Where The Rubber Meets The Road (2/9/07)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

(Again, barely worth the trouble this week; I hope these jokers are earning their salaries.)

House

2007 budget. The House passed, 286-140, and sent to the Senate $463.5 billion in fiscal 2007 appropriations for departments and agencies that have not yet received regular annual budgets. The continuing resolution (H.J.R. 20) would fund nine appropriations bills that the 109th Congress left unfinished.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.) and H. James Saxton (R., N.J.).

By the way, to read more about the nine appropriations bills that the happy-now-departed 109th Congress refused to pass, click here (as the Chronicle story notes, the two bills passed and signed into law by Dubya pertained to the military and homeland security).

And here’s a pop quiz; who said that failing to pass the appropriations bills was “shameful”?

a) Nancy Pelosi
b) Harry Reid
c) Jack Kingston
d) Robert Byrd

The answer is c) Repug Jack Kingston of Georgia. Kudos to him for his honesty (and Joe Pitts is clueless yet again).

Senate

Minimum wage. The Senate passed, 94-3, a bill to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour over 26 months. The measure (H.R. 2), which also would provide $8.3 billion in tax breaks to help small businesses pay the higher wage, goes to conference with the House.

All Philadelphia-area senators voted for the bill.

And by the way, the three numbskulls who voted no (as you can see here) were Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Jon Kyl of Arizona (and I don’t need to mention their political party, do I?).

This week, the House voted on a bill to develop alternative fuels and low-sulfur diesel fuel; the Senate considered nonbinding measures disapproving of President Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq.