I have a friend in Canada who asks me about American politics. For some reason, the first things out of my mouth are always the latest scandals about Democrats. I am just getting started when she says “no, no, no… don’t tell me why I shouldn’t vote Democrat. Tell me why I should vote Republican.” Well, there are three good reasons to vote Republican. Job creation, law and order, national security.

Let’s look at the first one. The latest economic numbers came in last week, and they were very good for the country, and for the Republicans.

The Washington Post reported on the numbers:

Hiring surged and wages grew more than they have in almost a decade, the government said Friday in a report seized on by Republicans just before the midterm elections as evidence their policies are delivering for American workers.

In a key economic snapshot before Tuesday’s vote, the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report showed that the typical worker’s earnings rose by 3.1 percent in the past year — the biggest such leap since 2009.

Federal economists reported 250,000 new jobs in October, the 97th straight month of gains, and the unemployment rate remained at a nearly half-century low of 3.7 percent, underlining the strong fundamentals of the economy, despite stock market jitters.

[…]The strong jobs creation last month defied expectations, even by Trump’s top economist, Kevin Hassett, who said he had been bracing for a dip in hiring after Hurricane Michael pummeled the Florida panhandle and Georgia.

“We were expecting a number way below this, so it was a big surprise,” Hassett said. “We’ve got extraordinary job growth even in the face of literal head winds from a hurricane.”

[…]Every major sector added employees, including manufacturing, where there has been evidence that the tariffs are starting to bite. Hispanic unemployment hit a new low of 4.4 percent.

“This is the best labor environment in over a decade,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM U.S., an international consulting firm.

African American unemployment, at 6.2 percent, is close to an all-time low, although it still remains nearly double the white unemployment rate.

Investors Business Daily, a national newspaper focused on the stock market, recalls what things were like during 8 years of socialism under Barack Obama:

During the Obama years, labor force growth slowed to well below 1% a year, while productivity grew at just 1%. Wage growth was exceedingly slow. These alone explain why the economy never managed 3% growth in any year during Obama’s time in office.

“Under President Obama, the growth in the labor force … slowed dramatically to less than half the rate of the previous four presidencies,” as Real Clear Markets described the Obama record in early 2017, as his second term ended. “The labor-force participation rate has dropped to its lowest level in decades, 62.8% compared to a peak of 67.1% in the late 1990s.”

Why did this happen? High taxes, excessive regulation, ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, wasteful “stimulus,” and a host of other misbegotten policies that sped up departures from the labor force and curbed business investment.

The declining labor participation rate, in particular, hurt. Labor force growth during the Obama era was a meager 0.4% a year. At the same time, productivity grew less than 1% a year. Meanwhile, as the New York Times recently admitted, an “invisible” recession in business investment hit the economy in 2014 and lasted until 2016.

But what changed? What did Trump do differently?

[…][A]t the same time the wage data came out, another equally telling report emerged: Productivity. It showed that productivity grew 2.2% in the third quarter, after jumping 3% in the second quarter. That was the fastest burst of productivity growth in four years.

By comparison, since World War II, productivity has grown by an average of about 2% a year. It was why the American economy performed so well during that time. But since the end of the Internet boom in 2000, productivity has slowed to about 1% or so.

[…]Productivity typically begins rising when businesses invest in new equipment and training for their workers, in pursuit of new products, new markets, new innovations. Productivity, as the cliche goes, is the secret sauce of all successful economies.

And productivity is the real reason why workers are getting wage hikes. Trained workers are worth more in our new, fast-growth economy.

But beyond even that, as economists will tell you, the rate of growth of productivity, the rate of growth of business investment and the rate of growth of your labor force essentially define the speed limit of your economy. All three are rising right now.

Trump’s plan was to cut the corporate tax rate, cut individual tax rates, cut small business tax rates, and de-regulate the economy.  That worked. Workers learned more, earned more, and kept more of what they earned. Trump bet everything on America’s risk-taking entrepreneurs, and he won. Bigly.

What would Democrats do if they win the House on Tuesday (which is likely)? They want to make workers more expensive to hire, by raising the minimum wage. Their plan is to take money away from job creators, in order to bribe young, low-information voters to vote Democrat.

Investors Business Daily explains:

In California, New York, and other states where the $15 minimum wage has been adopted, we’ve seen dozens of businesses — many of them small businesses — close because a wage hike is simply unaffordable. Others have raised their prices or laid off employees to cope with the higher wage floor. Take Reaching Beyond Care, a child-care provider in Oakland, which was converted to a part-time after-school program. Or consider Long Island’s Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which “now schedules one less person per hour and expects employees to work faster.”

We’re talking jobs, jobs, and more lost jobs. In California, a $15 minimum wage is expected to cost the state as many as 400,000 jobs. It’s a similar story in cities like Seattle, and Flagstaff, Ariz. Are unemployed workers truly better off when hourly wages increase?

Independent voters tend to be more practical and numbers-driven than members of either party. Their demand? Show us the money. Well, we had lots of time to observe how the policies of Democrats worked under Obama, and where the Democrats in Democrat-run cities want to take us. And we also know what works, because Trump has done it for all to see. If you want to have job security, more productivity, higher wages, and keep more of what you earn, then vote Republican. Vote for what works. Not for what feels good.