Setback for minimum wage increase

January 24, 2007

It seemed like it’d be fairly easy. The House already passed a measure to raise the minimum wage in a “clean” bill (no extraneous amendments or tax cuts), with broad bipartisan support. The president has indicated that he’d sign it. The public backs it overwhelmingly.

And yet, when the measure came to the floor today, Senate Republicans managed to block it. Dems needed 60 votes to pass the bill; they got 54.

Democrats’ promise of a quick increase in the minimum wage ran aground Wednesday in the Senate, where lawmakers are insisting it include new tax breaks for restaurants and other businesses that rely on low-pay workers.

On a 54-43 vote, Democrats lost an effort to advance a House-passed bill that would lift the pay floor from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour without any accompanying tax cut. Opponents of the tax cut needed 60 votes to prevail. […]

“Why can’t we do just one thing for minimum wage workers, no strings attached, no giveaways for the powerful?” asked Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., a leading sponsor of the bill.

Apparently, that’s too much to ask.

I was on a conference call with Speaker Pelosi last week in which she indicated that she’d be willing to consider additional tax breaks for affected companies — after Congress finally passed a minimum wage increase for the first time in 12 years. That wasn’t enough; no tax cuts means no wage increase.

For the record, here’s the roll call. Every Democrat in the chamber voted for the increase, while five Republicans broke ranks and voted with the Dems: Coleman (R-MN), Collins (R-ME), Snowe (R-ME), Specter (R-PA), and Warner (R-VA).

What’s the GOP response to the vote? Nothing good.

A spokesman for Republican leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told RAW STORY, “[Democrats] don’t have the votes to keep the bipartisan tax relief package off of the bill. When cloture fails, the Democrats will accept the bipartisan, committee-approved substitute amendment.”

The first sentence is fairly hollow spin, but the second, I’m afraid, may be right.

i think what is important here is to just keep moving forward. bring these issues to the floor, get the vote, and then demonstrate, again and again, that it is the republicans that can’t seem to do anything right for this country. the more times this happens, especially on things like minimum wage that affect the ordinary american particularly hard, the more the republicans will be shown as what they really are.

  • I seem to remember Republicans doing really interesting things to bills once they were in committee to resolve difference between the Senate and House versions. (Though I could be wrong.) Is that a possibility here? It would be Republican-style hardball that we elected Democrats to Congress to eliminate, unfortunately.

  • I think I have to go with just bill. First, bringing “clean bills” to the floor is important in an of itself – it is just the opposite of that Republicans did. Second, if this fundamental part of the Democratic agenda they shouldn’t muck it up with Republican crap just to get it passed. Sometimes you just have to sand on principle – but you just have to carefully pick your battles. They may have to wait a while to let things settle a bit and they may have to rework it in some way, but this is one of those important things that that Democrats need to get right.

  • Israel faces nuclear Holocaust warns Gingrich

    Newt Gingrich: Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem facing mortal Iranian threat, says former US Speaker of the House; emphasizes ‘three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust’

    Yaakov Lappin Published: 01.23.07, 19:51

    The Israeli people are facing the threat of a nuclear Holocaust, former US Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned the Herzliya Conference held by the Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya on Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, he said, the United States could lose a few million people or a number of cities to a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction.

    Gingrich, who addressed the conference via satellite from the United States, said he thought Israel’s existence was under threat again for the first time in 40 years.

    “Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967. Prior to ’67, many wondered if Israel would survive. After ’67, Israel seemed military dominant, despite the ’73 war. I would say we are (now) back to question of survival,” Gingrich said.

    He added that the United States could “lose two or three cities to nuclear weapons, or more than a million to biological weapons.”

    Gingrich added that in such a scenario, “freedom as we know it will disappear, and we will become a much grimmer, much more militarized, dictatorial society.”

    “Three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust,” Gingrich declared, adding: “People are greatly underestimating how dangerous the world is becoming. I’ll repeat it, three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust. Our enemies are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly? We are sleepwalking through this process as though it’s only a problem of communication,” Gingrich said.

