ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260058
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
HOUSE REPUBLICAN leaders showed some political courage (in the face of a large public majority in opposition to their position), some political loyalty (on behalf of business-interest groups backing and bankrolling GOP politicians) and a lot of ideological rigor (in support of laissez-faire economics) when, on Wednesday, they virtually ruled out scheduling a vote on an increase in the minimum wage.
But more important than what may happen to Republican political fortunes as a result of this stance is the continuing effect on Americans working at or near the minimum wage, which now stands at $4.25 an hour.
The largest number of such workers and their families happens to be single women over 25 with school-age children. They are struggling in poverty for a lot of reasons. But it hasn't helped that the buying power of the minimum wage is approaching a 40-year low.
A bloc of congressional Republicans has joined the call for increasing the minimum, and for an amount even greater than that advocated by the Clinton administration. Yet, so far anyway, they have failed to persuade House Speaker Newt Gingrich or Majority Leader Dick Armey even to allow a vote on the issue.
On Wednesday, the House leaders hardened their position, issuing a memo outlining alternatives to a minimum-wage hike. "It's not my intention" to allow a vote on the House floor, said Armey.
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, meanwhile, has talked about allowing a vote in the Senate, but only on a bill loaded up with a host of distracting, killing amendments.
He and Gingrich have complained that Democrats are pushing a minimum-wage increase as a payoff to organized labor and as a ploy to embarrass Republicans. They are right on both counts.
But this doesn't mean that a higher minimum wage shouldn't be allowed a straight up-or-down vote - or that it shouldn't be enacted.
LENGTH: Short : 42 linesby CNB