A Dirty Deed: Senate Rejects Clean Minimum Wage Bill

by Mike Hall, Jan 24, 2007

Fifty-four senators voted to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, without giving any more lucrative tax breaks to business. But because of the mostly Republican opposition to a clean minimum wage bill in the form of a filibuster, that was six votes too few for passage.

The 54–43 vote on cloture this morning (it takes 60 votes to end debate on a filibustered bill) means the Senate now will take up a minimum wage bill (S. 2) that, along with the $2.10 wage hike, will include the tax breaks and other giveaways that President Bush says he wants added to the bill before signing a minimum wage increase. With the gifts to business, that bill is likely to pass.

Today’s rejection of the House-passed clean bill is likely to delay the long-overdue increase for millions of workers whose minimum wage has less buying power than anytime in more than 50 years. House Democratic leaders have promised to fight for a no-strings-attached wage hike during the House/Senate conference that will be required to iron out the differences in the two bills.

Says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), leading Senate proponent of a clean bill:

Adding a tax package to the bill creates procedural hurdles that will delay—perhaps significantly—the implementation of the increase. Minimum wage workers could wait months for a raise they so clearly deserve.

In addition to the delay, Kennedy cites recent surveys that find businesses just don’t need any extra tax breaks to pay their workers a better wage:

A recent Gallup poll found that 86 percent of small business owners do not think the minimum wage affects their business, and three out of four small businesses said than in increase in the minimum wage would have no effect on their company.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says, in the past 10 years, the Republican-controlled Congress showered corporations with $276 billion in tax breaks, plus another $36 billion aimed exclusively at small businesses. He says it’s “a myth” that:

raising the minimum wage will hurt small business and cost our nation jobs. In fact, numerous studies have shown that raising the minimum wage does not cost our nation jobs, but instead raises the wage floor for all workers.

In today’s vote, five Republican senators crossed the aisle to back a clean bill–Norm Coleman (Minn.), Susan Collins (Me.), Olympia Snow (Me.), Arlen Specter (Pa.) and John Warner (Va.). That means a bipartisan majority in both houses has said “no” to adding business tax breaks to the bill. Blogger Bob Geiger says that those who didn’t, should be held accountable in 2008.     

But a list should certainly be kept of every Republican up for reelection in 2008 who today voted once again to screw working families and that vote needs to be hung heavily around their necks in the next campaign.

The Senate is expected to consider a number of amendments—including some that may pare down the tax giveaways—to the tax-break-laden bill and bring it to a final vote later this week or early next week.

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