The Progressive bid to push the Federal Minimum Wage to fifteen dollars per hour hit a wall in the US Senate. The measure died 58-42 with the help of a handful of Democrats, including New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.
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Other Democrats to vote no include Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Jon Tester of Montanna, Chris Coons and Tom Carper (Both from Biden’s Deelware) and, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
I knew (or at least expected) Sinema and Manchin were a no. Coons was a maybe. I don’t know Carper. Shaheen and Hassan, we know. So, I guess the question is, what’s the game?
They are no less progressive now than before that vote. They have both advocated for the union-backed job-killing increase. Why pull it out of the so-called COVID19 stimulus package?
I did not find any press from either as of this writing, not that a statement would make things any clearer despite them cranking out press releases like mad. Just not about this. Not yet.
In the absence of such, another clue is if the far-left attacks Shaheen and Hassan individually on this vote. Naming them in their attacks.
If we hardly hear a peep, you know that gig is up and so far, no peeps.
That tells us that it is posturing and nothing else. They are pretending to oppose it for whatever reasons they eventually cough up to the press knowing that the hike is in the pipeline.
Bernie has said he will keep bringing it back.
“If any senator believes this is the last time they will cast a vote on whether or not to give a raise to 32 million Americans, they are sorely mistaken,” he said. “We’re going to keep bringing it up, and we’re going to get it done because it is what the American people demand and need.”
All the umbrage has been broad and generalized, and I expect it to stay that way.
And it’s not as if this is some kind of road to Damascus moment. The 1.9 Trillion Blue State bailout bill is loaded with crap (like its predecessors) that has no business being in there. Shaheen and Hassan are mortgaging your great grandchildren’s futures to appear and pay off political allies and peers.
The notion that they put a stay on the execution of millions of entry-level jobs by taking a minimum wage hike out of that dumpster fire makes them more fiscally responsible is like saying Biden has all his marbles.
Neither thing is true, and no amount of pretending will make it so.
