Politics and the Minimum Wage
The Senate finally voted to end debate on the minimum wage increase, now that the bill includes tax breaks for small businesses. There just weren't 60 votes in the Senate for a clean bill to raise the minimum wage. A conference committee will have to now reconcile the House and Senate version.

What's the strategy for the majority? Insist on a clean bill and see if Republican Senators are really willing to be responsible for killing minimum wage legislation that the great majority of the people favor? Take the tax breaks so the President will sign and Democrats can claim an accomplishment? But wait a minute, are those tax breaks really such a bad idea after all? Especially now that Democrats have secured an equal revenue increase to balance it?

The tax breaks in the Senate bill have divided the private sector, pitting small businesses and retailers that would benefit from them against the larger corporations and manufacturers that would have to pay for them. The package costs $8.3 billion in lost tax revenue over 10 years.

To help pay for the tax breaks, corporations no longer would be able to deduct the cost of jury verdicts or settlements in liability suits against them and their executives' tax-deferred pay packages would be capped at $1 million a year.
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The bill would extend tax breaks that allow small businesses to deduct up to $112,000 in new investments a year. It also would reduce the depreciation period for improvements to retail properties and extend a tax credit for businesses that hire low-income or disadvantaged workers.

Sounds like a win-win to me. Bush wanted tax breaks for small business - now he's got them. Oh, and by the way, 10 Senators still refuse to support a minimum wage increase, and wouldn't even vote for cloture once it's a done deal. Included are Senators from purple states like Nevada and New Hampshire.