Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Begins with a single step

The House of Representatives voted today to raise the minimum wage (whose inflation-adjusted value has declined by over 20% since it was last raised in 1997) to $7.25 an hour, with support from all 233 Democrats as well as 82 Republicans. Next step, the Senate!

UPDATE: I know this is preaching to the choir, but this vote underscores the importance of partisan control in Congress, rather than positions of individual Congresspersons. This bill passed by such an overwhelming margin that it cannot be merely attributed to individual House seats shifting in the last election from anti-minimum-wage to pro-minimum-wage representatives. These 82 Republicans want to get reelected, so of course they can't go on record opposing a minimum wage increase. But thanks to their party leadership preventing this bill from reaching the House floor for the last decade, until now they never had to. Now let's see how fast the Republican senators flip-flop about the sanctity of the "up or down vote".

2 comments:

  1. "thanks to their [GOP] party leadership preventing this bill from reaching the House floor for the last decade, until now they never had to" vote on it.

    Yes, the majority's control is all about agenda-setting.

    I could not have said it better myself (even though I am a political scientist)!

    Thanks for your update.

    (Of course, as you allude to, the Senate is another story...)

    ReplyDelete