Citizen for Tax Justice (CTJ) has just released its latest issue of its Tax Justice Digest (Mar. 30, 2007). It begins with a great story on the Senate's absurb decision to expand even further the tax cut "bribe" to businesses for a much delayed and much needed minimum wage increase. Excerpts follow.
On February 1, the Senate approved a bill pushed by Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) raising the minimum wage along with a tax cut package costing $8.3 billion over ten years. The Senate had made a half-hearted attempt to pass a "clean" wage increase (without the tax breaks) on January 24 and came six votes short of the 60 needed to end debate. ...
Now the Senate says $12 billion in tax breaks are needed, an increase of around $3.8 billion from its original demand. BNA reports that the additional tax breaks were proposed by Finance Chairman Baucus, ranking member Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ). They include a one-year extension of the bigger write-offs for restaurants and retail stores (the original extension was only for three months) and a further expansion of the Work Opportunity Credit for companies in rural counties that are losing population. ...
The idea that businesses need to be "compensated" after they've received $276 billion in tax breaks since the last minimum wage hike (which was worth only about $13 billion to workers) is absurd. Businesses should not have to be bribed billions in tax cuts so that we can rescue the minimum wage from its lowest purchasing power in half a century.
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