Bi-Partisanship on Minimum Wage Bill
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee has come under fire from conservative activist Grover Norquist for cooperating with Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on a package of small-business tax cuts that the committee approved on Monday.
Norquist charged on Tuesday that the tax breaks — totaling more than $1.8 billion — are paid for by tax increases that Democrats will use against Ways and Means ranking member Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.) and other Republicans in the 2008 election.
“McCrery is making a very damaging mistake in voting in committee and in having his members vote in committee for a tax increase,� Norquist said in an interview with The Hill.
He predicted that Democrats will attack the Republican votes as favoring tax increases, and that no one will remember that those tax increases were only meant to offset tax cuts included in the bill.
The House is expected to vote on the tax bill before the end of the week. Ways and Means approved it unanimously with little debate after a 30-minute markup, and the bill will probably be rolled into the minimum-wage legislation awaiting conference with the Senate.
According to Norquist, obstructing the Democratic majority in the House can pay off more than working with it. He said that Rangel, who has pledged to restore comity between Democrats and Republicans on Ways and Means, acted as an obstructionist when former Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) headed the committee.
“What did he get out of that? Control of the House,� Norquist charged.
In an interview, McCrery disagreed with that assessment, which he said represents the “narrow view� of the political world. “For Grover to imply that the reason Democrats won back the majority is because Charlie was an obstructionist is a giant leap,� McCrery said.
He said he and House GOP leaders decided to work with Rangel on the tax bill because small businesses would be hurt by the minimum-wage increase and needed tax relief. In addition, he said, it is illogical to conclude that House Republicans should have fought the House Democrats on the tax bill once Democrats signaled a willingness to consider the tax legislation in connection with the minimum-wage hike. House Democrats previously had argued for a clean minimum-wage bill.
Sitting back and throwing bombs at the Democratic Party will only increase public cynicism in the political and governmental world, McCrery added…
Bravo, to Chairman Rangel’s open mindedness to consider Small business tax cuts and for the GOP members of Ways and Means who risk the ire of tax ideologues in favor of a reasonable compromise. I hope this is a prelude of collaboration yet to come.
13 Responses to “Bi-Partisanship on Minimum Wage Bill”
And what did the country get out of it? not very much.
There is a serious problem when people can get ahead by obstructing the democratic process.
I think such problems rests on CS’s sharp observation that it is easier to side with someone who shares your general goals, but has wrong means, than someone who has vastly different goals but good means. Chauk it up to another casuality of the 2 party system.
Not surprising, given what Norquist told the Denver Post on May 26, 2003:
http://tanque.org/peptide/norquist.html
Thanks for the compliment KH. What is sad about applying this principle to this situation (and I agree it is apt to do so) is that it means that the primary goal of each party is to get in power or stay in power, while you would think that at least these goals would be subordinated to the greater goal of creating policy that helps the citizenry.
Um, I’m just guessing here, but probably the Democrats will also be voting for this. So how can they attack any Republicans for doing likewise?
Is there anyone in the mainstream of Republican politics who is quite as whacked out as Norquist?
George, have you forgotten the 1992 election and the Dems attacks on Bush 41 for compromising with them and signing their tax hikes?
Raising the minimum wage may be something that Republicans have to do to avoid looking stingy but it’s bad policy. Why? It rewards voters who elected Democrats who promised to give them free stuff. It increases demand for illegal immigrants’ labor by making the risks it entails more appealing to business. It acts as a direct tax on higher wage earners who pay for the increased prices of goods and services provided by minimum wage workers. It diminishes the number of minimum wage jobs in markets where those costs cannot be passed on. Need I continue?
“Reasonable compromise”? Hardly.
While their at it how about a minimum wage for CEOs.
Blackshards,
You call it bad policy. Then, as evidence, you list things that you don’t like about it.
What I like about moderates is their ability to see the difference between what is, in fact, bad policy and what is, in fact, just something that we personally don’t like.
