entitlement.
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Watters pushed Parson on her plans for a $30 minimum wage.
$30 per hour equals roughly roughly $60,000 per year.
That’s more than four times the federal government’s current base for the minimum wage, $7.25 per hour. It’s also more than double Washington’s minimum wage, $14.49 per hour. It’s more than even the nation’s current median income for an individual worker, by some metrics.
“You also want to raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour,” Watters asked. “Do you think that might help with inflation?”
Parson responded:
Well, actually some studies have found that 60 percent of inflation is due to corporate price gouging. And with the $30 minimum wage, I realize that’s much higher than it is right now. But if you look at the MIT living wage calculator, all across the country, not just in blue states — high-cost blue states like Washington. All across the country — counties in Michigan, Arkansas, Mississippi — $30 is the minimum living wage for an adult to be able to support a child. And if we restructure the way we do incentives. The government has given over $4 billion in subsidies to Elon Musk. But when was the last time they gave a subsidy to a small business owner? I’m a small business owner myself. And if we had the government subsidizing small business owners to pay their employees a living wage, that would go a long way.
Just finished up on Fox News with Jesse Watters advocating for a $30 minimum wage and using empty corporate-owned homes to house people like the 40,000 homeless veterans and 120,000 homeless kids in our country. Thank you for having me on!
— Rebecca Parson for Congress, WA-06 (@RebeccaforWA) May 27, 2022
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Watters has torn into left-wing fantasy economics before. In January, he spoke to a moderator of the forum “/r/AntiWork,” a place for Marxists to wishcast about a life free from work.
Watters asked the moderator, Doreen Ford, “Why do you like the idea of being home and not working but still getting paid by corporate America?… It sounds like people are just being lazy.”
“Those are misconceptions about the movement. We’re a movement where we want to reduce the amount of work that people feel that they’re forced to do. And so we want to still put in effort. We want to put in labor, but we don’t want to necessarily to be in a position where we feel trapped,” Ford replied.
“I think laziness is a virtue in a society where people are constantly encouraged to be productive 24/7. And it’s good to have rest… I have 20, 25-hour workweeks, which I think is fairly good.”
The minimum wage shouldn’t be $7.25. It shouldn’t be $15. It should be $30.
— Rebecca Parson for Congress, WA-06 (@RebeccaforWA) May 19, 2022
Speaking to Parson, Watters also questions her other proposals, like her plan to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and her exhortation for homeless people to occupy foreclosed buildings.
“Any house? Any structure? Any building? You’re saying rise up and occupy it,” Watters said. “Doesn’t that seem a little dangerous?”
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“I’m not calling on anybody to break the law. I’m just pointing out the fact that there are 600,000 homeless people in this country, 40,000 homeless veterans and one in five homeless people are kids. Meanwhile, we have 28 empty homes for every homeless person,” Parson responded. “So I’m calling on all of us to think about the empty homes that are owned by corporations like BlackRock, like Zillow, like the banks, that are owned by those companies, those large corporations and not being used for what they’re intended for, which is actually housing people.”
“But if a bank owns a house that’s been foreclosed, someone that wants the house is able to buy it, but they can’t buy it if there’s a homeless person in there,” Watters retorted. “What happens if they move in and some guy is sleeping on the floor?”
“I’m calling on us to think about buildings that have been empty for a while that are owned by corporations. You are not having a lot of buyers coming looking at them. They are just sitting empty and there are a lot of houses like that, both in places like here in Washington State and across the country. So I think that in the richest country on earth we should not have anybody who is homeless living on the street,” Parson said, “especially not 40,000 veterans, especially not 120,000 kids.
“I don’t know whether that’s the right way to go,” Watters said. “You want to abolish ICE? Who’s going to deport all the criminal illegal aliens?”
“Actually, decades ago, during the Reagan era, this was before ICE, and we managed the immigration system fine” Parson responded. “What I’m really concerned about is the fact that all across the country, including in my district, there are 28 homes empty homes for every homeless person. Why do we have veterans sleeping on the street who served their country and now they can’t even find a place to live? So I’m asking people to think about this situation.”
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“I’m not sure you’re going to win,” Watters concluded. “But if you do win, God bless you.”
Watch the video here —