Roles Reversed in Wage Vote

[cal04]

For years, organized labor has worked hard to raise the minimum wage, while business groups have campaigned to block such a change. This week in the Senate, however, the AFL-CIO is pushing to kill the wage increase while practically the entire business lobby is demanding that it pass.

The reversal is the product of election-year politics and clever -- critics say devious -- legislative packaging that has been dubbed the "trifecta." In the same bill, senators are being asked to raise the minimum wage (the liberals' goal), cut the estate tax (the conservatives' objective) and approve a laundry list of popular, though narrowly targeted, tax breaks.

"The sides have flipped," said Peter R. Orszag, an economics scholar at the Brookings Institution.

(snip)
"We don't think minimum-wage workers should have to wait for millionaires to get another tax cut before they receive a long-overdue pay increase," said Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's legislative director.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/02/AR2006080201670.html

[dorktv]

1. I had an argument with someone about this issue, and I pointed out that

an estate tax hurts no one and helps many.

This person still has not a clue.

[lonestarnot]

2. kill the sonofabitch and start over! It sucks what those repukes have

done to ruin the bill. Do it again in November.

[Rageneau]

3. The sides have not switched. The GOP, as usual, is cheating.

Everyone who supported a minimum wage increase still does. Everyone who opposed it still does. Nothing has changed except the slimey, sleazy, satanic Republicans have attached poison pills to a min. wage increase -- precisely because they DON'T want it passed.

[NobleCynic]

4. It's not cheating

They control Congress. They can kill it anytime they want in any case. This is just how they chose to kill the bill. It is deceptive however. Still the public falls for this crap every time. Sigh...