After the sun went down and brought on the dark of night, 230 cheapies in the House of Representatives couldn’t do the right thing and simply increase the minimum wage for the first time since 1997; no these avaricious panderers had to crank in some tax breaks for the richest families in the United States and exempt all estates below $10 million dollars (for a couple) from taxes. The package deal increases the minimum wage to $7.25, up from $5.15. Not many individuals can live on that, much less support a family. (By the way, this same Congress recently voted themselves a pay raise of more than $3,000 annually.)
(The favorable vote included 196 Republicans and 34 Democrats. The “no” votes were Democrats 158, Independent 1 and Republicans 21. Twenty-two did not vote and one voted “present”.)
The estate tax changes will likely cost the treasury an estimated $268 billion over the next ten years, and diminish chances to lower the deficit which grows daily due primarily to costs associated with the war in Iraq. Three Republican members of the South Carolina delegation, Henry Brown, Bob Inglis and Joe Wilson, voted for the legislation. They will soon be home for the August recess and probably bragging how they struck a blow for the common man and senior citizens. They ought to be ashamed to masquerade as fiscal conservatives, which is how they campaigned. It is no wonder they waited until after midnight to cast their votes and slip out of Washington.
The legislation now goes to the Senate where it faces strong opposition from some committee chairmen whose feathers have been ruffled by combining the wage hike with estate tax and private pension reform (employers will have to more fully fund pension plans.) The allure of the minimum wage increase and the pension reforms may be too much for senators to ignore and a majority may hold their noses and vote for the House measure. The rest of us will have to tolerate the smell.
