Dems blow it on minimum wage

AP/NY Times:

Increasing the minimum wage should be easy for a Congress controlled by Democrats, especially with President Bush's pledge of support.

But a $2.10 boost for America's lowest-paid workers is again being delayed, this time in a tussle over whether to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

It's been 10 years since the last minimum wage increase, and boosting it from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over the next two years was a key element of Democrats' midterm election platform. They even added a sweetener for Republicans: $4.8 billion in tax cuts for small businesses over 10 years.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., decided to attach the minimum wage provisions to the Iraq war spending bill. Normally that's must-pass legislation. Now it's certain to be the subject of Bush's second veto after Democrats loaded it up with a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.

''That's just a temporary detour,'' said Alan Viard, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He said Democrats will find a way to quickly move the minimum wage legislation back to the White House.

Republicans say Democrats could have had a minimum wage bill passed and signed by now if they hadn't added it to the Iraq war bill. ''This isn't about getting a minimum wage increase done, it's another political stunt that only further delays action,'' said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.

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Did the Democrat leadership really think that attacking this bill to spend other peoples money on raises for marginal employees would stop the President's promised veto? These people really are not very smart. But, then if they were smart they wouldn't be trying to lose the war in IRaq or raise the minimum wage.