Bob Wise: “I want to vote on the minimum wage. In this place, the Congress sometimes never fails to amaze me. Just when I think I…”

“I want to vote on the minimum wage. In this place, the Congress sometimes never fails to amaze me. Just when I think I am getting the hang of how things operate, it always pops up and does just the reverse. I thought that because of statements made by Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich in previous remarks, I thought that there would be a vote in this House on this House floor for raising minimum wage, a minimum wage that has not been raised since 1989 and is at its lowest point in buying power in 40 years. I thought there might be an opportunity, and that is what I said today in a news statement. I thought there would be a opportunity for the 110,000 folks in West Virginia that would see an increase if this minimum wage increase went through, 17 percent of all jobs on the payroll. I thought there would be a chance for them to have a little more takehome pay. But what I learned today is, in this joint statement of the Speaker and the Republican majority leader, that is not to be. There is not to be a vote on the minimum wage, they say; instead there is to be a reform package.”