GOP Giveth & Taketh Away

WASHINGTON - Republicans muscled the first minimum wage increase in a decade through the House early Saturday after pairing it with a cut in inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates.

The maneuver was aimed at defusing the minimum wage increase as a campaign issue for Democrats while using the popularity of the increase to achieve the Republican Party's longtime goal of permanently cutting estate taxes.

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," Reid said. "Blackmailing working families will not change that outcome."

The GOP package would increase the wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour, phased in over the next three years. Under current law, the estate tax is phased out completely by 2010, but jumps back to 55 percent on estates larger than $1 million in 2011.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass,: Its political blackmail to say the only way that minimum wage workers can get a raise is to give a tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans. Members of Congress raised their own pay — no strings attached. Surely, common decency suggests that minimum wage workers deserve the same respect."

Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio:"It's outrageous the Republican Congress can't simply help poor people without doing something for their wealthy contributors."

Charles B. Rangel, D-New York on C-SPAN

Ezra Klein: “According to my sources on the Hill, Democrats do plan to stand against this, but it's unclear whether they can really block the effort. That said, they should do their damndest. The elimination of the estate tax would deprive the government of billions that currently go to programs that help the neediest Americans -- the practical effect of this bill, then, would be a lift in wages, but also further instability and frugality in such programs as Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, and Social Security.”