Listen Up, Senate Republicans: The Heartland Is on to Your Tricks

by Mike Hall, Aug 2, 2006

Tomorrow is showdown day in the U.S. Senate. Senate Democrats will fight to kill a $753 billion millionaires’ estate tax cut that Republican leaders have packaged with a minimum wage increase. The bill’s fine print also means workers who earn tips in seven states could actually see their pay cut.

The reason behind this cynical bill, crafted by House Republican leaders and passed in the wee hours of Saturday morning, is two fold. Republicans either will win their long-sought estate tax cut—putting estates as large as $10 million off-limits—and pay off their wealthy friends and contributors. Or, if Democrat turn back the estate tax, Republicans will do their best to twist that move into campaign sound bites that make it look as though  Democrats opposed increasing the minimum wage.

As Republican Senate leaders try to choke off debate on the bill tomorrow, they should take a look at editorial and opinion comments from around the country—outside the Beltway-New York axis—the heartland is on to their scheme.

St. Petersburg Times:

The minimum wage’s buying power is at its lowest point in a half-century, but the integrity of House Republicans can’t be much higher. The hoax they played at 1:30 on Saturday morning—passing a wage increase they don’t intend to become law—takes election-year deception to new depths.

The point of this exercise in political absurdity was to allow 196 House Republicans to vote yes on a bill that pretends to support an increase in the minimum wage. They did it because Democrats have prepared a potent comparison for voters this fall: In the 10 years in which Republicans in Congress have refused to raise the minimum wage, they have increased their own pay by $35,000. That increase computes to more than three times the annual pay of a worker earning $5.15 an hour, the minimum wage.

The Des Moines Register:

My, those House Republicans sure are clever. Lacking enough support to repeal the estate tax outright, they combined something very close to repeal with an increase in the minimum wage.

So it’s crumbs for the working poor and a bonanza for the children of the superrich.

This is the House Republicans’ idea of a fair and balanced bill? Could they possibly be more out of touch with the struggles of ordinary Americans?

Marianne Means, a columnist at The Salt Lake Tribune:

The House passed a last-minute tax package that screams of unfairness, hypocrisy and economic disaster….What the House did is connect a slightly higher minimum wage proposal for the working poor with a huge cut in the estate tax for upper-income families. Really upper-income!

At a time when the gap between rich and poor is widening, the House—with President Bush’s support—is making an obscene quid pro quo.

The Lompoc (Calif.) Record:

There are times when the low regard members of Congress show for the nation’s poorest citizens is absolutely stunning.

Lest we come off as sounding cynical about such matters, we can say that Congress is not reluctant to raise some workers’ pay—their own, for example. In that same 10-year span of Republican majority rule of Congress, lawmakers’ annual paychecks have increased by $35,000.

David Sarasohn, The Oregonian columnist:

Like a lot of the bills coming out of the U.S. House of Representatives, at first glance the combination estate tax cut-minimum wage increase looks bad.

Then, like a lot of House bills, when you examine it closely it looks even worse.

Especially for Oregon and the West Coast.

Next, they’ll be launching regime change out here.

The House bill overrides state minimum wage laws that don’t count tips against the minimum wage—the  policy of Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska, Nevada and two other states. The Oregon minimum wage is now $7.50 plus tips, the Washington minimum is now $7.63 plus tips, both according to the will of state voters. The clever new House plan could drop them both as low as the federal level of $2.13, with tips expected to get them the rest of the way.

So the Portland waitress and the Seattle bartender and the San Francisco parking attendant not only get to be part of the process that protects Paris Hilton from taxation, but they also get to chip in for it.

The Louisville Courier-Journal:

No matter how you parse it, there’s little virtue to be found in the minimum wage, er, estate tax bill passed by the House last week.

Skeptics are right to call it a cynical election-year maneuver on the part of the Republican leadership—another piece of legislation that has little chance of passing but puts Democrats on the spot.

Ordinary voters are right, also, to call it an unfair bargain—a much-needed and long overdue $2.10-an-hour raise for struggling American workers in exchange for a gratuitous gift to the most upper of the upper class.

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