Posted on 02/05/2021 5:43:42 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Senate wrestled with dozens of amendments to the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill in a session that lasted all night. In the end, after 41 votes, Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the stimulus measure. The “vote-a-rama” considered amendments designed to make Democrats look bad and, in a couple of instances, bipartisan support for some issues won the day.
Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) offered an amendment to prevent an increase in the $15 an hour minimum wage during the pandemic. While the measure passed with the help of Democrats, the increase may be restored in the final version of the bill.
But some amendments did pass with bipartisan support. By a voice vote, for example, the senators approved an amendment from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to “prohibit the increase of the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic.” Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour is one of the heavy lifts in Biden’s proposal.
“A $15 federal minimum wage would be devastating for our hardest-hit small businesses at a time they can least afford it,” Ernst argued on the Senate floor. The measure’s biggest proponent, Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), shrugged off the vote, noting that his plan raised the minimum wage over five years, starting after the pandemic. “We need to end the crisis of starvation wages in Iowa and around the United States,” he said, adding that he “will do everything that I can” to make sure the measure “is included in this reconciliation bill.”
But Sanders’ eagerness to price young people out of the labor market may yet run afoul of the Senate parliamentarian,
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Mandatory federal $15 = a good raise for the union who have contracts tied to that.
I really don’t care what the minimum wage is- $5/hr, $10/hr, $20/hr. I don’t care. i don’t care if millionaires get their taxes raised to pay for it either. Not one bit. I do care that I’m looking at around $25,000 in taxes for my firearms and magazines. Once that happens, it’s a whole different world for me as it should be for all of us.
Wanna go fishin?
$15 min wage is a bad idea. Lower the friggin cost of living!
I’m waiting for the $100 an hour minimum wage so I can be rich.
RE: I’m waiting for the $100 an hour minimum wage so I can be rich.
Don’t worry, that time will come.
In Zimbabwe, there was a time when people were being paid millions per hour...
Mmmm,mmm,mmm We will call it Obama money.
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