I thought this was a done deal…….in the first 100 hours. Guess not.

WASHINGTON - Increasing the minimum wage should be easy for a Congress controlled by Democrats, especially with President Bush’s pledge of support.

But a $2.10 boost for America’s lowest-paid workers is again being delayed, this time in a tussle over whether to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.

It’s been 10 years since the last minimum wage increase, and boosting it from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over the next two years was a key element of Democrats’ midterm election platform. They even added a sweetener for Republicans: $4.8 billion in tax cuts for small businesses over 10 years.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., decided to attach the minimum wage provisions to the Iraq war spending bill. Normally that’s must-pass legislation. Now it’s certain to be the subject of Bush’s second veto after Democrats loaded it up with a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.

“That’s just a temporary detour,” said Alan Viard, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He said Democrats will find a way to quickly move the minimum wage legislation back to the White House.

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