[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3494-H3495]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       INCREASE THE MINIMUM WAGE

  (Mr. VOLKMER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, if Newt Gingrich and the radical right 
Republicans want to do something for the working poor, then let us have 
a minimum wage bill. Yesterday some of their Members stood in the well 
on that side and said, ``Well, we have already proposed to take care of 
the working poor through our tax bill that we passed last year, and the 
President vetoed it.''
  Nothing is further from the truth. There is not one penny, not one 
penny, in that tax bill for the working poor. You take a two-wage 
earner family with two children, both working at minimum wage. They do 
not pay any taxes. There is nothing in your tax bill that helps them.
  The only way that we can help the working poor get out of poverty, 
the only way we can help people get off welfare, is to increase the 
minimum wage.
  Why, Mr. Speaker, do you and the radical right Republicans refuse to 
permit the Democrats to bring a minimum wage bill to this floor? I say 
to you, let us do it now.

[[Page H3495]]



                   AMERICANS PAYING TOO MUCH IN TAXES

  (Mr. BAKER of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BAKER of California. Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker apparently 
forgot the Bill Clinton tax increase, 4.3 cents in the gas tax. Did he 
forget that? That is on the working poor. How about taxing Social 
Security benefits of those people who had sense enough to save with 
$35,000 a year income each year?--$35,000, a couple, and they tax 85 
percent of your Social Security benefits that you paid 16 percent of 
your payroll in each year of your working life. That is what Clinton 
has done for you.
  Mr. Speaker, each day millions of Americans wake up early, get 
dressed, kiss their families good-bye and go to work. They then spend 
the next 2 hours 47 minutes working for the Federal Government to pay 
their taxes. That is more time than they spend working to feed, clothe, 
and earn money for their family's housing.
  Mr. Speaker, this is an outrage. When American families are spending 
more time working for the Government than they do supporting their own 
families, something is wrong. Americans deserve to keep more, not less 
of their own income for their own families, and Congress should be 
doing everything we can to get this Government off their backs.

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