Congressman Pascrell Says Republican Attempts to Tie Minimum Wage Increase
        with Expensive Poison Pill Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is ‘Shameful and Unconscionable’

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ-08) today stood strongly with his Democratic colleagues in the House to oppose attempts by Republican Leadership to effectively kill a minimum wage increase by attaching poison pill tax provisions.  The Republican minimum wage proposal was introduced at the eleventh hour and contained estate tax provisions that had previously failed in the Senate, making full passage into law very unlikely.

“It is shameful that millions of Americans are suffering the economic injustice of working a full-time job and earning a wage that leaves them below the poverty line.  It is unconscionable that we stand here tonight debating provisions on the estate tax and the extension of expiring tax provisions.  These provisions only serve as a political ploy to kill any increase to the minimum wage.  Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage.”

Pascrell cosponsored of the Democratic proposal which would have increased the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next two years.  In addition to the poison pill tax increases (totaling $800 billion over ten years), the Republican proposal sought to increase the minimum wage over three years. 

Pascrell, a staunch advocate for a true livable wage stated: “Over this last decade while the minimum wage has remained stagnant, the cost of basic necessities such as energy and healthcare have skyrocketed--meaning that the minimum wage is no longer a livable wage.  Today a minimum wage earner has to work a day and a half just to pay for a full tank of gas.  That is simply shameful! As Americans we have always been told that if you have a job, and you work hard, you will have a secure future in our nation.  Yet, millions of Americans who do have jobs and who do work hard everyday have joined the ranks of the ‘working-poor.’”

A bipartisan majority in Congress had pushed the Republican Leadership for weeks to allow a vote on the minimum wage with Democrats demanding that any vote on the minimum wage not include any poison pill provisions.  “Members of this body should be allowed a straight up-or-down vote on legislation to raise the minimum wage to a true livable wage of $7.25/hour over the next two years.  But instead the Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives has chosen to play dirty politics and attach poison pill provisions to this legislation with the implicit expectation of killing a real minimum wage increase.  It is a slap in the face for working class Americans,” concluded Pascrell.

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