Date: 2006-07-12
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. and Members of the House. we are down to a very critical point. We are down to a point whether or not this Chamber. the House of Representatives. the Peoples House as it is known. whether or not we will represent the people or whether we will represent narrow special interests that have a huge economic interest in keeping the minimum wage at the 1997 level of $5.15 an hour. [] 1230 That is a decision that we have to make. We have been trying now for a number of years to force a vote on theminimum wage. I find it rather interesting that the Republicans. who control the Senate. control the House. control the White House. cannot find the time and the place. although apparently they are now sort of for it. to find the time and the place where we could have a vote on the minimum wage. What is wrong with your leadership? Name the time. name the place. We will be there with our votes. And if your leadership will not cooperate. come on down and sign a discharge petition. Mr. BOEHLERT and others who are supporting the minimum wage. come on down and sign a discharge petition. and then we will be assured that the American people will "get the vote that they strongly desire to have. Over 80 percent of the American people believe that raising the minimum wage from the 1997 wage level of $5.15 to. today. of $7.25 an hour is. in fact. the right thing to do. the fair thing to do. and the moral thing to do. The only thing that prevents that from happening is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. Even the Senate allowed a vote to take place. but only in the Senate can you pass something by a majority vote. It got 52 votes. a bipartisan vote. and it still does not pass because they say you have got to get 60 votes. But in the House you cannot even get that vote. You cannot even get that vote. We had a vote in the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis. The members of that committee voted to increase the minimum wage. Under the leadership of Mr. HOYER and Mr. OBEY. they voted to increase the minimum wage. Since that has happened. that bill has been prevented from coming to the floor of the House of Representatives where we could vote. up or down. on increasing the minimum wage. So. apparently. this time and place that the Republicans say they are prepared to go is a mystery to everyone. Maybe we could have a national contest like they are doing for the Johnny Depps pirates movie. We could bury the time and the place somewhere in the United States. and we could let people decide and play a game and try to figure out where it is. Where is that time and place? Is it in the gentlemans district in California? Is it in my district? We all know where that time and place is. The time is now and the place is the House of Representatives on the floor of the Congress of the United States. That is where we are supposed to be doing. the peoples business. There is nothing else in this country that is at 1997 levels. not gasoline. not bread. not milk. Do you know what else is not at 1997 levels. where the Congress found the time and the place? Do you want to know what else is not at 1997 levels? Congressional pay. Because we found six times and six places to give ourselves the costofliving increase while we insisted that the lowest paid people in this country could not have more than $5.15 an hour. the same wage they were making in 1997. Apparently. it wasnt good enough for Congress. so we increased our COLA. I agree with that increase. but think about the message and the morality that you are reflecting when you cannot reach back. after we receive these COLAs. and say to these people who are struggling to support their families. Here. let us give you a hand. let us help you. you have made that decision to participate in the American economic system by going to work every day. But somehow this Congress just does not value their work. We give tax breaks to CEOs. A guy at Exxon walks out after several years with $400 million in guaranteed pension benefits. $400 million. He made more money brushing his teeth than people make on the minimum wage all year long. What is the justice of this? What is the equity of this? What is the fairness of this? It cannot be what America is about. about the intentional decision by the Republican leadership that 6 million American people will simply be poor. and they will be relegated to the class of poverty and they will be there by edict of the Federal law. The Federal law will keep them in poverty. We ought to also tell the taxpayers that when you make that decision. you are also making the taxpayers of this country part of their employment because when they work at those poverty wages. the taxpayers pay for the school lunches and they pay for the housing and they pay for the healthcare and they payfor the utility bills when it is cold and when it is hot. We end up subsidizing those employers who -insist that they cannot make a profit unless they pay 1997 wages. Let me tell you something about those employers. They are not long for this world because there is something very wrong with their business plan that they can only succeed if they pay 1997 wages. Think about that. Think about what you are embracing. You are embracing an economic model that says that success is dependent upon being able to pay forever 1997 wages to my employees. Have we lost our minds here? Do we understand the injustice of this? Again. these are people working 40 hours a week every day. They drive mostly old cars that consume more gas that costs them more to commute to that job. They still do it. America has already said it. It is just the Congress. just the Republican leadership. America says. give these people a raise. They know that struggle. They know that struggle. They know it themselves. Middleclass people know what it means to drive up to a station today and say. Fill it up. Most people do not say. Fill it up. They say. How much do I need to get to Friday? That is what they say to themselves. Well. think about what poor people are thinking. We value work. We changed the welfare laws to encourage people to go to work. Should we not encourage them to get out of poverty? Should we not help them to get out of poverty instead of sticking them at 1997 levels? This is fundamental. This vote is fundamental. This debate is fundamental. And the time and the place to have it is now in the halls of the Congress of the United States. We cannot continue to have a Republican leadership that says. this is not right. that is not right. this is not the bill. this is not the subject matter. Just bring us a bill. Let us vote up or down. You have the majority. You control it. Either you believe in the dignity of these people. in the dignity of their children. in the dignity of their work. or you dont. because you cannot have that and then insist upon these wages. I ask for an "aye" vote on the motion to instruct.