Reporting, Please

Washington Post takes a look at the Democratic agenda.

The necessity of some GOP votes, combined with the austere fiscal climate, has influenced how Democrats plan to proceed in their first weeks. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the next speaker of the House, has said that one of the first domestic issues she will bring up will be an increase in the minimum wage by $2.10 per hour, to $7.25. The cost of that would largely be borne by private employers, not the government. President Bush has supported similar proposals, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman.

No doubt Dana Perino did say that, but it's not, you know, true. The "similar" proposals Bush has supported are "compromises" that involve combining small increases in the minimum wage with giant tax cuts for rich people.

11/19/06 9:30AM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

Matthew appears to be incorrect.

Posted by: Al on November 19, 2006 11:21 AM

Similar things, as in "money going to people".

Support, as in "actually doing something to make it happen".

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on November 19, 2006 11:28 AM

Funny - you do a search of whitehouse.gov for "minimum wage" and nothing later than 3/9/2000 comes up. So where was that White House support - or even addressing the issue?

Posted by: Andy on November 19, 2006 11:40 AM

That's great, Al, except that it was the Mitch McConnell plan that Bush is quoted supporting that included estate tax cuts along with an increase in the minimum wage.

Posted by: S. Tarzan on November 19, 2006 11:40 AM

The Dems need to take a page out of the GOP play book and work this issue for all it is worth.

A minimum wage increase that included an annual COLA passed in Missouri with 70% voter approval!....by the same voters who barely passed a stem cell research amendment. Missouri mind you, not the NE or Cali. This should tell everyone how broadly popular this issue is with voters.

The Dems need to press this issue hard, with a COLA and whipsaw every R who opposes it.

Message, message, message. The GOP gets it. Maybe the Dems finally do as well.

Posted by: jake on November 19, 2006 12:14 PM

Al, are you ever right about anything?

Posted by: Reality Man on November 19, 2006 12:16 PM

S. Tarzan: No, it's not. Check the dates. Two different plans.

Posted by: Al on November 19, 2006 12:33 PM

Two different plans.

What were the details of the minimum wage bill McConnell introduced in between 2000 and that bill?

Posted by: Matt Weiner on November 19, 2006 12:41 PM

Check the link Matt. It mentions that the plan McConnell was considering in 2004, which Bush supported, was packaged with comp-time, not tax cuts for the wealthy.

Posted by: Al on November 19, 2006 01:11 PM

Except that McConnell never announced the details of his plan in 2004. In fact, they hadn't been decided on them yet; comp-time was discussed, obv., but even your link only presents it as an example of the sort of 'industry sweeteners' that were being considered by the Republicans. And nowhere does it say that tax cuts for the wealthy were not included in this plan; and lo!, when McConnell finally introduces his bill in 2006, it includes tax cuts for the wealthy.

While we're here, Rick Santorum's 2005 proposal also included "a number of tax breaks for small businesses", and also "would have changed the rules so that fewer workers were protected by minimum wage and overtime laws."

Posted by: S. Tarzan on November 19, 2006 01:35 PM

Prediction: Bush will sign whatever the Democrats pass for minimum wage legislation. The GOP knows that this issue is a big loser for them (and may have costs them two Senate seats this year) so they want it out of the way before 2008. Moreover the Bush wing of the party could not care less when it comes to small business interests, only big money corporations (which generally pay well above minimum) matter to them.

Posted by: JonF on November 19, 2006 03:42 PM

Wanting to raise the minimum wage while coupling it with tax breaks is still wanting to raise the minimum wage. Bush's desired raise does appear to have been smaller than Pelosi's, however.
Wouldn't it make more sense to remove this issue from the political arena by tying the minimum wage perpetually to inflation, like Social Security COLA increases? That would avoid both Congresses that refuse to raise it in cases of genuine need and Congresses that try to score political points by raising it exorbitantly.

Posted by: James Kabala on November 19, 2006 03:52 PM

This does sound like the kind of issue Bush would cave on, doesn't it?

Not just Missouri, either. These initiatives passed in six states, average margin: 31 points. The MW works against the Rs like welfare and affirmative action worked against the Ds back in the 1980s and first half of the 1990s.

I'd also like to see:

A repeal of the top 1-2% of the Bush tax cuts, with the recovered money going to VA clinics, pre-schools, and Medicare. Or college tuition, port security, and low-income heating assistance. Whatever. Make Bush veto it. Put the Rs running for president in a tough position re: "Do you support the president or not?"

Amazing how cynical I've become over the years...

Posted by: Chris on November 19, 2006 04:06 PM

Wanting to raise the minimum wage while coupling it with tax breaks is still wanting to raise the minimum wage.

James, this isn't true if the tax breaks are egregious enough to make the tax breaks/minimum wage package undesirable or impossible to pass. And it certainly doesn't cut against Yglesias's point, which is that the proposals Bush supported are not similar to Pelosi's proposal. A minimum wage increase with no tax cuts for the wealthy is not a similar proposal to a minimum wage increase with huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

S. Tarzan, thanks for the backup. Note that Al's link says that the prediction is that the minimum wage won't be on the agenda until 2006, so (checking the dates) it's very likely that the bill you linked is the one being described there.

Posted by: Matt Weiner on November 19, 2006 04:52 PM

James K, I should've added that I think tying the minimum wage to inflation is a great idea that should've been done a while ago, but that the baseline shouldn't be the present minimum wage which is at historically low levels adjusted for inflation IIRC.

Posted by: Matt Weiner on November 19, 2006 04:54 PM

Wanting to raise the minimum wage while coupling it with tax breaks is still wanting to raise the minimum wage.

Well, maybe theoretically, if that's what Bush wanted. The tax cuts, relaxation of labor regulation, etc., were created to make it politically unpalatable for Democrats. Conservative Republicans, meanwhile, had no interest in passing a minimum wage increase in the first place. Notice that even though they came from the GOP leadership and were officially supported by the President, the Santorum and McConnell proposals didn't get anywhere close to party-line support: 38 votes pro for the former, 42 pro for the latter.

What these proposals were designed to do--why, in the end, it's disingenuous to say that the President supports raising the minimum wage--is give moderate Republicans the backlash insurance of being able to claim that, hey, they supported an increase in the minimum wage; it's just that the Democrats didn't really want it. They were never intended to actually pass.

Posted by: S. Tarzan on November 19, 2006 05:40 PM

The minimum wage is one of those issues that the Republicans are simply wrong on. It doesn't produce inflation. It doesn't drive small businesses out of business. It does help the people who receive it.

And yet they repeat the same arguments EVERY TIME. Why? Dogma.

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