What would the US Senate be without Elizabeth Warren? She's a national treasure.

WARREN: If we started in 1960 and we said that, as productivity goes up -- that is, as workers are producing more -- then the minium wage was going to go up the same. And if that were the case, the minimum wage today would be about $22 an hour. So my question, Mr. Dube, if the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, what happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn't go to the worker.

No, it didn't. But the best part is when she very coolly schools a business owner, David Rutigliano, who walks right into her trap.

WARREN: During my Senate campaign, I ate a number 11 at McDonald’s many, many times a week. I know the price on that. $7.19. According to the data on the analysis of what would happen if we raised the minimum wage to $10.10 over three years, the price increase on that item would be about four cents. So instead of being $7.19 it would be $7.23. Are you telling me that’s unsustainable?

BUSINESS OWNER DAVID RUTIGLIANO: Senator Warren, not all restaurants are created equal. I’m in a full service restaurant business. McDonalds has efficiencies and they operate completely differently than I do. I have many jobs, many jobs that pay well above minimum wage. We have a retirement plan. We offer health insurance to our salaried employees. So my business is a little different. I can’t raise a four cent price. I mean I don’t have, I don’t operate like a fast food restaurant. I would hope you appreciate the distinction.

WARREN: I do appreciate the distinction and I’m not going to be in the business of being a McDonald’s representatives but they would talk about having some higher paid jobs and some opportunities for management and advancement as well. But I get your point, maybe it’s only four cents on $7.19. But if your entrees are $14.40 we’ll see how fast I can do the math — are you telling me you can’t raise your prices by eight cents?

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News reports from a variety of places -- and my own personal report-backs from participants at yesterday’s progressive organization leaders meeting at the White House -- indicate that the President is signaling loudly that he will stand strong on at least some of the very highest priority things that progressives care the most about in the fiscal showdown talks.

He continues to demand that the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 go up; he said yesterday in the progressives meeting that Social Security was “off the table”; and he said that while he believes there can be Medicare and Medicaid savings from a variety of administrative methods, that he had no intention of cutting benefits. We don’t know how all of this is going to end up, but right now at least, the President has decided that in unity there is strength.

This doesn't come as a big surprise to me. In a conversation a couple of months back with a senior White House official, we were talking about the fiscal showdown politics, and I was emphasizing that there would be a serious civil war in the Democratic Party if Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were cut -- that our side wasn't going to back down on this fight. His response was that the Obama team had learned from the past that the administration was in a far stronger position if they were unified with progressives, that they felt that was when they had gotten things done and had been in stronger political shape than when they had tried to triangulate things.

Now, before you get too excited about that statement or take it as gospel, keep in mind something I learned early when I worked in the Clinton White House: There is no one White House political strategy or philosophy about how to do things. There are a lot of different players in a White House, and almost always several different views on how to get things done or play things out. I’m sure there are still people in that building who think it is smart politics to pick fights with the base, or who wish the “professional left” would just go away. But I do believe that there is a clear trend in the White House toward thinking it is better for Democrats to be unified in policy fights with the Republicans, simply because they keep getting rewarded politically when they are.

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