January 29, 2007: No Votes Today; Some Debate on Min Wage; Cloture Tomorrow at 12:15

[17:32]
Harry Reid (NV) is on the floor, making unanimous consent requests for various specific resolutions (recognizing the University of Nebraska championship volleyball game).  Ok, now he is wrapping up the day.  The Senate is done for the day.  It will recommence at 10:00 am tomorrow morning.  There will then be 60 minutes of morning business.  Then debate will turn to the minimum wage bill before a 12:15 vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the minimum wage "substitute" bill (this is the Baucus amendment that includes some business tax breaks).


[~17:00]
Tom Coburn (OK) is speaking about the minimum wage.  He says the federal gov't should leave the question of minimum wage up to the states.  Twenty-nine states have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage.  In fact, says Coburn, by raising the minimum wage we will be hurting the people in my state who are making minimum wage.  By raising their annual income, we will be affecting their ability to get aid from the state of Oklahoma.  Someone making the federal minimum wage in Oklahoma will now have to pay a higher child-care co-pay, receive less in food stamps, etc. Adults making this higher minimum wage would no longer be eligible for Medicaid in Oklahoma, only their children.

So why would we want to do this?  Why would we want to hurt the people of my state?  I'll tell ya why, it's because there is one big, powerful organization behind this effort, and that's the labor unions.  Coburn says the net loss is only $32 but "that doesn't include taxes."  INcluding taxes, he says these folks will lose about $1200.  And, he says, we'll lose more jobs overseas.

Coburn calls for some kind of "safe harbor" being added to the bill.  This would be some kind of provision that would describe to the states a way to keep citizens from being hurt by the minimum wage rise.  Sorry, I can't be more specific.

The way Coburn is talking makes it sound like the minority is serious about killing this bill.  The price has gone up in terms of tax breaks the minority will demand on this bill.  You might see talk of the estate tax return.  And this would be a major snafu for the majority which now needs this bill, which campaigned on this bill.  It is the old switcheroo; being in the minority has actually made Republicans more powerful on this issue and others (e.g. DeMint getting his earmark language into the Senate version of the ethics bill).

I missed Arlen Specter (PA) speaking earlier, who C-SPAN2 says called this morning for Supreme Court hearings to be televised.  So he is calling for more cameras.  A couple of Republicans have said in the last month that the Senate's floor proceedings should not be televised, including Conrad Burns, the now former senator of Montana. And someone last week said basically that bills take so much longer now than they did before because the debate in the Senate was not as free and open due to the presence of cameras.  I think it was Lamar Alexander (TN) but damnit I'm not sure, does anyone know?