More from the Hill on Today’s Minimum Wage Boost   by Mike Hall, Jul 24, 2007

Share

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat down with several of us this morning and discussed the minimum wage and several other issues. I asked her how the raise symbolized the difference between the old majority and the new Democratic-controlled Congress.

It signals change. I would like to have a bigger increase in the minimum wage like we do in San Francisco where I’m from, but this says that what we are about is putting forth a progressive economic agenda where many more people  in our country participate in the prosperity of our country. This is a step for those making the minimum wage but again it’s signal for change, whether we are talking about people who lose their jobs because of trade or whatever reason, Democrats will be there with a new fresh progressive economic agenda.

Take this as an important first step in terms of the minimum wage where we value work, where people went to work yesterday and who got up and went to work today will make more money today and that will increase.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, took a few minutes this morning to talk to me about why it took such a fight to do something so simple and so right. He says the main reason it took so long was that Republican leaders

went into the tank for narrow interests who make great deals of profit on the backs of minimum wage workers and are just not willing to share the profits with the workers who allow their enterprise to grow. Whether they are restaurants, amusements parks or what have you, big users of minimum wage workers were fully prepared to keep the profits for  themselves and not share with the workers who help make their business a success. Republican leaders went into the tank for these people.

We had a bipartisan majority for this bill year after year but just never could get it up for a vote because [former Republican House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay was running a criminal enterprise out of the leader’s office and wasn’t going to let us vote on it.

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