July 29, 2006

THE SMART PARTY?:

Minimum Wage Hike Passed By House: GOP Bill Also Cuts Estate Tax (Jonathan Weisman, 7/29/06, Washington Post)

The House last night voted to boost the minimum wage for the first time in nearly a decade while also permanently slashing the estate tax, a coupling that GOP leaders calculated might garner enough Senate support to become law.

House lawmakers also approved the biggest overhaul of the nation's pension laws in 30 years.

In the rush to bolster their party's accomplishments before leaving today on a five-week summer break, House Republican leaders effectively took a gamble. If the Senate follows the House and passes legislation shoring up the pension system, raising the minimum wage, permanently cutting the estate tax, and extending such measures as a research-and-development tax credit, Republicans can say they departed for the summer in a flourish of accomplishments.


The GOP should pass several more Democratic proposals, especially those of Hillary and the DLC, though tweaked to serve their own purposes as well.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2006 7:54 AM
Comments

At this rate we should save them the trouble and just elect a bunch of Democrats. They're still the Stupid Party.

Posted by: joe shropshire at July 29, 2006 11:52 AM

The Right's mantra--quite accurately--is that the national minimum is insignificant because states have already made it higher, worker shortages drive it up without government action and illegals take the jobs off the books. Only a stupid party would oppose a popular but meaningless action.

Posted by: oj at July 29, 2006 12:01 PM

"illegals take the jobs off the books"

So the solution is to raise the price of legal jobs and make the incentive even greater to take more jobs off the books. It''s thinking like that which makes the Stupid Party so endearing.

Joe Shropshire's right. These days voting for the GOP is like 3.2 beer. You may get a buzz from it, but that's more than offset by the downside of its diuretic effects.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at July 29, 2006 12:56 PM

Sorry, you guys need to read some Sun Tzu. The first goal is to put your enemy in a position where he can't fight back at you.

This does it in spades.

Posted by: ray at July 29, 2006 5:49 PM

From what I've read, getting the higher-minimum-wage-plus-permanent-estate-tax-repeal package through the Senate is a big "if".

However, it seems to be no-lose for the GOP - either they get no estate taxes, or they get to claim that Senate Dems "voted against a minimum-wage hike".

Posted by: Noam Chomsky at July 29, 2006 6:07 PM

Raoul:

Yes, creating an incentive for more immigrants to come here is good conservative politics.

Posted by: oj at July 29, 2006 8:44 PM
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