On August 3, Senate Democrats declined to swallow the poison pill that Republican legislators were offering them -- the bill linking an increase in the minimum wage to cuts to the estate tax that passed the House on July 30.
OMB Watch has a good analysis that breaks down the costs that the estate tax cuts would have imposed.
It remains to be seen whether the Democrats will continue to make the right kind of hay out of this cynical manipulation as the mid-term elections approach. Let's hope we hear them insisting at every opportunity that this was an open attempt by Republicans to undermine the increase in the minimum wage that Democrats have been working for.
