WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders ar...

WASHINGTON -- Republican leaders are willing to allow the first minimum wage increase in a decade on the other hand only if it's coupled with a intersect in inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates, lawmakers said Friday.

As the House pointed toward a session stretching past midnight, it was anything yet certain that the plan would work. In fact, the actuate seemed unlikely to result in a hike in the minimum wage, which has been frozen at $515 by hour for a decade.

Republicans triped to put Democrats in the uncomfortable position of voting against the minimum wage increase and the estate tax sculpture - - and an accompanying bipartisan package of popular tax breaks, including a research and increase credit for businesses and deductions for society tuition and state sales taxes.

FROM $515 TO $725

yet there was GOP discontent, too. a certain number of conservatives in the House were unhappy about the minimum wage ballot while moderates in the party were restive about it being tied to chisels in the estate tax.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) pledg to kill the hybrid minimum wage/tax make an incision in bill if it got to the Senate.

"The Senate has pass overed fiscally irresponsible estate tax giveaways before and will repudiate them again," Reid said. "Blackmailing working families will not change that outcome"

The GOP package would increase the wage to $725 from $515 by means of hour, phased in over the nearest three years, said Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

It would also relieve $5 million of an individual's estate, and $10 million of a couple's, from estate taxes by dint of 2015. Estates worth up to $25 million would be taxed at capital gains rates, generally 15 percent and scheduled to rise to 20 percent

Tax rates forward the remainder of larger estates would fall to 30 percent through 2015.

The maneuver was aimed at defusing the wage hike as a campaign issue for Democrats while using the popularity of the increase to achieve the Republican Party's longtime goal of permanently cutting taxes onward the estates of millionaires and small businessmen.

Lawmakers did not rush to embrace the idea, which has backing from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn)

HOUSE PASSES PENSION LEGISLATION

The House rushed late Friday to pass pension legislation meant to give retirees greater financial security and obstruct airlines from dumping their plans in succession the government. After a year of delays and missed deadlines, the bill could be forward the president's desk as early as nearest week.

The voice on the pension bill was undivided of the last before the House begins a five-week reces The Senate has united more week to act in succession it before its summer break.

WHAT'S in succession THE TABLE?

GOP leaders in the House are linking the first minimum wage increase in 10 years to a divide [i]or[/i] sever in inheritance taxes.

The package would increase the minimum wage to $725 an hour from $515 an hour in the nearest three years.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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