Breaking: Senate rejects attempt to pass minimum wage hike …

… without the inclusion of additional tax cuts. Good for them! It’s a only partial victory against the minimum wage, but we should take them where we can get them these days.

The battle over this bill should be interesting, as Republicans who really don’t want to raise the min. wage do battle with Dems who are against tax cuts.

Haven’t found a link to the story yet, but got the news alert from MSNBC just a few seconds ago.

Update: Story here:

WASHINGTON – Democrats’ promise of a quick increase in the minimum wage ran aground Wednesday in the Senate, where lawmakers are insisting it include new tax breaks for restaurants and other businesses that rely on low-pay workers.

On a 54-43 vote, liberals lost an effort to advance a House-passed bill that would lift the pay floor from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour without any accompanying tax cut. Opponents of the tax cut needed 60 votes to prevail.

The vote sent a message to House Democrats and liberals in the Senate that only a hybrid tax and minimum wage package could succeed in the Senate. But any tax breaks in the bill would put the Senate on a collision course with the House, which is required by the Constitution to initiate tax measures.

Not so good news:

In a separate vote, the Senate also effectively killed a modified line-item veto bill. The Republican-inspired measure would have permitted a president to pluck individual items out of spending bills and submit them to Congress for a vote.

In other words, Senate Democrats are still in favor of porky earmarks, contrary to their pre-election promises. Surprise surprise.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had this to say in response to the defeat of the Gregg amendment:

“Democrats campaigned for the last two years on reform, yet blocked a commonsense measure designed to do just that. Twenty Democrats currently in the Senate supported a similar measure when it was proposed in 1995, yet today they refused to allow even a simple yes-or-no vote. Americans demanded reform and we owe it to them. If we are going to continue to pass real reforms, we must put politics aside and get to work.”