Of course, the bill will have to be reconciled with the House version that was passed without the tax cuts, so there’s still a ways to go on this yet.

Let’s hope it doesn’t pass.

For you North Dakota readers, here’s a rare instance where you’ll actually hear your Senator Kent Conrad (who actually authored the tax breaks included in the legislation passed by the Senate) acknowledge that tax cuts are good for the economy, not to mention obliquely acknowledge that the minimum wage is not:

Washington – The United States Senate passed a package of small business tax breaks, including several written by Senator Kent Conrad, as part of its 94-to-3 vote today to increase the minimum wage for American workers.

Senator Conrad worked with a bipartisan group of Finance Committee colleagues to draft the small business tax provisions in the Small Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007. The cuts are designed to encourage growth in the economy by spurring job creation and encouraging small business owners to invest in new equipment and improvements.

“North Dakota’s economy runs on small business. This package of tax breaks will help Main Street business owners improve their shops, buy new equipment and hire a few new workers,” Senator Conrad said. “These tax incentives are passing along with a raise in the federal minimum wage, which hasn’t been increased in more than a decade. This is a good bill for the middle class.”

Conrad almost hits on it, but he doesn’t quite get there.

He mentions the part where the tax cuts for the small businesses that employ low-wage workers will be helpful for them, but he doesn’t explain why that help is a necessary part of this bill.  He won’t acknowledge that small businesses are going to need this help because hiking the minimum wage is going to make the price of low-wage labor go through the roof.

Conrad talks of North Dakota’s economy running on small business.  He’s right.  There are a lot of entrepreneurs in this state, and nearly every one of them is going to be hurt by the rise in minimum wage.  If Conrad really wanted to help North Dakota’s small businesses he’d have voted against this legislation.

And what’s ironic about the whole thing is that the big corporations Democrats like to treat as whipping boys (and who have been calling for a minimum wage hike) are laughing all the way to the bank on this.  You see, the big companies like Wal-Mart don’t pay any of their employees a wage that is anywhere near the minimum wage.  So, in practice, the minimum wage hike isn’t going to impact their businesses at all.  The folks it will impact are Wal-Mart’s smaller, mom-and-pop competitors who can’t afford to pay the wages Wal-Mart does.  The price of labor for those companies just went through the roof, and I don’t think the tax relief Conrad is busy thumping his chest about is going to be enough to help.