Want Milk?

Then Sign the new Minimum Wage Bill

President George Bush wants more funds for the troops in Iraq, people in hell want ice water, and the baby needs milk. So, what else is new?

George Bush may get his wish, however, and the baby may get milk with the new War Funding Bill- sorry, we can’t do anything for people in Hades, though.

According to an AP report, the new minimum wage increase is packaged in the latest war funding bill that passed the House 208-142 and the Senate 80-14. The provision provides for a $2.10 increase over a three-year span, from $5.15 an hour to $7.25, which will boast the earning of 5.6 million low-income workers.

The Republicans and Democrats have been wrangling over a minimum wage increase for the past several years. The last increase came September 1, 1997.

A jubilant Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) proclaimed the increase to be one of “the proudest achievements of this new Congress”, which had made the minimum wage raise one of its chief 100-day priorities for passage. President George Bush concurred that it was something amenable to him, but only after the Republicans lost both Houses in the November elections. However, the wage bill remained buried under the ruble of a bitter congressional bomb-shelling over the Iraq War. Now, as funding for the troops runs short, George Bush finds himself back at the trough- more milk, please.

I am not surprised to see some my friends and colleagues in Congress, who once vehemently opposed the wage hike, now change their votes- which goes to show that somewhere in all this, there is an area of compromise.

With the signature of the President of the United States, I can breathe a sigh of relief. The battle for a livable wage is over- at least, for now.