Minimum wage vs. estate taxes

The U.S. Senate, true to its class allegiance to the rich and powerful, just turned aside an increase in the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. It has been 13 years since the federal minimum wage was increased.

Presently, 7.3 million workers in the United States work for the minimum wage. Another 8.2 million workers are so close to the bottom that they would likely get a raise, too, if the minimum wage increased. Counting their families, at least 30 million Americans would live better.

The justification for voting against the increase was that poor people need jobs, need to learn entrepreneurship, that com panies like McDonalds, Burger King, and Safeway would go out of business because they couldn’t afford their wage bill.

The same week millions of workers were condemned to work in poverty, the House passed a bill exempting a few thousand families whose estates run from $1 million to $5 million. This tax exemption, tacked onto ones already in place, will be worth tens of billions of dollars.

Rich people are getting richer and poor working people are getting poorer, because while the minimum wage has stagnated, inflation hasn’t. That is the program Congress has established—while their wages and perks go up, the “gifts” from lobbyists pile higher and higher, and the ditch between them and the people grows deeper.

They must be replaced, lock, stock and barrel, Republicrats and Democrans alike. The sooner the better.