Senate Adds Business Giveaways to Minimum Wage Bill

by Mike Hall, Jan 18, 2007

The chance for a clean minimum wage bill in the Senate was tarnished yesterday when the Senate Finance Committee approved a package of business tax cuts and other so-called incentives as part of the Senate’s minimum wage package.

Last week, the House passed the first minimum wage increase bill in nearly a decade that will boost the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. House Democrats did not include any business giveaways.

After the House vote, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) urged the Senate to refrain from adding business tax breaks to the bill.

Businesses of all sizes have been the beneficiaries of one tax cut after another over the last several years, but the minimum wage has not been raised a penny since 1997. Doing the right thing for workers and the smart thing for the economy need not nor should be conditioned on passing a single additional tax break that our country cannot afford.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:

In the past 10 years, in fact, the Republican-led Congress provided corporations with $276 billion in tax cuts and provided small businesses with another $36 billion in dedicated tax breaks.

Just last November, voters in six states said minimum wage increases wouldn’t hurt businesses and approved minimum wage hikes without extra corporate giveaways, as have 11 state legislatures.

Yesterday, a coalition of 11 national lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual organizations, including Pride At Work, sent a letter to the Senate supporting a clean minimum wage bill.

In the Senate, the tax breaks were introduced by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and were approved by a voice vote. Baucus and some other Democratic senators say that because of Senate rules, Republicans could force a clean minimum wage bill to receive 60 votes to pass—and with a narrow 51–49 majority, it would be difficult to win passage of a clean bill.

Last week, Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told the Senate Finance Committee:

There is little rationale for adding any tax cuts to this bill. Businesses both large and small have enjoyed hundreds of billions of dollars of such cuts over the past decade, as the value of the federal minimum wage has evaporated. The wage increase under consideration is a small one in historical terms and it is very likely that any tax cuts intended to offset its costs to businesses will swamp in magnitude.

President Bush said he supports a minimum wage increases if it includes business tax breaks. It’s unclear when the Senate will take up the minimum wage legislation.

Thew bill may be up for a vote Monday in the Senate. Click here to tell your senators to support a clean minimum wage bill.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (0)