Aug 04 2006
Petulent Democrats
Family owned small businesses once again take a hit from Democrats who cannot abide anyone succeeding in life and passing the fruits of their efforts to their children. Their petulance has blocked a compromise on the infamous death tax where greedy bureacrats take the hard earned poperty built over a lifetime for their own wasteful uses. This time the Democrats also blocked a cost of living increase in the minimum wage as well since it was the compromise package that could and would pass Republican muster. The Democrats proved once again that hitting the rich is more important than helping the middle class. Their anger at all things conservative has made them completely irrelevent to this country and solutions.
Cool. Come back with another minimim wage hike (not so big – say to $6.00 an hour), with a bigger tax cut (eliminate the estate tax, elinimate the corporate income tax, eliminate the top personal income tax bracket, and make them all permanent).
First Cup 08.04.06…
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HH, regarding your comment? I don’t understand the point of what you were saying or implying. If you’re gonna write a comment, at least give a hint as to what you really mean.
I don’t think it failed because the min wage hike was too big, it failed because the Dems don’t want Reps getting credit for raising the min wage and then the Unions would be wondering what good the Dems are anyhow. The Dems only use the tax cuts as a excuse. it’s certainly not a reason.
Again the Dems shoot themselves in the foot.
Even though housing has cooled, the long term increases in housing values will be pushing more and more estates into being hit by the death tax as the years go on. It is just pure and simple math. This does not even take into account small business owners.
Unions support the minimum wage increase partly due to the fact that a lot of their contracts are indexed to the minimum wage, thus using an increase there to conteract losses they have had to absorb due to failed collective bargaining.
Anyone working on a long term basis at the minimum wage scale has obviously made many poor decisions in their life up to this point.
Will someone explain to me how any raise in the minimum wage will suddenly bring enlightenment to these people and that they will now make more informed decisions????
Another point to make is that even if a minimum wage increase were to go thru, it would only increase the annual earned income for the lowest paid, thus when they filed their taxes they would show a higher income resulting in a reduction of their benefit from the earned income credit (EIC) deduction..So it would become a zero sum game. Also they would be paying more taxes, more social security etc. Any net bottom line gain would be minimal.
Historically every time the minimum wage was increased, base necessities inflated in cost by a matching percentage.
The old hamster in the squirrel cage drill.
Would another increase in the minimum wage be an incentive for employers to import more illegal immigrants who are already willing to work for less than the present minimum wage?
I think it’s an accepted fact that Illegal immigrants get “jobs Americans won’t take” because they work for substandard wages and there are no mandated government addendums to pay on them.
And as long as there is a demand for cheaper labor people are going to find a way to get here.
In addition, minimum wage increses and COLAs subsidize inflation. There is no way that prices won’t adjust to cover the extra costs. The rule is: “The price will be what the trade will bear.” A good exzmple: Look at how college tuitions have skyrocketed since the government came up with Pell Grants, low cost student loans, and Lottery Scholarships. Medical care is another good esample. Before Medicare, Medicaid and workplace ins. people spent 17% of their income on mecical care. Within 10 years the cost of medical care had increase so that in addition to all the Govt. and private Ins plans, people were still paying 17% of their income for medical care.
When people have more money to spend the prices of everything goes up, then people demand more money to cover the extra costs. Is this the government’s way of increasing taxes without having to openly pass laws? You be t it is.
I think this should help Republicans, but I have talked to some people that dislike the idea of coupling tax cuts and wage hikes and so it might be a wash.