America still deserves a raise — but it won’t get one this year

June 21, 2006

I knew it was coming, but it’s disappointing anyway.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday defeated a proposal pushed by Democrats to [tag]raise[/tag] the federal [tag]minimum wage[/tag] in increments from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour by January 1, 2009.

Sen. Edward [tag]Kennedy[/tag], a Massachusetts Democrat, unsuccessfully tried to attach the proposal raising the wage for the first time since 1997 to a defense authorization bill that is expected to be passed by the Senate soon.

The final vote was 52 to 46 in favor of the increase, but it needed 60. Eight Republicans joined the Dems on this — Chafee (R-RI), Coleman (R-MN), Collins (R-ME), DeWine (R-OH), Lugar (R-IN), Snowe (R-ME), Specter (R-PA), Warner (R-VA) — five of whom are up for re-election this year.

I think Billmon summarized how I’m feeling about this.

I have to admit, even I didn’t think the political pimps in control of our national whorehouse would have the gall to sneak through a pay raise for themselves, then turn around a week later and kill the first increase in the minimum wage in almost ten years. Even I wouldn’t have imagined they would think they could get away with it. Not in an election year. I guess it’s their way of showing Tom DeLay they don’t need him around to act like a pen full of swine with a taste for eating their own feces. The Bug Man may be gone, but his pestilence remains.

If Dems take back Congress, this increase will be one of the first bills considered. It will pass both chambers and, I have a hunch, Bush wouln’t have the nerve to veto it.

Dems should be running ads on this vote attacking the Republicans for giving themselves a raise and screwing the workers of America.

Of course that’s most effective if the Dems opposed the Congressional raises… Where do I check on that?

I know my old Rep (Lynn Rivers D-MI) voted against the raise every ear, and gave the money to charity.

  • Thank God John Warner is voting on the right side of this.

    It’s good to know that not all Virginians are scum of the Earth (that would be you, George Allen).

  • well at least they are consistent, “staying the course” and not “cutting and running”

  • Oh, but they are, ET: they’re cutting themselves bigger checks and running away from any responsibility to the rest of us.

  • Mr. F is right, as are all of us who have been making this comment for however many years.

    Dems know the play book, they know all the tricks, and (unlike Republicants) actually have facts, morality, and political popularity on their side, and yet I don’t see anything brewing on the horizon. Dems will still respond to issues the Republicants put out there.

    Here’s what I’d like to hear:

    [ominous music, names begin scrolling down the screen of every republican who voted against the minimum wage increase]

    “These republicans, 52 in all, voted to keep minimum wage down for yet another year, just one week after voting to give themselves a pay raise. They want you to believe that they support working class Americans, and yet they refuse to pay them a fair wage. Help the Democrats re-take Congress in 2006 and ensure that every American gets a chance to take part in the great American Dream”

    Or maybe,

    [black screen, text appears in silence: “On June 20, 2006, 52 Republican senators voted to keep millions of working Americans in poverty by voting against the first increase in minimum wage in 10 years. . .]

    Pause, then fade in below that:

    [“just one week after raising their own salary to $165,200 a year]

    Stream a series of high energy clips of Republicans making statements about protecting the working class, culminating in the clip of Bush in a tux saying “the haves and the have-mores”

    ETC ETC ETC. God, spend a bit of that cash on an ad agency, for crhissakes!

  • “Bush wouln’t have the nerve to veto it.” – – – CB

    Actually, I think he “will” have the nerve to veto it—along with everything else the Dems try to push through, once they retake the Hill. After all, we’re talking about a semi-cognitive individual—perhaps one might even think of him as a self-annointed demigod—who actually believes he’s “on a mission from God.” As with Herr Hitler, this most recent example of Man’s inhumanity toward Man must be driven back into its hole…and defeated beyond any possible hope of recovery.

  • Oh, come on, $10,000 is plenty to live on. You can rent a place for $500 or so per month, that’s about $6,000 a year, so you’re left for $4,000 to spend on everything else. Seriously, how greedy can these people get.

    Oh yeah, you’ve got food, probably about $60 per week, that’s only $3,120, but you’ve still got about $900 left for clothes, medicine, other bills. Easy street.

    Obviously, to make this work is simple. All you have to do is live with 10 or 15 of your closest friends.

