[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 22, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H5385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AMERICANS DEMAND A CLEAN MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE

  (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to follow my 
colleague from Georgia talking about that. If he had his way, we would 
still be 25 cents an hour from 1938. That was the first minimum wage.
  After months of blocking attempts to increase the minimum wage, the 
House Republicans are finally going to allow us to have a vote. But my 
colleagues should not be fooled by this sham. It is not an increase, it 
is actually a cut. It is exempting millions of workers from the minimum 
wage.
  This bill only will attach special interest provisions to exempt 
those millions from minimum wage. Eighty percent of the American people 
support an increase in the minimum wage, but the Republicans want it 
without the gimmicks of the exemptions for restaurant workers, the 
exemptions for computer operators, the exemptions they are providing.
  They are actually taking people off the minimum wage benefit. That is 
what this sham is about. They do not really want a minimum wage. Just 
continue to listen to them. They do not want an increase in the minimum 
wage. They do not want a minimum wage. They want everybody to work for 
a quarter an hour.

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