Hope is not a plan.
“We don’t have a clear answer on what that looks like at this point,” she said at today’s briefing about hiking the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, after Senate Dems gave up on including it in Biden’s COVID package. “It just remains a commitment and something [the president] will use his political capital to get done.” Will he? How, exactly? Because that sounds like an empty promise being made which Psaki knows the White House can’t keep but which she’s hoping will earn them credit from the left for good intentions. I can think of five ways in which they might conceivably get the votes they need in the Senate for a standalone bill for a $15 minimum wage, and they’re all unlikely. But first, watch Psaki at this afternoon’s presser:.@GeoffRBennett: Why push for Neera Tanden’s confirmation and not push as hard, one could say, for raising the minimum wage? JEN PSAKI: I think that’s mixing a few things kind of irresponsibly, if I’m being totally honest pic.twitter.com/rcrhwu25OT Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 1, 2021 They can’t give up on the idea formally since there’ll be hell to pay among a lefty base that was counting on them if they do. And Dems know it: Frustration has escalated to anger in some progressive circles, with elected officials and activists becoming increasingly antsy about the prospect of actually passing a chief campaign pledge. Where there was once optimism and urgency around a consensus Democratic issue, the latter emotion has become distinctly more pronounced. For weeks, the chance for a national pay raise dangled amid arcane congressional intrigue… “If you’ll pardon my language, we’re done f***ing around,” said a source close to the White House who has been in touch with senior administration officials about the wage discussions. “This is a dealbreaker issue. What we need to see is that the administration is going to the wall with everything it has politically, exhausted all democratic means necessary, to deliver.”… “We can’t just go out there and promise people things and then not deliver,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has been a staunch advocate of the $15 proposal and nothing less. “In two years if we go out and tell people why we didn’t pass the minimum wage, saying ‘the parliamentarian wouldn’t let us do it’ is really not going to cut it,” she told The Daily Beast on Thursday, shortly before the news became public.
