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Well....the AP is onboard helping the DemonicRats "educate" their followers:

Today: March 10, 2007 at 9:30:4 PST
House, Senate Dems Realize Power Limited

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By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -

At first, legislation to raise the minimum wage loomed as a clean, quick triumph for Democrats eager to celebrate their new majority in Congress. Two months later, it stands as an early lesson in the limits of their power.

A cohesive Republican minority backed by the White House, the Senate's complex rules and internal divisions among Democrats have combined to slow the measure's progress since it cleared its first hurdle in mid-January.

While final passage is highly probable, Democrats and their allies in organized labor long ago capitulated to GOP demands, agreeing to accept business-friendly tax cuts as the price for the first minimum wage increase in a decade.

"The minimum wage-tax relief package was a good early lesson for them as to how things will work," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said with a chuckle in a recent interview.

"What the Democratic House is having to learn is what the majority, particularly a narrow majority, means in the Senate. Not much is likely to go through the Senate exactly the way they would like it to," McConnell said.

Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 House Republican leader, concurred. "They're going to find it extremely hard to not only pass things over here but certainly to put anything on the president's desk that changes the country the way they want to change it," he said.

There is ample evidence that Democrats and their allies understand.

So much so that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who once publicly insisted on a stand-alone minimum wage bill, privately has prodded Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to strike the best tax-cut compromise possible and quickly send the bill to President Bush.

"In moving so fast, we gave the impression it was easy," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, reflecting not only on the minimum wage bill, but several other measures that newly empowered Democrats passed in January, only to see them stack up in the Senate.

Some Democrats say the struggle over the minimum wage bill is likely to become a model over the next two years for working within divided government.

Republicans and Democrats say they can envision compromises on several issues as the president and Democrats seek accomplishments. Immigration and energy fall into this category.

But Bush has threatened to veto House-passed bills expanding federally funded research of embryonic stem cells and allowing the government to negotiate directly with manufacturers for Medicare drug prices.

Already, events in the Senate show the difficulty Democrats will have forcing Bush to change his Iraq war policy.

McConnell blocked action on a nonbinding Democratic measure critical of administration policy. He acted after Reid, D-Nev., refused to give equal treatment to a GOP proposal regarding money for the troops.

The White House was quick to issue a veto threat last week when Pelosi, D-Calif., announced legislation that would require the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008.

The speaker sounded undeterred. "The House has to lead," she told moderates at a private meeting, according to participants.

It was Pelosi who elevated the minimum wage legislation in political importance, placing it on a list of six bills to be passed within the first 100 hours of the new Congress.

"For 10 years the lowest-paid Americans have been frozen out," Democratic Rep. George Miller of California said as the House debated the measure, criticizing Republicans who had refused for years to allow a vote on a stand-alone minimum wage.

GOP lawmakers wanted to add tax cuts to shield business from higher labor costs. "The small businessmen we are trying to help for the most part are little guys," said Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif.

Democrats refused and the House, by a 315-116 vote Jan. 10, passed a bill that would raise the hourly minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years.

In the Senate, Reid also wanted a stand-alone measure. But he had already concluded it was impossible.

Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had been at work for weeks with Republicans drafting tax cuts for business. "Let us raise the minimum wage. Let us help small businesses cope," said Baucus, D-Mont., who is seeking a new term in 2008.

Equally important, Senate rules gave Republicans leverage their House counterparts lacked. After a quiet head count, Reid concluded the bill could not overcome a filibuster that Republicans had threatened if tax cuts were not included.

"If it takes adding small business tax cuts to have a minimum wage increase, then we'll do that," he told reporters on Jan. 5. It was a signal that Democratic House leaders chose to ignore.

Their promise to voters in 2006 had been "raising the minimum wage, not raising the minimum wage with something with it," explained California Rep. Xavier Becerra, a member of the House Democratic leadership.

In the Senate, liberals were irritated with Baucus. At one private meeting of the rank and file, they vented their frustration. According to several officials, Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan spoke out against early concessions to Republicans.

Reid replied there was nothing he could do without 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, these officials said.

In public, Reid maneuvered for political gain, calling for a vote on a stand-alone minimum wage bill that he knew he would lose. Predictably, Republicans held together and bottled up the measure, 54-43.

While the shadowboxing unfolded, Baucus and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, had made progress toward a compromise. But Senate rules required - and Pelosi had decreed - that no legislation would pass if it raised the budget deficit.

That meant Congress, in order to raise the minimum wage, would have to increase taxes so it could cut them.

Baucus and Grassley eventually settled on $8.3 billion in tax cuts over 10 years and proposed closing tax shelters to make up much of the money.

The Senate bill passed, 94-3, on Feb. 1, almost three weeks after the House acted.

Bush quickly made clear he wanted tax cuts. "The Senate has taken a step toward helping maintain a strong and dynamic labor market and promoting continued economic growth," he said in a statement.

For his part, labor's Sweeney pledged to "turn up the volume" in hopes of persuading Congress to jettison the tax cuts.

Now House Democrats delayed.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the new chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he would block the Senate bill because it violated a constitutional requirement for revenue-raising legislation to originate in the House.

Days later, in a moment rich with political irony, the 36-year veteran Democratic lawmaker from Harlem announced that the first tax cuts to move through his committee would help business.

It was a grudging surrender.

Rangel presented a tax cut far smaller than Republicans wanted, $1.3 billion over 10 years, designed to encourage the hiring of low-skilled workers.

In a gesture of bipartisanship, Rangel offered to let Republicans help draft the measure. They accepted. "I made the calculation that the bill was going to be written with me or without me," said Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the committee's Republican.

The bill passed, 360-45, on Feb. 16, five weeks after Democratic leaders initially had rejected tax cuts on the minimum wage bill.

Then Senate Republicans asserted their prerogatives once again.

Grassley said he would not allow the appointment of negotiators on a House-Senate compromise until Democrats disclosed in general terms what the final legislation would include.

"Contours of the deal should be known if details can't be," said the Iowa Republican, noting that he was doing what Democrats had done when the GOP held a majority in recent years.

Unofficial talks drifted. Pelosi and Reid discussed a new strategy.

The House would add the minimum wage measure to a must-pass bill providing money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Modest tax cuts would be included.

The next move is up to the Republicans.