The music stops and everyone lost

Well, only in this great land of ours...

The U.S. Congress conjoined the two issues of minimum wage rate and the death tax into one comprehensive bill. By the way; "comprehensive" actually means in Washington "an excuse for hogs to trot up to the trough".

As stand alone issues I agreee with both propsed adjustments.

As a stand alone issue the minimum wage...

...is woefully inadequate. Clearly having no raise in the minimum wage while gas is up triple digits, housing up triple digits (both expense categories that are required to function in America) over a 9 year period is lunacy. Even if you accept the government supplied inflation rate of 4% annually...the minimum wage should be in the $7 range.

As a stand alone issue the death tax is...

...the most insidous of government intrusions. It is not a mear metaphor to describe this tax strategy as grave robbing. In truth, regardless of who the deceased tax payer was...his/her taxes on those funds have already been paid.

So, out of two fundamentally sound propositions joined together and we get....


...NOTHING!

3 Republicans, 1 Independent and 38 Democrats joined to defeat this bill.

The Democrats have their wedge issue "they can claim that the Republican controlled congress failed to advoacte for the down trodden working poor".

The Republicans have their wedge issue; "they can claim that the Democrats blcoked death tax reform".

Americans must yet again conclude that their "do nothing" Congress is, if nothing else,...consistent in their inabilty to serve the people.