Compassionate Conservatism: Minimum Wage Edition

You know the right-wing blogosphere is really out of touch when they express shock over 82 House Republicans voting to increase minimum wage. Conservatives moan about how minimun wage will lose jobs. That certainly didn't happen when President Clinton signed a wage increase or when Florida raised the minimun wage. Conservative cried about how jobs would be lost in Florida. The state's unemployment is below the national average.

What has been lost in the news is that President Bush signed an executive order to raise the pay of Vice-President Cheney and Congress. Democrats have put off the raise until Feb. 16. They want to have the minimun wage pass first. What are the chances we would have seen that kind of behavior from the Republicans during the Delay days?

A study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Bush's tax cuts benefitted those making over $1 million more than any other income bracket. The middle class ending up getting screwed.

Families with average incomes of $56,200 saw their average effective tax rate fall to 2.9 percent in 2004 from 5 percent in 2000, which translated to an average tax cut of $1,180 per household, but the tax rate actually increased slightly from 2003, the paper said.

Discussing the cost of living and inflation would take up another post. The short answer is the minimum wage increase is long overdue. I understand why the GOP has fought against wage increases and unionization. Business lobbyists don't want increases or unions. What interests me is how conservatives have drunk the Kool-Aid and believe the anti-minimum wage as if it was gospel. It's not truth. Just talking points. Just like the Republicans feel good message to the Christian Right. The truth is the Beltway GOP is comfortable with gays and has contempt for evangelicals. It says much that the same conservatives who speak of Christian values fight to keep people impoverished.