And the working poor pay the price once again.
WASHINGTON - Republicans muscled the first minimum wage increase in a decade through the House early Saturday after pairing it with a cut in inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates.
Combining the two issues provoked protests from Democrats and was sure to cause problems in the Senate, where the minimum wage initiative was likely to die at the hands of Democrats opposed to the costly estate tax cuts. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation next week.
Still, GOP leaders saw combining the wage and tax issues as their best chance for getting permanent cuts to the estate tax, a top GOP priority fueled by intense lobbying by farmers, small business owners and super-wealthy families such as the Waltons, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune.
"This is the best shot we've got; we're going to take it," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. The unusual packaging also soothed conservatives angry about raising the minimum wage over opposition by GOP business allies.
The House passed the bill 230-180 before leaving for a five-week recess.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., vowed Democrats would kill the hybrid bill, along with its 10-year, $300 billion-plus cost.
"The Senate has rejected fiscally irresponsible estate tax giveaways before and will reject them again," Reid said. "Blackmailing working families will not change that outcome."
This is DOA in the Senate, and House Republicans knew it. All for show, making them look like the good guys for their campaign ads only. From Nancy Pelosi-
The Republican Leadership has stated that a minimum wage bill will be brought to the floor this evening. . . . The legislation will package three separate bills - minimum wage, estate tax, and the extension of expiring tax provisions - into a single package that will make Senate passage impossible. This is nothing more than a cynical, political ploy to defeat a minimum wage increase because this bill will go nowhere in the Senate. . . .
First, at this time, it appears that the Republican leadership plans to use the estate tax and extenders package as a "poison pill." Senate tax-writers have already rejected, on a bipartisan basis, proposals that combine the estate tax with a tax extenders package.
Second, the cost of the combined tax package the Republican Leadership is proposing is likely to be more than $800 billion for the first ten years that the bill is in effect. This comes at a time when Republican economic policies have already resulted in trillions of dollars in debt.
Third, the Republican Leadership has not yet decided whether they will provide a real minimum wage increase. The amount of the increase, the number of years required for such an increase to take effect, and whether a large swath of workers now covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act will lose their protections is still undecided. There is no reason for any Democrat to support a minimum wage bill that reduces or draws out an increase, or which leaves millions of workers behind in coverage.
While the details of the Republican Leadership plan may change, their intention is clear: make every appearance that Republicans support a minimum wage increase, while ensuring its demise in the Senate by attaching "poison pills."
Color me disgusted. What else is new.