Lipstick on a pig

Lipstick on a pig
9/22/06

Senate Republican leaders may try to put lipstick on a pig again next week. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) wants to dress up a fat new estate tax giveaway to the very rich by pairing it with a much-needed minimum wage increase?-again. The effort failed in August, but these folks are hell-bent on saving millionaires more money at our expense before they head out to campaign for re-election.

This is another cynical move by Republican leaders to obstruct a clean vote to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. Minimum wage workers have been waiting a decade for that raise?-but now they're being told to get in line behind Paris Hilton and the Wal-Mart heirs who want to pass on multimillion-dollar estates without paying their fair share of taxes.

A majority of Americans and a majority in both houses of Congress already support the minimum wage increase?-without poison pills like the estate tax giveaway. The only thing stopping minimum wage workers from getting a $2.10-an-hour pay raise is the unwillingness of the Republican congressional leaders to allow consideration of a clean minimum wage bill with no strings attached.

Senate leaders could throw a few sweeteners into the bill next week to give them a better chance of winning the estate tax cut. Don't let them get away with putting lipstick on the estate tax break pig. Fair senators should reject any cynical effort to tie an estate tax cut handout to a minimum wage increase. What is needed is a clean vote to raise the minimum wage.

No one likes lipstick on a pig.