Minimum Wage: Gordon Smith gets another chance
Tuesday, the US Senate is expected to try, try, try again to pass the minimum wage. Last week, Senator Gordon Smith voted to filibuster the increase in the federal minimum wage.
According to the NY Times, the Senate will consider a bill with a raft of tax breaks for "small" businesses.
The Senate bill differs from the one that cleared the House, and includes $8.3 billion in tax breaks for small businesses that Republicans and some Democrats say are necessary to offset the cost of the wage increase.The House bill, which passed by a vote of 315 to 116, with 82 Republicans joining the Democrats, included none of those tax breaks. And Democratic leaders there have said they want to hold out for that kind of “clean” bill.
The question is how the leaders in both houses choose to reconcile the two approaches.
The first Senate vote will be on whether to limit debate on the measure, leading to a second vote — and expected approval — later this week.
Then, the Senate could hold on to the bill, leaving it to leaders from both chambers to work out the differences. Or, it could send the bill to the House, where the House could strip out the tax breaks and send it back to the Senate for a new vote.
Will Gordon Smith vote to end the filibuster and pass a long-overdue increase in the minimum wage?
Discuss.
|
Jan. 29, 2007
Posted in in the news 2007. |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
Jan 29, '07
OK next time they decrease taxes on businesses or the rich, I'll be wanting an increase in wages!
...
Is there any precedent for this. Have increases in the minimum wage ever been accompanied by decreases in taxes ... or did they just pull this out of their buts willy nilly?
Jan 30, '07
Will Gordon Smith vote to end the filibuster and pass a long-overdue increase in the minimum wage?
No.
This has been another edition of "Simple Answers to Simple Questions" - ht Atrios.
Jan 30, '07
The Minimum Wage Increase is the victim of a Republican fillibuster. So much for bi-partisanship, Pelosi's hundred hour pledge gave a minimum wage increase of a lousy $2.15 over TWO years!! And yet these greedy sob's want more and more. \ Then when I read that 28 senators voted on a bill they presented to get rid of the Minimum Wage entirely, and that the media had not even reported this disgusting greedy bill and it's votes, I hit the ceiling.
I had to do a cartoon on this topic since people will read a cartoon before they read an article.
to see the cartoon, "Minimal progress with the Minimum Wage" at my website; www.whatnowtoons.com
Jan 30, '07
If the House doesn't hold the Senate's feet to the fire over this and make the Repulican thugs pay for their actions with the voters I will lose all respect for them. Those workers have waited ove a decade, a while longer won't make that much difference. Small business, my aching back.