How it works in the Senate these days:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/01/24/a-dirty-deed-senate-rejects-clean-minimum-wage-bill/
Fifty-four senators voted to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, without giving any more lucrative tax breaks to business. But because of the mostly Republican opposition to a clean minimum wage bill in the form of a filibuster, that was six votes too few for passage.Notice, again, that the Republicans can filibuster but the Democrats can't. Now that's what I call usin' that fine Dixiecrat remnant the way it was intended.The 54–43 vote on cloture this morning (it takes 60 votes to end debate on a filibustered bill) means the Senate now will take up a minimum wage bill (S. 2) that, along with the $2.10 wage hike, will include the tax breaks and other giveaways....
Says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), leading Senate proponent of a clean bill:
Adding a tax package to the bill creates procedural hurdles that will delay—perhaps significantly—the implementation of the increase. Minimum wage workers could wait months for a raise they so clearly deserve.
