Just when I was tempted to think that the Republicans in Congress might actually HAVE hearts beating in their chests, they cynically tied the elimination of the estate tax to the minimum wage increase:
The House approved an increase in the federal minimum wage on Saturday, but its future was clouded because Republicans tied the pay change to an estate tax cut that had been blocked in the Senate.
This is what the Republican party which helped the poorest of the poor during the civil war by emancipating the slaves has come to. The party of Teddy Roosevelt, who ushered in Progressive-era protections for working folks, has become the party of multi-generational aristocracy which only grudgingly accepts the idea that the poorest in our society should not simply grow poorer over time.
In the Republicans’ vision of America, we exchange AIDS treatments for Africa’s poor children for trust funds for America’s richest children. We discontinue critical research into cures for killer diseases while we increasingly concentrate wealth into the hands of a few families. We slash the social safety net for the working poor so that we may dramatically cut taxes on the precious few.
“Moral values?” There are few things less moral than this.
