Minimum Compassion for Wage Slaves (By Marie Cocco for Truthdig)

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Minimum Compassion for Wage Slaves

Posted on May 1, 2007

By Marie Cocco

WASHINGTON—The standoff between President Bush and the Democratic Congress over conditions attached to the Iraq war spending bill is holding the troops hostage. The nature of this hostage crisis differs depending on who describes it.

The White House says the Democrats are keeping the troops captive to a culture of “defeatism” that endangers American military men and women in the field and imperils the outcome of the entire Iraq project. Democrats say Bush is the menace, shackling the troops to a failed policy that leaves them risking their lives to police a virulent civil war.

That the troops are pawns is obvious. At least their cause is celebrated.

The livelihoods, if not the lives, of less visible political hostages depend on a quick resolution of the Iraq impasse. The nation’s 5.6 million minimum-wage workers, and an estimated 7.4 million other low-wage workers who earn just above the current $5.15 federal minimum, and would benefit from a long-overdue hike in the base wage to $7.25. Yet the unpalatable hitching of the minimum-wage hike to the controversial Iraq war funding measure is surpassed only by the outrageousness of the alternative—failure to pass a wage increase at all.

The public at large likely doesn’t realize the wage measure languishes. It was a top Democratic promise in the 2006 congressional campaigns. The House passed it just after Democrats took control of the chamber in January; the Senate followed in February. After weeks of negotiations over business tax cuts that Senate Republicans had insisted upon as a condition of any minimum-wage hike, both houses agreed to $4.8 billion in tax breaks—then attached the whole package to the must-pass war funding bill. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/minimum_compassion_for_wage_slaves/