Minimum wage increase linked to “Inheritance Tax”

The Democrats decided to take up the fight to raise the minimum wage a few months back. Now, I’m a card carrying member of the DNC (it’s true), but even I know an election year cause when I see one. Fortunately, I couldn’t have suggested a better cause than that. While I’d have loved to see them take this up much earlier, this isn’t something that the Republican’s can really fight against. It would positively affect hundreds of thousands of people, and mainly the ones who most need it. Of course, it was defeated by Senate Republican’s a few weeks back.

So, we go to The House. The Democrats decide to try again there. I mean, how can you argue against raising the wage? It’s been ten years since it was raised to 5.15 an hour. Hell, I was in high school. I remember making the 4.25 it was before that. The Senate Republican’s took a bit of heat for voting this item down, so the House Republican’s needed to figure out a way to defeat it while turning this on its head to make the Democrats look like the bag guys. Well, they succeeded.

The Republican’s have an affair with the “Inheritance Tax,” or what they call the “Death Tax.” The Inheritance Tax is a tax that is placed on an estate when the person who owns it passes away. This tax was created specifically for the wealthiest of the wealthy, regardless of how many small farmer sob stories that are invented to contradict that statement. They want this tax abolished because most of their big donors are wealthy and they want to keep all their money. So, they’ve renamed the inheritance tax (since the word inheritance is associated with wealth, and most people don’t care about the well being of the wealthy) the death tax (a negative word, and since inheritance is absent it makes it sound like something that can effect everyone). The House Republican’s attached the minimum wage increase to the permanent repeal of the “inheritance tax,” which is something the Democrats are against.

This leaves us with the Democrats threatening to kill the bill, since they don’t want to repeal the “inheritance tax,” and therefore this can be used by Republican’s to say “we wanted to raise your minimum wage, but the Democrats killed the bill.”

Mind blowing.

This is politics folk, pure and simple.

-Steve