Rock on,
M
Matty, it is bad policy to bribe voters into choosing one’s party.
It is bad policy to tax one group of people under the guise of helping another and pretend that’s not what’s happening.
It is bad policy to encourage illegal immigration because it helps shore up a party’s base.
It is bad policy to pretend to help one’s base while taking jobs away from that base to (deliberately?) propagate the cycle.
If you think those are opinions we’ll have to agree to disagree.
mattyd,
It’s possible to debate the specific points that blackshards mentioned because some of them are disputable (particularly about the effect of min wage hikes on the overall employment level- I think it’s intuitive that there would be a negative effect but there are some stats that show otherwise). I think the point about illegal immigration is a very valid concern though, because we’re charting new territory here with the level of illegals filling jobs right now and I can’t see how increasing the legal min. wage would do anything other than drive up the demand for illegal immigrant labor.
But mattyd, the greater point that I wanted to make is that your criticism of blackshards was odd to say the least. If you accept his criticisms as true, it’s hard to see how you could brush them off as just things that “he doesn’t like”. That’s like saying that someone who criticizes a doctor who knowingly prescribes medications to make his patients even sicker is just complaining because he doesn’t like people to be sick.
Now if you don’t accept his criticisms as true, you should say so and give evidence to back up your position.
On one hand I am glad that a bi-partisan process will result in new law.
On the other I am disappointed with the likely compromise.
I don’t like that small businesses are being given tax breaks to offset the impact of higher minimum wages. All this means is that everyone’s taxes will go up to pay for this hand out. What I prefer is a collaboration to reduce tax loop holes that will increase government revenue by spreading the tax burden more fairly. My ultimate preference is tax simplification that would eliminate most deductions and adjustments and let market forces reward or punish those who choose to play.
Hand out? Letting a small business owner keep some of the money he/she earned through investment of his capital and his labor is a handout? And tying this to a bill that forces that employer to pay his employees a rate greater than the market level for certain jobs? What’s wrong with the govt offsetting that cost for businesses that would otherwise have to pass the costs along to the consumers? Lots of small businesses are affected by the min wage increase and don’t have the cash flow to absorb the increased labor costs that are being mandated by the govt.
“Letting a small business owner keep some of the money”
The next question is: how much money?
The arguments against the minimum wage hike usually encompass the notion that workers should just quit complaining and suck it up for the sake of the ‘free maarket’ economy. They deserve no protection.
When we talk about business, the attitude changes, and the implication is that business has an inherent right to a certain level of profit, and they should be protected from increased costs of doing business.
The way I see it is that all sectors are under stress in this era of globalization, and no sector should get a pass in contributing to the nation’s future. One way to do that is to ackowledge that the working poor are under the worst stress of all.
Those who oppose social programs talk about the ‘nanny’ state. They are right, in that many depend on the state to provide for everything without contributing their own efforts for self sustenance. Unfortunately, the nanny state mentality has now extended to encompass all social and economic calsses. We don’t want to pay taxes, and we want cheap goods and services. We want and want and want.
Ours is a long way from being a free market economy. Subsidies and tax breaks have ever been the tools to manipulate the economy. If manipulation is okay for some goals, why is this manipulation (the wage hike) bad?
If the owner of a pizza parlor is not happy with his profits, he can use the free market tools of either selling the business to someone who will judge the profit margin to be acceptable, or he can increase his prices and find other ways to compete.
I understand the importance of business. Im just not happy with our single minded strategy of dealing with current stress by appeasing the business sector in order to keep them from moving elsewhere and outsourcing jobs.
Rather than expect the most vulnerable to shouler the burden of luring business to stay, it’s time we started to address our problems in a more holistic, embracing all classes and levels, way.
Fixing the health care problem would be a great first step, as it would take the burden off both business and workers.
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I apologize for the rant. I’ve been stewing over this for a long time, and this site is foolish enough to provide the venue to vent.