Raise the Wage Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I think dates matter and I think votes matter, and I think that sometimes because of where we are, this is kind of this Potomac amnesia.

We say we want to raise people's wages, we want to create jobs, we want to be able to do things that lift every single boat because that is what a rising tide does. It is not a Democrat tide; it is not a Republican tide; it is a rising tide for the American people.

I would just want to remind my colleagues, in December of 2017, not one of you was on board with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. You could not vote for it in the House; you could not vote for it in the Senate.

And we come here today and we talk about minimum wage and raising minimum wages, and I would just suggest to you that America is not about minimals. Nobody comes to America because I may get a minimum wage increase. They come to America because of maximum opportunity.

Why would we dwell on a minimum wage when you had the chance in December of 2017 to lift all boats?

Why would we turn our back on an opportunity to completely change the economy of the United States?

Why would we turn our back on workers who had not been employed for many years, and we sit today with millions of open jobs and we don't have enough workers to fill them?

And what are we talking about today? We are trying to right a wrong. We are trying to fix, somehow, a wrongheaded decision to vote against the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

And a lot of it had to do with not because we were Republicans, but because we have somebody in the White House that we just don't like; and, my God, if we do something that lifts the hopes of all Americans and the wishes of all Americans and Donald Trump gets credit for it, that just won't work in 2020.

I would ask my friends on the other side, if you really want to see America soar, stop putting roadblocks in the way. Stop standing in the way of hardworking American taxpayers who couldn't care less what your political affiliation is but watch the legislation that you pass and, more importantly, the legislation that you passed on.

I would just remind you--and I know you are going to tell me the average wages in Pennsylvania--those wages are only available if you get hired.

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