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7…356103,00.html

    Just for fun…try to count the number of times the word “holocaust” is used in the article.

  • Okay, the Senate version passes with the “tax relief” package and the whole thing goes to Conference Committee.

    How likely is the “tax relief” to survive reconcilation and make it to the President’s desk? If it doesn’t get included in the final Bill, how likely is it the President will sign or veto it?

  • When cloture fails, the Democrats will accept the bipartisan, committee-approved substitute amendment.
    .
    Just say no. Democrats would be fools to play along with this crap.

  • The commies who spout the Marxist line always remind us that material wealth belongs to all and that all of it should be shared equally. This certainly appeals to the parasites and predators, but why is it that the ruling communist agents never seem to share their wealth with anyone else? The working class supports the sewer people and also the controlling rich. Such a deal.

    If a people, such as the blacks, cannot elevate themselves, then why do you believe it is the duty of white people to teach them how? If they had any brains, they’d have done it themselves, wouldn’t you say?

    WHO, pray tell, taught the white man how to invent and progress? Who? Tooth fairies? You honkies had better get your heads out of your ass why you still can. Time waits for no one.

  • The unadulterated horse pucky of tax breaks stinks up Congress again. Don’t these greedy, greedy, idiots have anything original to offer? Ever? We’ve been “tax breaked” into the worst deficit in history, the Paris Hiltons pay less and less, we’ve defunded most every social/community program to the point that many are effectively impotent, and still these assholes yammer and whine about their “burdens.” I suppose that when they eventually don’t have to pay ANY TAX for ANYTHING, we’ll hear more whining about how they deserve some sort of a financial tribute for all they do. It begs an inflammatory question, “How is it possible for a conservative to be a good American?”

    P.S. I jusy saw #9. Guess part of the answer is to be a sick racist who’d screw the entire world for his own good.

  • Also regarding #9, it’s certainly nice to see that the kind of thinking that made communism possible, in the first place, still thrives.

  • I suggest one of your rare interventions to eliminate “Democracy’s” comments from this thread, CB. I think he got lost on his way to a neonazi site.

  • I’d say a 54-43 vote is BIPARTISAN vote by definition, Mitch. As bipartisan as all those “bipartisan” tax cuts passed with the help of John Breaux back in the early ’00s were

  • RSA,

    I seem to remember Republicans doing really interesting things to bills once they were in committee to resolve difference between the Senate and House versions. (Though I could be wrong.) Is that a possibility here?

    I was thinking the same thing. And to really do it the way the GOP did, we’d only allow Snowe, Collins and Specter to represent the GOP in conference. Payback time.

  • The commies who spout the Marxist line always remind us that material wealth belongs to all and that all of it should be shared equally. This certainly appeals to the parasites and predators, but why is it that the ruling communist agents never seem to share their wealth with anyone else?

    Funny, how if this person really cared about making a case against communism, he’d have left it at the above. Why indeed do the ruling communist “agents” never seem to share their wealth with anyone else? I would suggest it is the same reason the ruling “agents” of a capitalist society don’t want to share their wealth: greed. Neither communism nor capitalism are perfect in and of themselves. It is in the stasis that exists within the struggle between these opposing ideologies, where chaos is held at bay.

    The working class supports the sewer people and also the controlling rich. Such a deal.

    Then it becomes clear just where someone like this would have us all go. “Sewer people”, says ‘Democracy’. Just remember, no matter how much you delude yourself, there will always be someone wealthier and/or more delusional than you, for whom you are nothing more than garbage.

    If a people, such as the blacks, cannot elevate themselves, then why do you believe it is the duty of white people to teach them how? If they had any brains, they’d have done it themselves, wouldn’t you say?

    Do you have children, ‘Democracy’? Is it your duty to teach them? Do you know anyone whom you might consider worthy of your love, time or effort? If only your child had “brains”, eh ‘Democracy’?

