[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 23 (Monday, February 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1213-H1214]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             WELFARE REFORM AND INCREASING THE MINIMUM WAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, as the prior gentleman in the well was 
talking about, this is a week where we are really going to be focusing 
on the budget. But I think there is an awful lot of other issues as we 
all sit down as Americans around the budget table and try and figure 
out how we get our budget under control.
  The first thing that strikes me is that tomorrow night, February 7, 
there is going to be a dinner in this town, and they are going to 
charge $50,000 a plate for the Speaker. That is an awful lot of money.
  While that dinner is going on, many of us are trying to increase the 
minimum wage. But let us think about how many minimum wage people are 
going to be at that dinner. I do not think 
 [[Page H1214]] there is going to be any there eating the dinner. There 
may be some serving the dinner because a minimum wage employee, if they 
work full time an 8-hour day throughout the year would make $10,500. 
And that would not get them even to the hors d'oeuvre course if they 
took their whole year's salary and put it there.
  A $50,000-a-plate dinner and the minimum wage and the Federal budget, 
how do we bring all of that together, because the issue in the budget 
is what we spend our money on, and who we think has the greatest claim 
to getting Federal attention.
  My guess is most of the people who buy those dinners have something 
they want. It just does not pass the straight face test to say, oh no, 
they paid $50,000 for dinner because they believe in good government or 
they wanted a decent meal. No, no, I think they want something. And I 
think we know what they want. They probably want some little tax 
benefit.
  One of the things that we have done over and over again is we talk 
about spending programs, but we never talk about the fact that special 
tax benefits to individuals are also spending much, because we are 
taking money away that would be coming in.
  We had last week on this floor a very important amendment pointing to 
that when we talked about the line-item veto. We said not only should 
the President be able to line item veto spending that looked like pork, 
but the President should be able to line item veto any special tax 
privileges.
  Guess what? That lost. So I guess the dinner is going on because 
people still figure that is a possibility if they go to their dinner.
  But I think when we look at America and when we look at our long 
historic tradition we have felt that there should be room in the budget 
for those who need the most help. That is how families do it. When 
American families sit around the table and they are in tough times they 
do not cut the kids out first, for heaven's sake, they do not say we 
will drop education first because they happen to think that is an 
investment. They tend to look at the parts of the budget that really 
are going to those who are best off in the family. And yet, somehow, 
because of how we collect revenues to run for office and everything 
else, we tend to distort our budget priorities.
  Think how many people who get the minimum wage can make much of a 
campaign contribution. If you make $10,500 a year, what kind of 
campaign contribution do you think you could make? How many fancy 
dinners do you think you can go to? What kind of clout do you think you 
are going to have in Washington trying to bring your case to the table? 
Does your case have to be traded off with balancing it for those who 
are the most well off?
  We now understand there is a new deal on the table, and that is maybe 
people will go along with the minimum wage increase if we can have a 
capital gains cut. I am not sure we are ever going to get to balancing 
the budget if we continue to do that, saying we just absolutely cannot 
do anything for those who are struggling along on the lowest rung 
unless we continue to do things for those who are on the upper rungs 
because otherwise I do not know what rich people will do. Maybe they 
will just get mad and not give money to campaigns anymore. Would that 
not be a terrible thing?
  So, I think as we look at all of these issues that are floating 
around out there, I hope everybody listens to several very key things. 
No. 1, we have to stop kidding people we are going solve the deficit by 
finding some waste, fraud, and abuse. Anywhere we find waste, fraud, 
and abuse, sure, cut it, just cut out the tea tasters and those things, 
but we know that is not going to balance the budget. We have to do some 
other thing too and let us think about our very core priorities as we 
get to that.


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