Trying to break a House-Senate stalemate over competing minimum wage bills, Rep. Charlie Rangel is planning on moving a bill with $1 billion in business tax breaks, separate from the minimum wage bill, according to CQ Today.

That’s much smaller than the $8.3 billion handout in the Senate minimum wage bill.

And, keeping the bills separate would at least symbolically keep the minimum wage bill clean — re-establishing a precedent that wage raises for the working class do not need to be directly tied to favors for the business class.

This doesn’t immediately resolve the dispute, but it does appear we’re moving in the direction of a compromise.