Minimum Wage is a Violation of Employers' First Amendment Rights

No, this isn't from The Onion or a Saturday Night Live skit.  The International Franchise Association has filed a lawsuit to overturn Seattle's new $15-per-hour minimum wage.

Here's another link.

According to this group's legal “reasoning,” Seattle's new minimum wage violates the First Amendment because “by increasing the labor costs of franchisees, the Ordinance will reduce the ability of franchisees to dedicate funding to the promotion of their businesses and brands.”

That's right.  Why should business owners spend their hard-earned money to pay wages to the hired help — those lowly peons should STFU and just be grateful they still have jobs — when they could be spending this money to enrich themselves and promote their own companies?  And don't forget, when these employers are able to accumulate lots and lots of money (at everyone else's expense), some of this money will trickle down onto us little folks.  Everybody wins.

As the 2nd linked article says, if this lobbying group's argument had any legal merit:

“...then any law imposing costs on anyone would be unconstitutional, including all taxes. After all, every dollar paid in taxes is a dollar that can’t be spent to buy an ad promoting the deliciousness of the Big Mac.”

Another complaint of this lawsuit is that Seattle's minimum wage increase has different compliance schedules for large and small businesses.  Large companies (500 or more employees) will have to start paying $15 an hour by 2017.  Smaller businesses don't have to comply until 2021.  This double standard is totally unfair, and we all know that fairness is the number one priority of corporate lobbyists.