The minimum wage/estate tax cut bill, thankfully, failed to go to a vote in the Senate.
E.J. Dionne, like me, is happy about this, but for the opposite reason. He whines about the estate tax cut being an example of "the central goal of the currently dominant forces of politics: to give away as much as possible to the truly wealthy." Of course he doesn't explain how letting people keep their own money is giving away money to the wealthy.
The whining is not because the Republicans pulled some fantastic, hypocritical prank. The bill would have passed if it had reached the floor. Liberals are just mad because they will be the loser here. It was a good political move that will hurt the Democrats. The Democrats prevented the minimum wage from being increased simply because of the estate tax cut. Despite all the crying, Americans are not offended by the thought of an estate tax cut. So the Democrats now have to explain why they didn't raise the minimum wage, which means crying about how the Republicans are just out to help the rich. Nothing new here.
This whining is drowned by Dionne's glee over his prediction of the collapse of conservatism. He, disingenuously, praises conservatives like Bill Buckley and George Will and National Review only because they are currently discontented with the Republican leadership. He predicts a Democrat victory in November. While the Democrats will likely be marginally victorious, the election will not signal the end of the conservative movement and its replacement by a resurgent liberalism. As vulnerable as the Republicans are, the Democrats have not offered up any reason to vote for them other than Bush-hatred. They continue to adhere to the stale statism of the last sixty years just adding some anti-Americanism to the mix. This is not a winning platform.
