On yesterday’s Your World, Neil Cavuto and Democratic strategist Malia Lazu debated a plan by House Democrats to raise the minimum wage from $7.25/hr to $10/hr. Just the thought of it put Cavuto in a snit by the end of the discussion.

Cavuto started calmly and reasonably. He asked, “Is this the time right now to talk about raising the minimum wage?”

Lazu said, “It absolutely is because I think working Americans need support, and $10 an hour is far from a living wage… Part of the way working Americans can participate (in a recovery) is to have the ability to spend a little more. We’re not talking about a whole lot of money. It doesn’t even bring us up to parity with what the wages were in 1968.”

Cavuto argued, “We live in this world where the past was wonderful and idyllic for a lot of folks… but there are a lot of businesses who would come back at you and say, ‘$10 an hour? I can barely get by with what I’m paying folks now.’ What do you say to them?”

”We have to find a way” Lazu replied.

”How do you find that way?” Cavuto asked, his blood pressure beginning to rise.

Lazu told him, “Once we are asked to do this, we will find a way to do this. Ten dollars an hour is not an outrageous amount of money.”

Cavuto interrupted. “You might tell that to the small business operating; there are a lot of jobs that go begging well above these rates, and now that might depend on the locality and time... You’re forgetting the folks who hire them who might not be McDonald’s or Burger King or Wal-Mart or Macy’s or a host of others.”

”Absolutely, a majority of job creators are small businesses,” Lazu agreed.

Cavuto was a little hotter under the collar now. “So you’re telling them pay your workers more, you can afford it, and I talk to them all the time and they say, you know, ‘Fox News Alert, I can’t!’”

Lazu reiterated, “We have to figure out a way to pay workers more.”

Cavuto interrupted with “reality:” “We have a soft economy. We have it so soft that for a while even Bill Clinton said that he would put off raising any taxes on anyone. So when Bill Clinton acknowledges the environment in which we work and live is such that now might not be a good idea to raise taxes, maybe by extension I can say now might not be a good idea to force employers of any sort to raise wages on anyone.”

Lazu responded, “I think, Neil, that while we can say this stuff isn’t going to work, and that we are being controlled by our reality, I just don’t think it works that way.”

Cavuto really started to get exercised now. “Do you look at 8.2% unemployment? Do you look around at youth unemployment north of 20%? Do you look at minority unemployment north of 25%, and you think raising the minimum wage is going to bring those rates down?”

Lazu remained calm. “What I’m saying is I don’t think that those wages have to lead to less employment… At the end of the day, what we really want to figure out is how do small businesses support their workers, pay a living wage and they, themselves, get a living wage.”

”You need an improving economy,” Cavuto said. Then he began shouting. “…Now is not the time to tell those business owners we know your back is against the wall, but you should pay more for the workers you have.”

”I don’t think that there is ever going to be a good time… A healthy middle class is healthy for America,” Lazu said. As the segment was closing, she said, “I miss you Neil.”

Cavuto retorted, “I wish I could say the same… I’m kidding.”