Majority Maker Freshmen
Floor Speech
MAJORITY MAKER FRESHMEN -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2007)
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Mr. HODES. I thank you both for being here tonight to talk about what is really a critical issue, the increase in the minimum wage which took effect on July 24, 2007, so we are actually celebrating it tonight.
It is not just an important economic issue that will affect nearly 13 million people across this country, 5.3 million people who will directly benefit immediately and 7.2 million people who will indirectly benefit as a result of a new wage floor, but it is an example of what we are taking on really as a moral imperative in this new Congress. Because when you think about waiting 10 years for a rise in the minimum wage, Madam Speaker and my friends, you cannot imagine how, in a period of growing income inequality, those who need a reasonable minimum wage the most have been left behind so much.
I have next to me a chart which has a mathematical equation about what has happened in terms of our national debt over the past few years. And what you can see is that, from 2001 to 2006, we have had a huge increase in the national debt. In other words, we as a Nation have gone deeper and deeper into debt as we have borrowed to make ends meet.
So I want to set the context for the importance of this minimum wage, because while we as a Nation have borrowed to make ends meet for things like our war and tax breaks for those at the very top, we have had growing income inequality.
The three of us are on the Financial Services Committee, and recently we held some hearings with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, and we discussed a startling new report that was put out by a group called Financial Services Forum. The Financial Services Forum is a Wall Street group that was dealing with the effects of globalization and income inequality, and they pointed out some startling statistics.
One of the things they pointed out is that, over the past 5 or 6 years, corporate profits in this country have doubled. Corporate profits have doubled, and productivity is way up. And what that means is people are working much, much harder to make corporate productivity and corporate profits go up, but where have those benefits gone?
What we have learned in this report which was prepared by Wall Street CEOs is that the benefits have largely gone to the top 3 percent in this country, and that 97 percent of people in this country, including highly educated people, from folks who are making an awful lot of dough, you would think, people with college educations, master's degrees, even Ph.D.s, right down to the lowest rungs, for 97 percent, over the past 5 years, real wages, real income have slipped. So 3 percent have made out, and for 97 percent real wages have gone down.
Now, what does that mean for those at the very lowest rungs of the economic ladder? It means that those who have been getting along with $5.15 as a minimum wage, their real earning power has slipped even faster. As prices have gone up for gas, just to put gas in your car to get to your minimum-wage job, you have to work a whole day.
So what we have done, what we have done here in the Democratic Congress finally, after 10 long years, is to honor those who work hard, honor those who play by the rules, honor those who need just a little bit of economic fairness, and help bring them up to the benefit of everybody in society, because as we raise the minimum wage, folks can now afford to be part of our society. They can afford to go out and maybe go out to a movie. They can afford to go out and buy that pair of eyeglasses or get that haircut or do something for their kids that they weren't able to do before. And that helps us all.
So I am very proud, as a new Member of Congress, to have made good on the pledge that we talked about during our campaigns, to come to Congress and make sure that as one of the first and most important things we did, we would raise the minimum wage. So it is a great day.
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Mr. HODES. Mr. Ellison, it's a great question because what we've got today in America really is a large body of people, 37 million people, mainly, who are working poor. These are folks who, a lot of them are single parents; many of them happen to be single moms. And a lot of the folks, the working poor in this country who are struggling to make ends meet, are not just working one job. They're working two jobs; they're working three jobs to make ends meet. They generally are without health insurance, many of them. They don't have people to help take care of their kids. They struggle every day.
And I just want to expand on some of the points that Mr. Klein made, because as we moved in Congress to appropriate money for the Labor and Health and Human Services portion of the budget, it's important for the American people to understand that we did so in an absolutely fiscally responsible way, and to understand that we are making investments in America's future.
The President, in his budget, proposed cutting Health and Human Services and education programs by $7.6 billion below 2007, after adjusting for inflation. We knew that we had to come and make fiscally responsible investments in our future. So we rejected the President's damaging cuts, and we proposed a very modest increase, about 3 percent over 2007, after adjusting for inflation, so that our final bill was still $2.9 billion below the 2005 level for the appropriations for Health and Human Services and Education. So we actually came in below where we were a couple of years ago, and we did it in a way that is responsible because we adopted PAYGO provisions. We have to balance any increase with a responsible cut in another area. So we're being fiscally responsible in the overall picture.
And some of the things we did for the working poor are really important. One of the important things we did was we started to address the problem of 47.7 million uninsured people in this country. And we expanded access to health care for the uninsured. And we did that by funding several initiatives to provide health care for more than 2 million uninsured Americans. For instance, our bill provides $200 million, or 10 percent, more than 2007, and the President's request for community health centers enabling these centers to serve an additional 1 million uninsured Americans.
We also included $50 million for an initiative to assist States in providing high-risk insurance pools to support affordable insurance for almost 200,000 people who are medically high risk. So we are beginning to move
in a big way on health care, which is a vital economic and national interest, especially for the working poor in this country.
I'll throw it back to you.
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Mr. HODES. Well, you know, I'm glad to be here even though it's late at night. We're working hard for folks, and one of the things I think that's important for the American people to understand is that we have taken the task of reversing drastic cuts to important programs that have gone on under this President and the Republican Congress for many years. And we're doing it in a way that is fiscally responsible. We've introduced pay-as-you-go rules so that when we expand in one area, we're going to make sure that we're matching it with appropriate cuts in other areas. It's a vital, vitally important new thing that we're doing here in this Congress to make sure that we are stewards of the public trust, and that we are taking care of the people's money, we're not just pending it willy-nilly.
Now, unfortunately, we're dealing with a President who threatens vetoes, who has proposed drastic cuts in programs that are important investments for all Americans whether it's Community Development Block Grants or the HOPE VI program or section 8 or any program that really helps bring those at the lower levels up into the middle class and helps those in the middle class. This President has proposed to veto and he's proposed drastic cuts. We understand that we're going to make the right kind of investments to move this country forward. So I'm very proud of what we're doing.
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