By Doug Cunningham

The federal minimum wage increase has finally been passed, attached to the Iraq war spending authorization. The AFL-CIO says working families have won a major victory with the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade. Republicans had mobilized opposition to the minimum wage hike as they added tax breaks for business to the minimum wage increase. It somehow didn’t occur to Republicans to add minimum wage hikes to the $276 billion in corporate tax breaks they approved during the ten years when there was no increase in the minimum wage.