Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (745990)	7/24/2006 3:54:44 PM
From: pompsander	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Question: Would you trade a minimum wage increase (which many small business owners complain hurts them) for relief under the Estate Tax (which many small business owners claim would help them)...? Where Is Robin Hood When You Need Him? Editorial The federal minimum wage hasn't budged in almost a decade. Gas prices at $3 a gallon are crushing the working poor. So what is Congress doing? It's working hard — not to raise the minimum wage for millions of the poorest working Americans, but to repeal or reduce the estate tax for a tiny sliver of America's wealthiest. This seems perverse, unless you understand the corrosive influence of money in politics. Running for office requires hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes millions. This money comes from wealthy donors and business interests — the people most interested in scrapping the inheritance tax and keeping wages low. Minimum-wage earners, meanwhile, don't make big campaign contributions or underwrite junkets, and they don't have as loud a voice on Capitol Hill. At a time when the gap between rich and poor is widening, the skewed economic priorities of the Republican-controlled Congress are increasingly indefensible. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since Sept. 1, 1997. Adjusted for inflation, it's at its lowest since 1955. A year of work at the minimum wage yields $10,712 — just above the poverty level for a single person but well below that for a family of two, let alone three or four. Opposition to raising the wage is not just donation-driven, but the economic and ideological arguments are familiar and unconvincing. Opponents say raising the minimum wage costs jobs. Economists differ over this. A fair reading of the arguments suggests there can be a small negative effect, but it's hard to measure, not as dire as critics make out and can be offset by a healthy economy. The opponents also point out that teenagers from middle class families get the minimum wage for summer jobs or after-school work. Some do, but that's exaggerated and beside the point. A 1994 study by two Princeton economists found that more than two-thirds of minimum-wage recipients were adults, and that almost a third were the sole source of income for their households. Tired of waiting for Washington, 20 states have passed minimum wages higher than $5.15 an hour. Six more may have it on the ballot in November. While Congress resists an increase, which would benefit 15 million who earn the minimum or a little more, it's obsessed with cutting the inheritance tax, which hits only about 12,600 estates a year. An estimated 2.4 million Americans will die this year; 0.5% will leave taxable estates. But the revenue from those estates — as much as $745 billion over 10 years — is serious money at a time of triple-digit budget deficits. Those who want to cut or kill the estate tax have no real plan to fill this hole by cutting spending or raising some other tax. The shortfall would almost certainly be borrowed, adding to the national debt for future generations. Some inheritance. There are signs that congressional leaders are feeling pressure to change their skewed priorities. After the Senate rejected an increase in June, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, was asked whether he'd let a minimum-wage bill come to the House floor. "Probably not," he replied. Asked again last week, after 28 House Republicans sent him a letter demanding action, he changed signals. "We are chatting about it," he said. That's a start. But talk is cheap. It's long past time to put the needs of America's lowest-paid workers above those of the moneyed interests that fill campaign coffers. Published on Monday, July 24, 2006 by USA Today