Republicans block Sanders's minimum wage amendment

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked an amendment to the GOP budget that called for increasing the minimum wage.
 
The amendment offered by Sen. Bernie SandersBernard (Bernie) SandersThe Memo: Tide turns on Kavanaugh Election Countdown: Trump confident about midterms in Hill.TV interview | Kavanaugh controversy tests candidates | Sanders, Warren ponder if both can run | Super PACs spending big | Two states open general election voting Friday | Latest Senate polls READ: President Trump’s exclusive interview with Hill.TV MORE (I-Vt.) failed in a 48-52 vote.
 

The amendment would have created a deficit neutral reserve fund, essentially a budgetary placeholder, that "promoted a substantial increase in the minimum wage."
 
It did not specify how high the federal minimum wage, which now sits at $7.25, should be raised.
 
"Since 1968, the real value of the federal minimum wage has fallen by close to 30 percent," Sanders, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, said ahead of the vote. "Let us stand today with the tens of millions of workers who are struggling to put food on the table, to take care of their families. Let us raise the minimum wage."
 
Sen. Mike EnziMichael (Mike) Bradley EnziCruz gets help from Senate GOP in face of serious challenge from O’Rourke Budget chairs press appropriators on veterans spending Forcing faith-based agencies out of the system is a disservice to women MORE (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Budget Committee, said that the budget wasn't the place for Sanders's amendment.

"This isn’t the proper place for this, it can be done as regular legislation at any time," he said.
The Wyoming Republican called the minimum wage the “training wage."