John: Thank you for your thoughtful comments in this article. Hopefully you took note of my "not-so-simple" caveat.

To put a bill that only says "The minimum wage is $15 an hour" will require almost the same amount of legislative resources to introduce, deliberate, and decide as as 50-issue omnibus bill. Putting that one-issue bill will mean other bills cannot be introduced.

Because of the difficulty working bills through the process, there is great incentive for the generators of the bill to attain its passage. If the bill fails, this means other bills could have been introduced to accomplish something.

So things are indeed not that simple. F. Fukuyama calls the USA Congress a "veto-arcracy". It is so difficult to get things done.

I wasn't following that closely, but i think the $15 wage was part of the stimulus package. It was removed before the package was formally introduced because had it remained, enough D's would have scuttled the entire stimulus packaging.

What the USA has (and we in Canada to a lesser extent) are 18th century legislative processes that have become obsolete for the 21st century. We may wish for "the good old days" when bipartisanship was normal. But that is mostly wishful thinking.

As you know, I am advocating a new democracy. Part of this democracy will reworking how legislation is introduced, deliberated, and decided. The TDG won't require 700 rules to decide whether the national minimum wage is $15.

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The upper middle class may be sympathetic to the plight of the working poor. But will they fight for the working poor?

And even if they are sympathetic, it is still hard for them to hold their elected representatives accountable in this manner, giving the byzantine nature of making new laws. Can you imagine a politicians saying "I was in favor of a $15 wage, but other politicians were threatening to scuttle the entire stimulus package. It was not practical to fight too hard."

I'm sure the working poor will understand.

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Maybe I'm getting an inspiration is formulating for a new Medium article. Thanks again.