Minimum wage increase tied to tax cuts

House leadership couples bill to estate tax measure

You angry yet, you furious, if your not you deserve what you get.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican leaders are willing to allow the first minimum wage increase in a decade but only if it's coupled with a cut in future inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates, congressional aides said Friday.A package GOP leaders planned to bring to a vote Friday or Saturday in the House also would renew several popular tax breaks, including a research and development credit for businesses, and deductions for college tuition and state sales taxes, said a spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner.The wage would increase from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour, phased in over the next three years, said Kevin Madden, the aide to Boehner, an Ohio Republican.The maneuver is aimed at defusing the wage hike as a campaign issue for Democrats while using its popularity to spur enactment of the Republican Party's long-sought goal of permanently cutting taxes on millionaires' estates.The Senate could take it up next week before leaving on a monthlong recess."It's going to be one hell of a rumpus," predicted Eric Ueland, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's chief of staff.Democrats decry 'blackmail'Democrats immediately expressed outrage, saying low-income workers deserved a straight vote on increasing the minimum wage uncoupled to other measures."It's political blackmail to say the only way that minimum wage workers can get a raise is to give a tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts. "Members of Congress raised their own pay -- no strings attached. Surely, common decency suggests that minimum wage workers deserve the same respect."

I have said it already, I am convinced that the way to build a new and better world is not capitalism. Capitalism leads us straight to hell. -- Hugo Chavez

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