WASHINGTON — Senate and House negotiators have begun the difficult task of reconciling two emergency war supplemental bills that would also raise the federal hourly minimum wage for the first time in 10 years to $7.25 from $5.15.
The Senate narrowly approved a $122 billion measure Thursday that would finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but President Bush said he would veto both bills because they include deadlines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
Bush invited House Republicans to the White House shortly before the Senate vote and said, “Yesterday, I gave a speech making it clear that I’ll veto a bill that restricts our commanders on the ground in Iraq, a bill that doesn’t fund our troops, a bill that’s got too much spending on it.”
The Senate had passed an amendment to the emergency spending legislation on Tuesday that would increase the minimum wage to $7.25 over two years and provide over $12.2 billion in tax provisions to small businesses. The House passed the same minimum-wage hike and a smaller package of tax cuts in its war supplemental bill.
“America’s workers are waiting for their pay raise,” Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), a co-sponsor of the original wage bill, said in a statement Thursday. “The supplemental spending bill may hit some hurdles, but it’s the fastest train rolling through Dodge right now, and it’s the place to move forward on minimum wage. This should move the House and Senate to hammer out a final agreement that’s right for workers and fair to the small businesses that employ them.”
A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Thursday that conference committee talks on the emergency supplemental are already under way at the staff level.
As for the minimum-wage increase, he said, “There is an opportunity to get it through conference and to the president’s desk,” as part of the war supplemental. “That is one track. The other track is to have a minimum-wage bill that goes directly to the president, so there are really two tracks at this time, and her position is there should be a minimum-wage increase.”
Earlier this year, the House and Senate passed separate minimum-wage bills that have languished because negotiators failed to make progress in convening a committee to iron out differences on the tax-break issue. The House first passed a minimum wage bill that did not include the tax breaks.