    … could save you a lot of trouble, eh ‘Democracy’?

    WHO, pray tell, taught the white man how to invent and progress? Who? Tooth fairies? You honkies had better get your heads out of your ass why you still can. Time waits for no one.

    Perhaps it was the English, the French, the Italians, or the darkly colored Egyptians. Whoever the fathers of modern thought and ingenuity were, would be too unlike you to be spared your wrathful hatred.

  • RE:JTK

    unite all non White “Americans” against the then majority White Americans. (3) They were all jews. Scapegoats? Coincidence? I’ll bet your history teacher never told you this. It would be “anti-Semitic”.
    Communism, no matter what name it currently operates under — Zionism will do –, is a jew-invented, jew-managed world power movement. Maybe school youths should be given an assignment relative to the roots of the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations, and see if any ‘chosenite’ names pop up. It’s not called the New World Order for nothing.

  • RE:JTK

    What do all of these nice people have in common — Trachenberg, Begun, Jerome (Romaine), Gerson, Bittelman, Mindel, Amter, Weinstone, Charney, Fine, Steinberg, Weinstock, Marron and Lannon? (1) They were all indicted June 20, 1951 for conspiring to overthrow the government of the United States. (2) They were all Communists operating under a plan to unite all non White “Americans” against the then majority White Americans. (3) They were all jews. Scapegoats? Coincidence? I’ll bet your history teacher never told you this. It would be “anti-Semitic”.
    Communism, no matter what name it currently operates under — Zionism will do –, is a jew-invented, jew-managed world power movement. Maybe school youths should be given an assignment relative to the roots of the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations, and see if any ‘chosenite’ names pop up. It’s not called the Jew World Order for nothing.

  • RE: Erik

    “If a man’s afraid to take some risks for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.”

  • Chinese colonies are springing up faster than Howard Stern can humiliate air-headed broads seeking a few minutes of TV exposure. This continent is becoming the recipient of China’s growing population. They are taking over posts in all universities and getting elected with growing frequency. Since their take over of “America” is progressing well, why in hell would they want to bomb it? That’s like shooting a compliant subject of extortion. We are shipping our industry to them and there will be more to come. The companies which moved to Mexico are now relocating in China. I cannot understand any reason for them to assault this dying land. All they have to do is wait until it falls into their hands. Chinese are very patient people who think in terms of centuries, not from niggerball game to niggerball game as do Americans.
    Hitler’s predictions are coming to pass.

  • CB – Any way to block the rants from “Democracy”? It’s obviously just cut and paste crap. Maybe you could ask what color a banana or a plum is and totally stump him.

    If not, everybody please stop responding to him. It’s a waste of time, and hijacks the thread.

  • Why is this not a fillibuster?

    it was a fillibuster. Or more specifically the cloture vote (vote to end debate) that failed to garner the necessary 60 votes. Effectively it means that a fillibuster would have been sustained and thus why bother going through with it.

    Hopefully brighter minds than mine will extrapolate on what can happen next.

  • ‘Democracy’ wrote: “If a man’s afraid to take some risks for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.”

    I couldn’t agree with you more here. However, I think the following quote is more apropos to your situation:

    “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” – Abraham Lincoln

    I don’t meant this disrespectfully nor do I offer it as an easy way for you to justify your world view.

    Rather, I sincerely believe you have issues that reside in the chemical realm and are neither philosophical nor spiritual in nature.

    Again, I’m not flaming you. Get some help and save yourself the effort of trying to convince anyone who hasn’t already had their vulnerable minds bent in the same fashion as your own, that you’re anything more than a lunatic.

    Seriously, there are people who can help you. You won’t find many of them here though.

    Peace,

  • “Funny”, how the word — democracy — can be highjacked and mis-used by the scum of the Earth. On a large scale in Iraq, on a small scale on Carpetbagger Report.

    By the time I came back to CB, there was a slew of deleted messages from someone posting as “a republic”. Some of you, apparently, saw the postings… Was it the same troll?

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