Why does the GOP House leadership hate regular, working-class Americans so much? I know their core constituency are those who stand to benefit greatly from a repeal of the Paris Hilton Tax for multimillionaires, but it is truly amazing to me that there is such a visceral opposition to raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in nine years.
Statehouses are starting to take action by raising minimum wages, which makes a lot of sense on both equity as well as efficiency grounds. As the and passed a bill to “slash” the estate tax as well as increase the minimum wage.
As the Wall Street Journal reports, “Republican 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. “This is the best shot we’ve got; we’re going to take it,” said Rep. Boehner. The unusual packaging also soothed conservatives angry about raising the minimum wage over opposition by GOP business allies. [. . .]
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,” he said. “Blackmailing working families will not change that outcome.”"
As Senate Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi predicted, this bill was shamelessly crafted by GOP lawmakers to be dead on arrival going into the Senate, as it is well-known by anyone even casually following this debate that previous efforts to cut the estate tax have already repeatedly failed there.
Media Matters analyzes the mainstream media’s innaccurate and even misleading coverage of this issue, domonstrating that the Democrats’ efforts in getting a minimum wage increase are getting downplayed.
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