Reply #6: I am very unhappy about the loss of the benchmarks. [View All]

[pnwmom]

But I think that the decision wasn't as clear cut as some here would like to think. Perhaps Pelosi and Reid thought that the benchmarks in the end would end up being toothless -- and that it was better to trade for things like the minimum wage increase. (And there were several additional items in the funding bill of benefit to lower and middle income people that Bush would otherwise have vetoed.)

If you're not down at the minimum wage level, it might be easier to think it wasn't worth it, but I think it will help a lot of people.

So I'm torn.