Oh I know, I know, it would kill small businesses! No one would manufacture anything in this country ever again! All our businesses would immediately relocate to Burma/Thailand/anywhere they can abuse cheap laborers!
Or maybe, Ms Small Business Owner, everyone in your town could now afford to pay for your services/products.
Medicare and Social Security would become more fiscally stable.
Local tax revenues would increase allowing local governments to begin to support education, and infrastructure repair, and rehire the missing government workers who put out your fires, respond when you have a heart attack, catch the bad guys who burglarized your home. Maybe your children would do better in a school with a maximum class size of 20. It sure helped the Romney boys!
Federal tax income could increase, reducing our debt and allowing us to spend more on all those things the government does better than the private sector - pollution control, disaster management, regulation of the financial sector, for starters.
If everyone in this country had a fair shot at a living wage we could put people in safe, energy-efficient housing. We could invest in green energy at a larger level, we could pull all those mercury-and CO2-spewing coal plants offline.
We could stop busting unions and start supporting them, start understanding that people aren't Human Resources they're the lifeblood of your business, your community, your future.
People could buy healthy nutritious food and help reduce the incredible cost of healthcare in this country. When all you can afford is Ramen and Mac and Cheese, your body is not going to prosper. When you earn $6 an hour it's unlikely you also have good benefits, the kind that make it possible for you to be pro-active about your health.
Your fine-dining restaurant could be standing room only if the people who work at other fine-dining restaurants could afford to dine finely with you.
Your dry-cleaning business would be buzzing if everyone could afford good fabrics and the care they require.
Your small appliance business would prosper. Your local hardware store would reap the benefits of providing customer service and the choice to buy one of the right-sized screws for a couple of pennies more than they pay for the wrong-sized 6-to-a-package screw they drove 20 miles to the Big Box Store to purchase because every penny counts and they forgot about mileage and shit. Plus they're there, and you could sell them an upgraded saw or a hose that doesn't leak because they're not panicked about making the rent this month.
Local grocery stores might make a comeback.
Local restaurants too.
The companies that would leave the country? They left in the 80's, who gives a shit?
Play with me! What dreams could you fulfill, what would you like to see happen in your neighborhood?