Harold Meyerson Has This Congress Pegged

I don't often read Meyerson in WaPo, but I think he has the DeLay/Hastert/Blunt/Boehner Congress pegged with complete accuracy. Minimum Wage, Maximum Gall indeed!

In dealing with the major issues of our time (global warming, immigration, the diminishing benefits and stagnant wages that characterize today's economy) or in discharging its oversight duties over administration policies that have failed (the war in Iraq) or were stillborn (the rescue of New Orleans), the Republican-controlled Congress has been nowhere to be found. In inverse relation to the seriousness of the challenges that America confronts, this Congress is well on its way to spending the fewest days in session of any in modern memory.

... Every time congressional Republicans are compelled by public pressure to address a serious issue, they retreat to their laboratory and emerge with Frankenstein-monster legislation designed primarily to reward their campaign donors and stick it to the Democrats, and only secondarily to fix the problem. The Medicare drug program they crafted with the Bush White House enabled seniors to obtain some medications at a lower price, but it codified the continued upward spiral of drug prices by forbidding the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies -- a linchpin of Republican campaign finance -- to bring prices down.

...A decade has passed since Congress last hiked the minimum wage, during which time it has managed in a series of votes to raise its own members' salaries by a cool $31,000. Democrats and labor were hammering the Republicans over this most double of standards; minimum-wage workers were showing up at the Republicans' district offices and on local TV newscasts to dramatize the disparity.