amphichon

If there was any doubt remaining in anyone’s minds about just how corrupt and cynical our government has become, check this out.

A little background – the federal minimum wage has been at $5.15 since 1997 (when it was raised $0.35 from $4.75). Taking inflation into consideration, the real purchasing power of this wage is the lowest it’s been in 51 years. For some time now, various folks (mostly pro-worker Democratic groups) have been lobbying for an increase in the federal minimum wage, and various other folks (mostly pro-corporate Republican groups) have been fighting against it. Arguments for an increase: well, pretty much a no-brainer – poor working folks need a living wage. Arguments against an increase: mostly the obvious, as you’d expect, companies want to pay their workers as little as possible. Non-obvious reasons against an increase – some say that jobs are lost, because a job that might be created at $5.15/hr might not be created at $6 or $7/hr (or whatever the next jump is). Still and all, even if we intend to do nothing but allow minimum-wage workers to keep up with the rising cost of living, we’re well overdue for an update to the federal minimum wage.

So here we are in 2006, six years into a Republican-dominated Congress. Democrats have suggested increases to the federal minimum wage for most of those years while Republicans have declined, and since Republicans are in control of Congress, no love for the minimum wage. But wait, what’s this? A Republican proposal to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next three years? Surely there must be a catch, right?

Of course there’s a catch. Not only is there a catch, it’s an especially slimy catch. Republicans are proposing a three-way bundle – the aforementioned increase in the minimum wage, and renewals of a number of popular tax breaks (for students, teachers, state sales taxes, etc), and oh, also a sizable cut in the estate tax. One of these things is not like the others. Can you tell which one?

Well, let’s see. The minimum wage increase will benefit low-income individuals and families to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars per year. The renewal tax break package will benefit most Americans, again to the tune of hundreds or potentially thousands of dollars each year. The estate tax, geared toward the very wealthy, would drop the top estate tax rate from 46% to 30% and exempt $5 million of an individual taxpayer’s estate ($10 million for couples) from any taxation at all.

You may remember estate tax reduction as a cause that’s long been near and dear to the hearts of the Bush administration and Republicans in general. It was a key talking point for Bush in 2000, and even then, as much as he and his cronies attempted to position it as a benefit for all Americans (especially those hard-working farmers), it was revealed to benefit primarily the rich. (See an excellent breakdown of this, as well as Bush’s other fiscal policies, in 2004’s anti-Bush Emogame.) The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities breaks out the relative benefit of the minimum wage increase versus the estate tax cut like this:

As if that’s not clear enough, the CBPP goes on to explain that the ultimate cost of these estate tax cuts, over the next ten to twenty years, will end up somewhere around $800 billion (better than $1 trillion, factoring in the interest no longer earned from this lost income). This is money that won’t be going into the government’s coffers from the very rich, but that money’s still going to have to come from somewhere, and ultimately it’s going to cost all of us. The very people who would most benefit from the rest of this legislative package – the people working for minimum wage, students, teachers, and the rest of America – will end up picking up the slack, in the form of increased taxes elsewhere and the reduction or elimination of other benefits and social programs.

So that’s how the game is played now in Washington. This is what Bush and his cronies have brought us to. Republicans know that Democrats have been trying for years to get this minimum wage increase pushed through, and that their constituents would love to see these other tax breaks as well, so they’ve presented Democrats with this choice – either approve our plan along with the estate tax cut, or forget it, because we simply won’t allow it any other way.

You might be skeptical – surely Republican Washington isn’t that dirty, right? They wouldn’t stoop to such a cynical ploy to push through a huge tax cut to benefit the super-rich, right? Sadly, yes they are, they would, and they did. In fact, not only are they exactly this dirty and cynical, they’re positively gloating over the situation they’ve put their Democratic foes in. Zach Wamp, Republican representative from Tennessee, openly taunted Democrats on the House floor yesterday: “You have seen us outfox you on this issue tonight.” The tone is only slightly less offensive at the top – Bill Frist, Senate majority leader, has said that he’s willing to put this up to a vote on Friday but after that, if it’s not passed, he will allow it to slide off the Senate’s agenda for another year. “It’s now or never,” he says. No debate – take it or leave it.

Even if signing this bill into law didn’t include a hidden second mortgage on the American economy, the minimum wage provisions themselves could use some debating. For one thing, the provisions in this federal law would override those at the state level as they concern the calculation of tips. Seven states, including Oregon, do not count tips against the minimum wage, so if this bill goes through, a waitress in Portland making $7.50 plus tips could ultimately lose more than $5 per hour, forced to get by on just $2.13 plus tips. That alone sounds like cause for concern for the several affected states, but no provision is made for these situations in the current law, and none will be considered by Republicans – their stance is that Democrats must accept the law as is, this week, or they can do without the minimum wage increase and other tax cuts altogether.

So Democrats are faced with an impossible choice – either refuse to sign off on the bill, and try to explain to their constituents why they have to get by on $5.15 for at least another year, and why tax rebates for educators and students are suddenly unavailable, or they can sign the bill, knowing that they’ve just taken a trillion dollars out of the pockets of those very same Americans and put that money into the pockets of the richest ten thousand people in the country.

Clearly it’s not a good time to be a Democrat in Washington. In fact, if you’ve managed to cling to any shred of pride in this vaunted American democracy of ours, it’s a pretty sad time to be an American in general.

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