As I mentioned a few days ago, the GOP had put forth a bill which would have given the Democrats the raise in the minimum wage which they wanted, in exchange for a reduction in the death tax. The bill easily passed in the House. However, the Senate Democrats, continuing their long history of not compromising on legislation, refused to support the bill because the labor unions they are beholden to wanted the bill to fail.

Congress passed major pension legislation designed to assure American workers, including millions of baby boomers nearing the end of their working careers, that the pensions they have been promised will be there when they retire.

The Senate, in its last vote before adjourning for a four-week summer break, approved the 900-page bill that compels employers with defined-benefit pension plans to meet their funding obligations and seeks to prevent companies from terminating plans and shifting the financial burden to the taxpayer. The House passed the bill last week.

The 93-5 Senate vote late Thursday on the pension bill came shortly after the Senate fell four votes short of the 60 needed to advance a Republican-crafted package that combined an estate tax cut with a federal minimum wage increase.

Republican leaders, unsuccessful earlier this year in moving an estate tax cut through the Senate, tried to attract Democratic votes by linking it to a package of popular middle-class tax breaks and the offer to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over three years.

Democrats, backed by unions pushing for what would be the first increase in the minimum wage in nine years, overwhelmingly rejected the deal.

You’d think the labor unions would support a minimum wage hike strongly enough that they’d go along with the compromise, and you’d think the Democrats, who like to pretend that they’re the party of the “common man”, would as well. But, then again, the unions and the far left-wing have such tight control over the Democratic Party that the idea of doing anything that they’re opposed to, even if it makes good sense from both a political and practical standpoint, is not possible. So if you want to know who to blame this November for the failure of a minimum wage bill to pass, blame the Democratic Party and make them pay for their callowness.

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