Letter: Porter tries to play both sides of fence

Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006 | 8:10 a.m.

On June 22, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., opposed allowing a straight up or down vote on whether to increase the federal minimum wage. Even though the minimum wage has not been increased since 1996, he withheld support when the issue had a chance of reaching the floor of the House of Representatives.

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, July 29, though, he decided to support a minimum-wage increase after all, but only if tied to a multibillion-dollar tax giveaway to the wealthiest 7,500 families in the U.S.

The bill sent to the Senate would increase the minimum wage from its current $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour by 2009, an increase Democrats would likely support. But it also includes significant cuts to the estate tax, a proposal that Democrats oppose.

Porter likes to misrepresent the estate tax as a death tax, but the truth is, it does not affect most Americans.

Raising the minimum wage would help many workers and their communities, but, as Porter knows, the Senate will most likely reject this bill because of the estate-tax provisions. So he gets to claim sympathy for working families while actually doing nothing substantial for the more than 14 million workers who live below the poverty line.

If his support for an increased minimum wage is sincere, he can prove it when Congress reconvenes by offering a clean bill free of huge tax breaks that benefit a few and balloon the deficit.

Teresa Crawford, Henderson