Be Very Wary of Bush Support for Minimum Wage Increase

by Mike Hall, Dec 20, 2006

Is President Bush building the foundation to veto a minimum wage bill?

Today, he told reporters he supports raising the decade-old rate of $5.15 an hour to $7.25—but he wants to combine it with tax and regulatory relief for businesses.

Didn’t he hear the message from voters across the country who not only overwhelmingly passed minimum wage increases in six states, but also threw their support behind congressional candidates who pledged to boost the federal minimum wage. Voters sent packing many Republican incumbents who blocked wage-raise bills.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

Today’s remarks by President Bush calling for a minimum wage raise only if coupled with even more tax breaks for business makes it painfully clear that the president has learned nothing from the message working people sent at the polls in November.

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has promised action on the wage increase in the first 100 hours of the new Congress. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who repeatedly have introduced bills to raise the minimum wage, both say they want a clean bill.

Each time Kennedy and Miller introduced bills, the Republican-dominated Congress loaded them down with poison pills that doomed attempts to give a long-overdue raise to millions of workers struggling to support themselves and their families on a minimum wage that has the lowest purchasing power in more than half a century. Miller says he is pleased Bush supports a national minimum wage increase but cautions:

A minimum wage increase should not and need not be conditional on other legislation or policy changes. Increasing the minimum wage is the right thing to do; it is long overdue; it has the overwhelming support of the American people; and when Congress returns in January, it is what we will do.

Says Kennedy:

We can’t slow down this important legislation with other priorities unrelated to the minimum wage. Minimum wage workers have waited almost 10 long years for an increase. We need to pass a clean bill giving them the raise they deserve as quickly as possible.

Minimum wage workers have waited far too long for a raise, while Big Business has reaped hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts since Bush took office.

Bush didn’t specify what tax breaks and regulatory relief he is seeking. But if past attempts to weigh down minimum wage legislation with provisions such as cutting the wages of tipped workers, exempting others from coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act or even attacking the 40-hour work week are any indication of what’s on Bush’s agenda, his words of support for raising the minimum wage ring hollow.

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