  • Regarding the Congressional raises:

    The raise is automatic unless the Congress chooses to decline it. It has been this way since 1989.

    One member of the House (Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah ) tried unsuccessfully to decline the raise this year and bring this to an up-or-down vote and was defeated 249-167.

    I’ve been unable to find a breakdown of that House vote. I suspect that what made it “procedural” was the fact that they could vote off the record…but it means at least 18 Democrats supported it. They deserve to lose as surely as a Republican in my book.

    The Senate might try and puff themselves up by claiming they opposed the COLA raise by 92-6, but that’s only because they knew it would die in the House.

    They are in the minority by a large margin, so it’s hard to blame Democrats for allowing this stuff to proceed. But they have no one to blame for letting it go by quietly. If they can’t stop it proceeduraly, they should have made it politically untenable for crap like this to pass.

    Awful job.

  • So who were the two traitor DINOs who voted against? Let’s see, Lieberman probably didn’t see it as benefitting Israel in any way (which is why he does what he does on Iraq), so who’s the other one?

  • Sorry, Tom Cleaver, but I take exception to your remark about Leiberman and why he votes the way he does on Iraq. Your implication that a Jewish Senator puts loyalty toward Israel before responsibility to his constituents is a classic anti-Semitic smear. And terribly unfair. How did Schumer, Feingold, Coleman, Specter, Kohl, Feinstein, Boxer, Levin, Lautenberg, and Wyden vote? All are Jewish.

    Unfair, Tom.

  • Dobbs is ripping Congress to shreds over this one, and he’s been pounding away at the “Frist and Bones Show” harder than Pelosi and Reid. Anyone care to wager on this guy trying the classical “Perot Maneuver” in ’08?

  • They work for the special interests of the multi-national corporations. Why did they want to wait until 2009 for the pay hike to set it? They certainly don’t put such reservations on their own fat-ass paychecks. They all have to go, but unless we get rid of Diebold machines, nothing will happen to benefit the shrinking Amercan worker class. These people will continue to suck all the resources out of this once-wealthy country.

  • Doubtful…

    I hope you don’t mind me adding an additional punch line:

    Oh, come on, $10,000 is plenty to live on. You can rent a place for $500 or so per month, that’s about $6,000 a year, so you’re left for $4,000 to spend on everything else. Seriously, how greedy can these people get.
    Oh yeah, you’ve got food, probably about $60 per week, that’s only $3,120, but you’ve still got about $900 left for clothes, medicine, other bills. Easy street.

    And the Lucky Duckies don’t even have to pay taxes…

  • Chief Osceola,

    I will defend Tom Cleaver. He is frustrated by Lieberman’s blind allegiance to Israel. It’s not that Lieberman is Jewish; it’s that he puts Israel first–no matter the consequences to America. In all fairness, the issue of the minimum wage should have nothing to do with Israel. Nevertheless, on any issue Holy Joe puts Israel first–not Democratic principles. No other Jewish senator’s integrity is questioned a much as Joe Lieberman’s; that’s Holy Joe’s fault–not his critics.

  • Fortunately, all the Democrats voted for this (see vote), except for Rockefeller, who didn’t vote (presumably absent). Jeffords voted for it as well. Eight Republicans voted for it: Chafee, Coleman, Collins, DeWine, Lugar, Snowe, Specter, Warner. Shelby didn’t vote. The 46 remaining Republicans voted against.

    Note that 4 of the 8 Republicans who voted in favor are up for reelection this year, as are 10 Republicans who voted against it. So the ones to target are Allen, Burns, Ensign, Hatch, Hutchison, Kyl, Lott, Santorum, Talent, and Thomas.

    Why was a 3/5 majority required? This wasn’t a cloture vote, was it? It’s especially confusing because the Senate site says

    Required For Majority: 1/2
    Vote Result: Amendment Agreed to

    I guess that’s just some sort of mistake.

  • Looks like it was some other procedural rule requiring a 3/5 majority (not cloture):

    Sixty votes were required because the plan was proposed as an amendment to an unrelated defense bill.

    And the Senate site still says the amendment passed. It’s distressing that there’s no authoritative place to look. I remember going through this with trying to figure out the vote on the Marriage Protection Amendment, when for some reason a lot of the media reports had the vote total wrong or were ignoring that Specter voted against it.

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