The senate parliamentarian is about to make a huge decision (#4408)

      When I woke this morning I was half expecting to see a ruling from the senate parliamentarian on the question of whether the budget reconciliation bill could include the minimum wage increase. Yet at this typing there is no word yet on a decision. It is a critical decision for the future of our economy and whether or not we can lift 10's of millions of Americans out of poverty. It would seem like the raising of the minimum wage would fit nicely within a budget reconciliation bill but I am not at all sure the arguments against including it are illogical. I am not an expert on the intent of the Byrd rule but at a glance it sure does seem to me that it is a budgetary influencer.
     So I will be very disappointed if Elizabeth MacDonough, who is the senate parliamentarian, decides that including the minimum wage aspect of the recovery act is not consistent with the senate Byrd rule. The Byrd rule seeks to exclude non budgetary items from the reconciliation process. She may be waiting for the bill to actually pass the house tomorrow and then be delivered to the senate for approval before she makes her advisory position on the minimum wage known. Either way the sooner she does make her decision known the sooner we can devise our next move as to how to proceed. 
     While our economy is in a lull, the time for increasing the minimum wage as quickly as possible will allow the small businesses within our nation the security of knowing their costs as they consider reopening or reimagining their future. The way we have stifled the work force and made them part of the poverty of our economy is criminal and the idea that we have to keep them there so that small businesses can keep making money off their backs is cruel and brutish! If you cannot afford to pay workers a livable wage then your business sucks to all hell! the incremental increase of the minimum wage over the next several years to a still low of $15 an hour is a compromise to small businesses that they should be glad to have.