Yesterday felt like a gut punch (#4410)

      Early this morning the House passed the stimulus relief package and that was good but that ruling Thursday night by the parliamentarian took a good swing at my guts. How the increase in the minimum wage did not conclude by her that it would have an effect on the budget will never satisfy my understanding. Yet what is done is done. It is an opinion ruling not a legal one. So we democrats have some tough decisions to make. I say tough because it will take some spine on our part to disregard the advice of the parliamentarian, which republicans have done in the past, and go ahead and include the wage increase in the Senate version of the bill.
     The House passed the minimum wage increase in their bill they are sending the Senate so I say keep it in there and force Manchin and Sinema to sign on or negate the whole stimulus package. I doubt they would negate the whole package over the wage increase. The minimum wage increase is part of the recovery plan that President Biden campaigned on and won with. So taking it out when it will have no other chance of passing this Congress is not acceptable. The will of we the people is stronger than the will of one or two senators who have for no real good reason for obstructing. The increase in the minimum wage is in 5 yearly stages culminating at $15 an hour in 2025 which allows for businesses to prepare for how it is structured. There can also be some carveouts that help businesses more vulnerable to the wage increases. It is the correct thing to do!
     The bottom line though is that if we don't pass a wage increase under the budget reconciliation process we will never get it done as we see that there will be no republicans in either Congressional chamber who can be trusted as objective partners. Bipartisanship is not a priority at all to republicans unless it is to force democrats into watering down already watered down proposals and then still obstruct when the final vote comes about. It is all on we democrats to pass legislation that is meaningful or like I pointed out yesterday we will lose the confidence and votes of our current blue wave dynamic in 2022 and 2024.