The $15/hour minimum wage took a direct hit late yesterday, when the non-partisan Senate parliamentarian determined that the increase does not meet the requirements to be included in the Biden COVID stimulus package under the reconciliation rules. Those rules are being applied to the stimulus package to avoid the need to get 60 senators to approve the bill.
There are options for the Dems, including dropping the wage increase from the package, redoing the bill, or even trying to override parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough's decision.
If they have any patience, the Dems can wait and see what happens to Plan B, a proposal from Finance Committee Chair Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).
As chair of the Finance Committee, I’ve been working on a ‘plan B’ that would make big companies pay for mistreating their workers. My plan would impose a 5 percent penalty on a big corporations’ total payroll if any workers earn less than a certain amount. That penalty would increase over time.
The plan also would incentivize small businesses by giving tax credits to help offset the wage increase, and penalize companies that replace employees with contractors who are paid less. This, too, would be up to MacDonough to decide.
And, of course, because it's the Dems, there's another option, one suggested by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
Abolish the filibuster. Replace the parliamentarian. What’s a Democratic majority if we can’t pass our priority bills? This is unacceptable.
And lest you think this is some cockamamie idea, don't - the Rs did it twenty years ago, in another 50-50 divided Senate. We'll see how the Dems handle it, but I'm sure if they try the same thing, the hypocrisy will be flowing deep, and wide.
Speaking of hypocrisy, we learned today that a few House Republicans have submitted requests designating others to vote for them today, saying they're not able to be present in person "due to the ongoing public health emergency." The group includes a number of the usual suspects: Reps. Matt Gaetz (FL), Paul Gosar (AZ), Jim Banks (IN), Madison Cawthorn and Ted Budd (both from NC).
Sadly, the "ongoing public health emergency" they're referring to is the one happening in Orlando, which goes by the name CPAC 2021. Maybe it's not as catchy as COVID-19, but it's probably as dangerous, given the collective fealty to Donald Trump. And it's way up there on the hypocrisy scale, given that the Rs in the House sued to prevent proxy voting in the first place.
Sticking with CPAC, the former president will be speaking to his minions on Sunday. Given his post-presidency comments, there's some speculation that he'll be announcing his next insurrection run for the White House in 2024. According to the oddsmakers in Vegas,
...Trump is more likely than not to declare himself for the Republican nomination...during his CPAC speech... As of Friday morning, the odds were 4 to 5, suggesting a 55.6% implied probability that Trump declares during his speech.
And will he do that as a Republican, or as a Patriot Party member? Well, there's only a 4-to-1 chance that he'll do it as anything other than a died-in-the-wool RINO.
Finally, there's Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince, Jared Kushner's WhatsApp BFF, commonly referred to as MBS. In a declassified report released today by Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, everyone got to see with their own eyes what's been presumed since October 2018: that MBS approved the operation in which US-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and dismembered.
So - who's on the good week list, and who's on the bad week list?
TGIF, everyone!
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