THE MINIMUM WAGE TAP DANCE….One of George Bush’s lamest answers last night was his reponse to John Kerry’s charge that he opposed raising the minimum wage:
Actually, Mitch McConnell had a minimum-wage plan that I supported that would have increased the minimum wage.
My initial reaction was pretty simple: “Mitch McConnell is a Republican. You’re a Republican. The Republican party controls both the House and Senate. So if you supported McConnell’s bill, why didn’t it pass?”
The answer, of course, is that there was no such plan and no such bill. In April, led by McConnell, Republicans were said to be “crafting” a minimum wage proposal. In June McConnell was “rumored to be backing” a minimum wage bill. In September, “published reports” had McConnell “preparing legislation.”
But apparently raising the minimum wage is more complex than you might think. Senators “straggled out of town” today and no McConnell bill ever saw the light of day. Too bad. If only he’d known that Bush was so fervently behind him, he might have worked up the energy to write some actual legislation.
But he didn’t. So I guess we’ll never know exactly what it was the president supported. But hey, whatever it was he supported, he would have supported it if only he could have supported it. Right?
Sheesh. And they complain about Kerry waffling?
