Minimum wage amendments defeated

Good news, reports the Heritage Foundation:

Sponsors of the bankruptcy reform bill in the Senate managed yesterday to fight off two competing amendments to the bill that would have raised the minimum wage.

We were pleased to read these words, spoken prior to the vote by Senator Rick Santorum, whose minimum-wage amendment was intended as a less-costly alternative to the one sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy: "I hope, candidly, that we don't pass either one of these at this time..."

While unattractive for its raising of the minimum wage--always a mistake, in our view--the Santorum amendment did contain other provisions, particularly regarding flex time and other regulatory matters, that warrant consideration on their own merits.

I'm glad that these both were defeated, but I'm still disgusted at how convoluted the legislative process has become - not only do we try to attach minimum wage amendments to a bankruptcy bill that has nothing to do with minimum wage, but there are provisions of the minimum wage amendment that have nothing to do with the minimum wage! I'm being daily bombarded with the feeling that there's just nothing to be done about the state our government is in, and the best path to take is to just let it collapse of its own gargantuan weight - and it's getting harder and harder to resist that very urge, no matter what else I read of the founders and their principles and aspirations for this great country.