I am often asked what effect the change of congressional
majority from Republicans to Democrats has had on NRCA's agenda, and my answer is,
"Not much yet." Democrats are finding it is difficult to muster the
218 votes needed to pass legislation in the House, more difficult
to generate the 60 votes needed in the Senate and extremely
difficult to convince the president to sign legislation.
Perhaps no issue reflects the potential for such gridlock more
than the Democrats' inability to raise the federal minimum
wage. NRCA does not
lobby on this issue because construction industry pay is
substantially higher than the minimum wage. But NRCA is monitoring the tax package
added to the wage hike because its provisions could affect
NRCA members.
The House passed a clean minimum wage increase Jan. 10 and sent
it to the Senate. On Jan. 31, the Senate added $8.3 billion in
small-business tax provisions to the House's wage hike bill (see
"Legislative
compromise," April issue, page 22). On Feb. 16, the House
adopted its own $1.3 billion small-business tax package to counter
the Senate's package. On March 23, the House attached its combined
wage hike and $1.3 billion tax package to HR 1591, the Iraq War
supplemental spending bill. The Senate countered this on March 27
by beefing up its tax provisions from $8 billion to $12 billion
and...
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