Rags for Riches

NY Times reports House Passes Minimum Wage Increase that:

The House approved an increase in the federal minimum wage on Saturday, but its future was clouded because Republicans tied the pay change to an estate tax cut that had been blocked in the Senate.

The Times noted:

Representative Zach Wamp, Republican of Tennessee, said Democrats were upset with the legislation because Republicans had found a clever way to link the two. “You have seen us outfox you on this issue tonight,” Mr. Wamp told Democrats in the floor debate.

As I discovered in Civil Rights & Estate Taxes, the the number of taxable estates has dropped from more than 50,000 in 2000 to fewer than 13,000 in 2006 (see The State of the Estate Tax as of 2006), and the number of black Americans subject to the tax is 59 (see Think Progress). In light of these numbers, I can certainly understand why Bush and the Republicans in Congress believes that eliminating the estate tax is a priority.

Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly's Political Animal, in Rags to Riches, provides perpective:

Clearly, the Republican Party is the party of common sense. After all, if you give a few hundred dollars a month to the poorest of the working poor, it's only fair that you also give several million dollars to the richest of the idle rich.

Right?

Right.

Tags: Politics, Estate Tax, Minimum Wage