Cheap move

Tax cut wormed onto minimum wage bill

With the economy booming and unemployment so low that some fast food restaurants are offering new employees signing bonuses, raising the minimum wage may not seem like a terribly pressing issue right now.

However, such a time of prosperity is the perfect opportunity to make sure those workers on the lowest rung of the economic ladder are being given the chance to move up. Many in Congress fortunately share this view and successfully pushed for a bill to increase the minimum wage by $1 an hour to $6.15 over the next two years.

Unfortunately, the minimum wage bill that cleared the House of Representatives last week was saddled with the poison pill of a $122 billion tax cut. Trumpeted as a way of "cushioning the blow" to businesses that the minimum wage supposedly causes, this tax cut is an irresponsible sham meant to benefit already wealthy people. It throws the fiscal discipline so fervently professed by congressional leaders out the window and takes away money from more worthy uses such as health care and education.

The claim made by the supporters of this tax cut is that it is intended to protect small businesses from being harmed by a minimum wage increase. While there is certainly some merit to that goal, this tax cut is clearly not designed for that purpose. Two-thirds of the bill's costs come from a cut in the estate tax.

While the estate tax, which taxes the estates of deceased persons, can obviously affect a small business (though exceedingly rarely) and it has nothing to do with the minimum wage. Paying a lower tax on one's assets after their death in no way helps them increase their employee's salaries now. Opponents of this tax cut proposed a $36 billion tax cut package specifically aimed at small businesses, but the House leadership refused to allow a vote on it. It is clear that the Republican leaders of the House had little interest in increasing the minimum wage, but felt it necessary to diffuse an issue that Democrats would assuredly use against them in November's elections. They did so by introducing a bill that would allow their members to say they voted to increase the minimum wage, while at the same time attaching a tax cut provision they knew the President was unlikely to accept. Playing this political game with the livelihoods of America's poorest workers is detestable.

The Senate's already-passed version of the minimum wage bill is even worse. While its tax cut is lower, at $103 billion, it raises the minimum wage by $1 over three years instead of two. Delaying the increase in this manner is wholly inappropriate given that the minimum wage's purchasing power has already been badly eroded by inflation and a more immediate increase could help correct this problem.

During the United States' most prosperous period in at least a generation, Congress cannot seriously believe that it is necessary to give $122 billion to people who own businesses. Where's the $122 billion for people who have to live on $6.15 an hour? The President has threatened to veto a minimum wage bill in either of its current forms and he is right to do so. Both of the bills are fiscally irresponsible and meant to help rich people more than minimum wage workers. The Republican leadership of congress needs to stop playing games and allow votes on clean minimum wage bills.