Congress Sucks

Hopefully you are all aware that earlier this week Congress killed a bill put forward by Ted Kennedy (who I am not a big fan of personally) to raise the minimum wage from $5.15/hour to $7.25/hour over the next two years. If the bill had passed it would have been the first increase in nearly 10 years and would have helped millions of people in the country. However, the Restaraunt lobby (yes there is one) as well as the representatives of many other low wage industries lobbied long and hard to get this bill killed. And why not, I mean seriously, $10,700 a year is plenty to live on right? The poor get everything for free anyway, I mean what with Medicare/Medicaid, Title 19, Food Stamps, Wic Checks, Section 8 Housing. Besides, in todays society they should all be able to find good paying jobs with a High School Diploma or GED, who needs college? According to a recent poll, only 23% of Americans approve of the job that Congress is doing right now, and I can't imagine that with 82% of the country in favor of a minimum wage hike of at least $2/hour that their approval ratings will be getting any higher anytime soon. If nothing else, this speaks volumes of the way that the direction that the Republican leadership in Congress feels America should be headed. In addition to the rollback of the Estate Tax, which has recently been passed and will make 99.5% of all estates tax exempt, and their continual efforts to bring wedge issues to the forefront during an election year, the defeat of a minimum wage hike proves that they are determined to, as John Stewart so eloquently put it, take "a giant shit on the poorest in the country". And to add insult to injury, since the last minimum wage increase in 1997, Congress has voted to increase their own pay by over $30k. I'm really glad that we keep paying Congress more and more money to debate such important issues as steroids in Baseball, Gay Marriage and violence in video games. Ahhh, my tax dollars hard at work.