Here is the latest from The Hill.

Excerpt:

In a reversal, Donald Trump expressed openness to raising the federal minimum wage during an interview on Wednesday.

“I’m looking at that, I’m very different from most Republicans,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee told CNN Wednesday about the prospect of increasing wages.

“You have to have something you can live on. But what I ‘m really looking to do is get people great jobs so they make much more money than that, much more money than the $15.”

The federal minimum wage is $7.25, but labor groups have been pushing for it to be raised to $15.

During a November debate, Trump voiced opposition to raising the minimum wage.

“I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is,” he said during the debate.

Who expected Trump to be a leftist on economic issues? Anyone with two brain cells to rub together, that’s who.  You could tell from his record, from his political donations, and other indicators that the man was a Democrat on economic issues. Everyone who did their homework on the candidates knew that. We all knew that he wanted to raise taxes on the most productive people, that he wanted to raise minimum wage, that he didn’t want to reform the entitlements that are bankrupting the country, he thinks using eminent domain to take private property to benefit big business is a great idea, he wanted to increase agricultural subsidies, and so on. Conservatives reject Trump, and continue to reject Trump, because Trump takes the wrong positions on economic issues.

Here is Dr. Greg Mankiw, a professor of economics at Harvard University, explaining what economists across the ideological spectrum agree on.

He writes:

The recent debate over the stimulus bill has lead some observers to think that economists are hopelessly divided on issues of public policy. That is true regarding business cycle theory and, specifically, the virtues or defects of Keynesian economics. But it is not true more broadly.

My favorite textbook covers business cycle theory toward the end of the book (the last four chapters) precisely because that theory is controversial. I believe it is better to introduce students to economics with topics about which there is more of a professional consensus. In chapter two of the book, I include a table of propositions to which most economists subscribe, based on various polls of the profession. Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)

If we could get the American public to endorse all these propositions, I am sure their leaders would quickly follow, and public policy would be much improved. That is why economics education is so important.

The ones in bold are the ones that Trump denies.

A person cannot be a conservative and a supporter of Donald Trump – the two are mutually exclusive. Conservatives are people who do understand basic economics, and Trump supporters are people who do not understand basic economics. There is no overlap.

A friend of mine who is being asked by Trump supporters why she will not support Trump posted this article from the American Thinker.

It says:

[…]I am not over the Constitution, although apparently many are, because they have thrown in with a man who never mentions it and often runs afoul of it.  Donald Trump was born “over” the Constitution and still is.  He’s never been concerned with it.  New York values don’t intersect with the Constitution.  No, I am not over the idea of liberty, and thus I’m not quite over the fact that the Republican nominee is a man totally unfamiliar with this concept and a man who never ever looks at increased liberty as the answer for out of control government. Ever.

[…]When crony capitalism is destroying our free market, does Donald want to stop government from picking winners and losers? NO! He doubles down on ethanol subsidies.  He obfuscates the issue of eminent domain.  And he rails against trade, not even considering the obvious conclusion that the big stick of tariffs is centralized planning and government picking winners and losers on steroids.

[…]Trump is the establishment.  His big check to party boss and establishment poster child Mitch McConnell has barely even cleared yet — a donation he followed up by insulting on Twitter those stupid Kentuckians who were willing to forgo McConnell’s crony gravy train to his home state in favor of a principled man like Matt Bevin.  Trump brags he has been giving to Republicans lately, but these donations are to establishment Republicans running against outsiders!

[…]Alexander Hamilton said “if we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures.”  He was right.  Many of you haven not heeded that lesson.  I have, and I am proudly not over the nomination of big government New York liberal Donald J Trump.

In order to support Trump, conservatives would have to value insults and clowning above the Constitution and economics. We’re not willing to do that – although apparently many others are.