House Republicans Unanimously Vote Down Minimum Wage Hike

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't know what those Democrats were thinking.  Do they honestly think voting for it would've been a strike against their reelection chances?

In Barrow's case, yes.  His district will remain a GOP target for probably as long as he holds it.  Also, $7.25 to $10.10 is a rather steep increase in the minimum wage.  A more modest increase, in the range of $8 to $9 would gain more votes, tho probably not enough to pass in the current House.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Meanwhile, in the real world

A hike to $9 is not the same as a hike to over $10.  Heck, even an increase to $9.90 would have been much more palatable politically.  Looks to me that the sponsor of that amendment deliberately chose a figure over $10 in hopes of getting no Republicans to vote for it, a hope that was realized.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Wouldn't a minimum wage hike reduce the deficit significantly?  Less people would qualify for food stamps and medicaid and they'd receive smaller tax refunds.

That assumes that a wage hike would not impact jobs, which it certainly would, tho the extent and timing of that impact is of considerable debate.  Despite what opebo and possibly memphis think, it certainly is possible to raise the minimum wage too high, of which the most recent prominent example is what happened to the tuna canning industry in American Samoa when the Democrats insisted on implementing the Federal minimum wage there over the objections of the people there.  Tho to be fair, the increase in the minimum wage that was inflicted on American Samoa would be more like raising the current US minimum wage to $20/hr than to $10/hr.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Wouldn't a minimum wage hike reduce the deficit significantly?  Less people would qualify for food stamps and medicaid and they'd receive smaller tax refunds.

That assumes that a wage hike would not impact jobs, which it certainly would, tho the extent and timing of that impact is of considerable debate.  Despite what opebo and possibly memphis think, it certainly is possible to raise the minimum wage too high, of which the most recent prominent example is what happened to the tuna canning industry in American Samoa when the Democrats insisted on implementing the Federal minimum wage there over the objections of the people there.  Tho to be fair, the increase in the minimum wage that was inflicted on American Samoa would be more like raising the current US minimum wage to $20/hr than to $10/hr.

Come on ernest, that's not a very good example - America itself has no export dependent or import-substitution industries, only service jobs. 

Service jobs are quite capable of being outsourced overseas, as is evident to anyone who has called an Indian staffed tech support line. They can also be replaced by automation if the price of labor goes too high.  Even higher paying service jobs are not immune.  While the current glut of lawyers was in large part caused by the expansion in law schools, corporations choosing to have their routine legal document work handled by cheap foreign lawyers instead of American ones also contributed.  Computer programming is another field where cheaper foreign labor is being substituted.  (Not always by companies. There was a recent story about an American programmer who was fired when it was found he had hired a Chinese programmer to do his work for him while he surfed the internet at his job.  His employer was not happy about him giving his subcontractor his security clearances.)