Here’s another fiasco-in-waiting being manufactured by the Progressive-Democrat Party and its leader, President Barack Obama.

The Obama administration has advanced to the final stages a contentious rule that will make millions more Americans eligible for overtime pay….

The Labor Department sent its final version of the overtime-pay regulation to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Monday for review, according to an administration official.

This rule will force employers to pay overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a week to salaried workers whose annual basic salary is $50,440 or less—an increase of more than 200%.

As any grade schooler who’s on an allowance knows, when the price of something goes up, the grade schooler buys less of that thing.  When the price of labor goes up….

This government interference in the private economy will have two effects: salaried employees who used to put in the overtime now will be barred from that—to the overall detriment of the company’s productivity and so competitiveness, and from that to the detriment of the jobs of that company.

Alternatively, the company, in an effort to maintain company-level productivity, will suck up and pay the overtime.  This will drive up the cost of the company’s products, reduce the funding available for R&D, and from that harm the competitiveness of the company to the detriment of the jobs at that company.

Alternatively, the company will hire fewer workers, replace fewer workers who depart for any of a variety of reasons, to the detriment of employment generally.

These folks of the Left know that; they’re some of the smartest people around, as they assure us.  But, hey—union votes.