[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 50 (Thursday, April 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE WILL NOT CAUSE INFLATION IN AMERICA

  (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FLAKE. I find it the height of hypocrisy when Members of this 
body making $113,000 a year stand before the United States of America 
and proclaim that persons who are making $4.25 an hour, if we move it 
beyond $5, that will cause inflation in America.
  Let me tell my colleagues what causes inflation in America. The 
hundreds of people who are CEO's of major corporations collecting 
millions of dollars, getting their golden parachutes and moving out to 
their various places, moving jobs outside this country so that they can 
benefit by low wages from persons who are not Americans and yet 
shipping back to America the products they produce and selling them at 
the highest possible price.
  If we want to talk about who deserves it, it is not the persons who 
are at the top but the persons at the bottom, many of them working 
every day still impoverished. How can we justify this in a Nation where 
we dare to export our democracy?
  We should be ashamed of ourselves. We should talk more fairly about 
all of our citizens and how we can bring them up. We cannot do it by 
giving to those at the top and taking from those at the bottom. I hope 
that our Congress will realize this and the American citizens will 
realize the game that is being played.

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