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Clever devils Making Mischief in the HouseBy Rick Horowitz I enjoy a good tactic -- don't you enjoy a good tactic? On my personal list of things I enjoy, a good tactic isn't quite up there with a great ballgame, or a walk in the park, or a cloudless sky -- or even a cloudy one. But it's something. And when the tactic in question comes, not from some bunch of rank amateurs, tactically speaking, but from the very pinnacle of tactical...tacticality, then it's more than simply something. It's something special. Which is exactly what it was late the other night in the United States House of Representatives, a.k.a. "the people's house." (Stop laughing!) The House was heading for its annual August recess after compiling a legislative record that could be most charitably described as "mixed" -- and more accurately described as "pathetic." But they weren't quite ready to spend time with "the people" until they'd tied up a few loose ends.
The minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since way back in 1997. Now, $5.15 doesn't go as far today as it did in 1997 -- and it didn't go all that far back then either. But House Republicans have been less than enthusiastic about boosting it, and since House Republicans run the place, that's where the number has sat, year after year. Suddenly, though, this year was different. Moderate House Republicans -- a small group, to be sure, and possibly headed for extinction in our lifetimes -- needed something to show the folks back home. They were being slammed back home for being out of touch with their constituents, who were apparently less interested in their elected reps spending those few precious moments of legislative activity protecting the flag and motherhood from non-existent dangers than in seeing them actually dealing with real problems affecting real people. What to do? In normal times, the concerns of moderate House Republicans are of no particular concern to the House Republican leadership. In that big Republican tent they're always talking about, moderates are the doormat. But these are not normal times. Republican control of the House hangs by a thread this year, the polls say, and every Republican, even a moderate, who goes down to defeat in November makes it that much more likely the GOP will have to give up the gavel come January. So how about passing an increase in the minimum wage? How about going from $5.15 to, say, $7.25 over three years? That'll give those moderates something to brag about, right? Half right. The GOP leadership being the GOP leadership, they couldn't just increase the minimum wage -- nosiree. Instead, they packaged the minimum-wage increase with a big cut in: the estate tax! You heard me: They exempted the vast, vast majority of all estates -- and we're talking about estates worth as much as $5 million, or $10 million for married couples -- from paying any inheritance tax whatsoever. And estates even larger than that? They'd have their rates cut, too, of course. It's only fair, the Republicans insist -- help out one group of needy Americans, help out another. Fair in the same way it would be fair to tell the homeless guy on the corner that you'll put a dollar in his cup only if you can also buy dinner for everyone in the fancy steakhouse down the block. Oh, and the rest of us get to pick up the tab for the T-bones. But they were so pleased with themselves, those crafty Republicans. They'd maneuvered the Democrats -- in both the House and the Senate -- into a box. Either they'd have to vote for the bill -- for both parts of the bill -- in which case the Republicans' big-money supporters would get the big tax breaks they'd been craving. Or they'd have to vote against it, in which case the Republicans could hit the campaign trail claiming that they were the ones who'd wanted to help the working man and woman with a minimum-wage hike, and that it was the Dems who had tried to stop it. "I know why you're mad," said one gloating House Republican to his fuming colleagues across the aisle. "You've seen us really outfox you." And isn't that what it's all about? Posted 8/1/06. When
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Rick Horowitz
