In The News: GOP Playing Games with Minimum Wage

House Republicans are giving grudging support to raising the minimum wage — but only by tying it to a repeal of the estate tax, an issue already rejected by the Senate.

Such was the GOP game-playing behind the July 29 vote just before Congress left town for the summer. While the Republican-controlled House agreed to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over three years, it added a measure to repeal the estate tax for the super rich.

Even then, most House Republicans — who have nixed nine minimum wage hikes over the past decade while inflating their own salaries by more than $30,000 — were reluctant to help America's poorest workers.

"There's a general agreement among Republicans (opposing the raise) that 'maybe we don't like it much but we need to move forward with it just for political reasons,'" Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) said in a CBS interview.