Is The Democratic Tent Too Big Or Has Pelosi Lost Her Magic Touch? She Hasn't Even Been Able To Pass A Minimum Wage Bill

LOL!

Bobby Scott (D-VA) introduced a great piece of legislation on January 16, the Raise the Wage Act (H.R.582. The bill would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. There are 235 Democrats in the House. 205 have signed on as co-sponsors. The last to sign on is a very conservative Blue Dog freshman from Virginia, Abigail Spanberger. The 16 other non-original co-sponsors were virtually all conservative Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- Ed Case (Blue Dog-HI), Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA), Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Stephen Lynch (New Dem-MA), Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ), Jim Himes (New Dem-CT), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI), Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY), Chrissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA), Richard Neal (MA), Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ), Filemon Vela (New Dem-TX), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN) and Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)-- but at least they signed on! There are still 30 Democrats-- THIRTY-- who haven't signed on. That includes 19 freshmen who are being advised to not sign on as a co-sponsor to a bill that raises the minimum wage. How are they even Democrats if they're taking that kind of advice from the DCCC? These are the freshmen who have not signed on. How do any of them deserve to be reelected?

• Jeff Van Drew (Blue Dog-NJ)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)
• Sharice Davids (New Dem-KS)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Antonio Delgado (NY)
• Abby Finkenauer (IA)
• Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)
• Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)
• Colin Allred (New Dem-TX)
• Dean Phillips (New Dem-MN)
• Chris Pappas (New Dem-NH)
• TJ Cox (New Dem-CA)
• Sean Casten (New Dem-IL)
• Lauren Underwood (New Dem-IL)
• Greg Stanton (New Dem-AZ)

Zach Wolf from CNN.com wrote took a look at why Pelosi hasn't been able to pass the bill despite have campaigned on a promise to pass a $15 minimum wage bill within her first 100 hours as Speaker. On paper, Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn-- as well as Blue Dog chair Stephanie Murphy-- are original co-sponsors. But if you want to know why there is no bill, look no further than those 4 + Alabama New Dem and corporate shill Terri Sewell (a co-sponsor on paper who is working the hardest to stop the bill from moving). Hoyer, who's never done anything without a sign-off from K Street, told CNN last week that "We'll get the votes for the minimum wage bill, but there are discussions about how we can, what actions, if any, should we take to make sure that it is fair." Fair? Fair to who, the workers who are slaving away from wages they can't live on? Or fair to Hoyer's lobbyist buddies' clients?

"Democrats," wrote Wolf, "who hail from states and districts where it's not as expensive to live are not as keen on that $15 figure. At least not right now. It's not clear at this point when or even if House Speaker Pelosi will move toward the $15 minimum wage bill. (And even if she does, the bill faces a very uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate). One alternative to a blanket $15 federal minimum wage, being pushed by moderate [translation: corrupt conservative] Democrats like Rep. Terri Sewell of Alabama, would calculate a minimum wage regionally. The advantage, said Sewell in April, is that this proposal 'provides all minimum wage workers with a much-needed raise while protecting jobs, giving every community the flexibility to grow their economy and taking into account that the cost of living in Selma, Alabama is very different than New York City.'"

It's been 10 years since the federal minimum wage went up. The bill that passed through committee earlier this year would raise the minimum hourly wage from the current $7.25 to $15 over five years. Thereafter, it would enable automatic annual hikes based on increases in the median hourly wage as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an important feature of the $15 wage bill-- the Raise the Wage Act-- that would make another 10-year lull unlikely.

There was no federal minimum wage until 1938, and it's been raised periodically. But Congress hasn't approved a new wage hike since 2007, when President George W. Bush signed the current wage into law. The last hike approved through that law went into effect in 2009.

The dollar isn't worth what it once was, of course. It would take about $8.60 in 2019 to equal the buying power of $7.25 in 2009, according to one government inflation calculator.

The $15 value has been repeated by Democrats in Congress and some presidential candidates like a mantra in recent years as they criticize corporations, saying they're undervaluing their employees. It's a key way they contrast themselves with Republicans, who have focused on helping corporations and businesses with a permanent tax cut rather than workers with a guaranteed higher wage.

But there is some recent research on local minimum wage hikes that challenges the long-held view that a higher minimum wage leads to fewer total low-wage jobs. In today's economy, with an unemployment rate under 4%, fewer jobs might not be a problem anyway.

Even if Democrats can figure out how to pass a $15 minimum wage, that isn't a number that will wipe out poverty or even lead to a living wage-- enough to cover a worker's expenses-- everywhere in the country.

While President Donald Trump was on both sides of this issue during his campaign in 2016 and said certain states need much higher wages, his White House has been cool to the idea of a minimum wage increase.

"My view is a federal minimum wage is a terrible idea. A terrible idea," Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow told the Washington Post in November. He called the notion of a federal minimum wage hike "silly."

Blood-sucking conservatives like Kudlow have been making this argument against the minimum wage-- and basically anything else that lifts people out of poverty-- since the 1890s. By the 1930s, the voters taught conservatives-- by then mostly Republicans-- a good lesson: the sting of unemployment, as dozens and dozens of Republican congressmen and senators were defeated for reelection year after year, cycle after cycle. By 1936 there were only 88 Republicans left in the House (334 Democrats, 8 Progressives and 5 Farmer-Labor members). 1936 was also the year that saw the Republicans reduced to just 17 senators. Wouldn't it be amazing to see numbers like that again!

Unfortunately, Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn-- combined age is 238-- no longer have the skill or capacity to get anything done-- or to make the Republicans and the corrupt conservatives in their own party-- pay for keeping it from getting done. The three of them should all be sitting in rocking chairs and playing with their grandchildren.

I asked half a dozen members of Congress if the minimum wage bill would have been passed if Pelosi and her team were no longer the House leaders. All 6 said yes-- and 4 of them brought up Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) as someone who would have gotten it done. Jayapal would have also begun impeachment proceedings by now.