The debate in California over whether to raise the minimum wage has really heated up over the past few days.

First the California Republican Assembly unveiled radio ads targeting Republican State Senator Abel Maldanado (who’s also running for controller) for carrying Governor Schwarzenegger’s bill to raise the wage by a dollar an hour. The ads are running in Maldanado’s home district so that constituents can call him and set him straight.

Then yesterday and today, respectively, Senator Bob Dutton and Former Assemblyman Tony Strikland (who’s running against Maldanado) authored pieces opposing any increase in the minimum wage. It has created a rift in the GOP between the liberal Republicans and the Conservative Republicans.

I will have more on the minimum wage issue in an upcoming full length column because I find the issue interesting, but I will say right now that this is really common sense to me: If you force a business to raise the wage it pays it’s employees, one of four things will happen:

A. The business will just suck up the cost.
B. The business will pass the cost on to it’s consumers.
C. The business will lay off some workers in order to pay the rest the prescribed wage.
D. The business will just close up shop because of high operating expenses.

Of course, there are a ton of legally questionable things that the business could do (like hire illegal immigrants) but let’s assume that this company is ethical and wants to strictly obey the law.

Read more at the California High School Conservative Blog