Sununu's Minimum Wage Magic Trick: Death by Amendment

by: Dean Barker

Sat Jan 27, 2007 at 11:09:14 AM EST

No place like the Senate to hide your true intentions in parliamentary tricks, and our Johnny is nothing if not cunning.  I mean, look at the rabbit of "I'm a moderate!" good press he pulled out of his free market radical hat:

The Senate voted 54-43 in favor of a proposal that came out of the House to increase the wage from $5.15 to $7.25 without a tax relief package, but that was six votes short of the necessary 60 to keep it going.

In Sununu's case, voting with the minority kept alive his amendment to preserve funding for the Women's Business Centers, like the one in Portsmouth.

"I was protecting New Hampshire's interests in voting as I did, and will continue to do so," he said Wednesday through his office. "I have voted before for legislation that combines an increase in the minimum wage with provisions that help New Hampshire's small businesses, and will do so again when this bill is adopted next week."

There's only one problem with this rosy scenario: it's utterly dishonest, and Senator Kennedy cued us into this this when he lost his temper dealing with these "death by amendment" tricks.

Click on There's More:

If you don't want to believe Kennedy, then you only have to go one step further, to something noticed by no one except blogger Bob Geiger (h/t elwood) , namely, that Sununu (and Gregg) voted in favor of an amendment that would actually eliminate the federal minimum wage altogether.

It's pretty amazing when you can show your true free market extremist colors at the same time that newspapers are trumpeting your support for women's business centers.  That, my friends, is a magic trick of the highest order.

What a shame blogs are around to look behind the curtain and spoil the fun.

p.s. And for his next trick, ladies and gents: look to Johnny to pull similar nonsense with the Iraq escalation.  He'll vote in favor of a Republican-authored non-binding resolution next week, which will never make it, and then he can walk away proud at having supported McCain's Bushcalation while at the same time trumpeting in the press his opposition to it. This is the new M.O., it appears, of the endangered members of the minority.