[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 100 (Tuesday, July 9, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7118-H7119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FREEDOM RALLY IN OMAHA, NE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Christensen] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CHRISTENSEN. Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to talk 
about an event we had this week in Omaha, NE, over the Fourth of July 
holiday. We celebrated what was called the Freedom Rally.
  In a day of increasing cynicism, the Freedom Rally was intended to 
bring people together in a moment of faith. It was intended to honor 
our Nation, and it was also intended to honor a very special man, 
Pastor Elmer Murdoch. Pastor Murdoch and his wife Nancy founded Trinity 
Interdenominational Church over two decades ago. That church has grown 
to the ministry size of over 3,000 people.
  The event was led by Pastor Al Toledo of Glad Tidings Church. We 
heard inspirational music by Wayne Watson and the uplifting words of 
African-American Kay James, who rose from the projects of Richmond, VA, 
to the corridors of the White House, where she last worked, and 
currently serves the State of Virginia as secretary of Health and Human 
Services there.
  The Freedom Rally was a great success. The Governor of Nebraska was 
there, the mayor, myself, local officials. It was truly a bipartisan 
event where pastors and people of all of Nebraska came and prayed 
together for our country, prayed over the elected officials. It was 
truly an inspiring opportunity for all of us.
  During that time Kay James had an opportunity to read during her 
speech a poem called ``I Am a Nation,'' which formed the central theme 
of the Freedom Rally. I would like to enter into the Record ``I Am a 
Nation.'' I do not know who it was written by, but I believe it echoes 
the sentiment of our country.
  As a nation we face tremendous challenges. We face ever mounting debt 
that is strangling our future. We face terrifying crime that is 
dominating our streets. That is why on the Fourth of July we come 
together to commit to work hard to change our country.
  We came together because we dream of the day when this country will 
no longer be spending away its children's futures. We dream of a day 
when out of control courts, and slick, rich criminal trial lawyers no 
longer seek to manipulate our justice system to free the guilty through 
legal loopholes. We want a country where children can play in parks 
again without fear and where adults can walk across those parks at 
night with ease, where working people are praised and not penalized by 
their Government. We want a country where the American dream is within 
everyone's reach.
  At the Freedom Rally, we recognized that together we can put the 
country back on the right track. Together, with prayer, we can save the 
American dream. This Fourth of July our Nation came together to 
reaffirm its belief in its founding tenets. The Freedom Rally was one 
beacon of light in that great display. It was truly a privilege and an 
honor to be there and to serve the State of Nebraska and the Second 
District as its elected representative.
  Madam Speaker, in addition to my thoughts on this past Independence 
Day weekend, today in the Senate they are discussing the minimum wage. 
I ran across a great article by a man from my district in the American 
Enterprise. Recently at a public hearing held by the Joint Economic 
Committee of the U.S. Congress, entrepreneur and Godfather chairman, 
Herman Cain, delivered an interesting argument against the minimum wage 
hike.

                              {time}  1245

  Herman Cain is probably most recognized for his taking on the Big 
Government health care, socialized health care program that Hillary and 
Bill Clinton tried to get through a couple of years ago. He took on the 
President in a debate that I think everyone recognizes as the keystone 
argument that probably defeated this bad idea to nationalize one-
seventh of our economy.
  Now Herman Cain has written this article about how forcing up the 
minimum wage hurts those who need the help the most. I would like to 
enter it into the Record, as well, so that everybody across this 
country would have an opportunity to read what Herman Cain says about 
the minimum wage.
  Madam Speaker, I include the following for the Record:

       I am a nation. I was born on July 4, 1776, and the 
     Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The 
     bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered 
     freedom to the oppressed. I am many things, and many people. 
     I am the nation.
       I am 250 million living souls--and the ghost of millions 
     who have lived and died for me.
       I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and 
     fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washington, 
     Jefferson and

[[Page H7119]]

     Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys 
     and Davy Crockett. I am Lee and Grant and Abe Lincoln.
       I remember the Alamo, the Maine, and Pearl Harbor. When 
     freedom called I answered and stayed until it was over, over 
     there. I lift my heroic dead in Flanders Fields, on the rock 
     of Corregidor on the bleak slopes of Korea, in the steaming 
     jungle of Vietnam, and in the desert sands of Saudi Arabia.
       I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas and the 
     granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal fields of the 
     Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the West, 
     the Golden Gate and Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the 
     Monitor and the Merrimac.
       I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific . . . 
     my arms reach out to embrace Alaska and Hawaii . . . 3 
     million square miles throbbing with industry. I am more than 
     5 million farms. I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I 
     am quiet villages and cities that never sleep.
       I am Eli Whitney and Stephen Foster. I am Tom Edison, 
     Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I am Horace Greeley, Will 
     Rogers and the Wright brothers. I am George Washington 
     Carver, Daniel Webster and Jonas Salk.
       Yes, I am the nation, and these are the things that I am. I 
     was conceived in freedom and God willing in freedom I will 
     spend the rest of my days.
       May I possess always the integrity, the courage and the 
     strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of 
     freedom and a beacon of hope to the world.
       This is my wish, my goal, my prayer in this year of 1996, 
     two hundred and twenty years after I was born.
                                                                    ____


     How Forcing up the Minimum Wage Hurts Those Who Need Help Most

       My name is Herman Cain. I am President of Godfather's 
     Pizza, Inc., a 525-unit pizza restaurant chain headquartered 
     in Omaha, Nebraska. I am also President of the National 
     Restaurant Association.
       There are nearly 740,000 food service units in this 
     country, including everything from fast-food chains to fine-
     dining restaurants. We are an industry dominated by small 
     businesses, and we employ a diverse workforce of over nine 
     million people. Our employees are white, African-American, 
     Hispanic-American, Asian-American, and more. We expect to 
     employ 12.5 million by the year 2005, with the fastest growth 
     coming in the category of food service managers. More than 30 
     percent of Americans under age 35 had their first job in the 
     restaurant industry. Restaurants offer an important boost 
     into the job market for millions, as well as a clearly 
     defined career path for those willing to work hard and stay 
     in the business.
       There are numerous reasons why I firmly believe a minimum-
     wage increase is attacking the wrong problem. Allow me to 
     list the three reasons I believe to be most important.
       First, mandated wage increases reduce entry-level job 
     opportunities.
       A few weeks ago, a colleague in Oregon told me about a 
     homeless 17-year-old he hired in the mid-1980s. He gave the 
     teenager a job chopping lettuce, deveining shrimp, and 
     sweeping floors. That 17-year-old has worked his way up: He's 
     now the executive chef at the restaurant. But the job that 
     brought him into the business no longer exists. When Oregon 
     raised its minimum wage a few years ago and the restaurant 
     owner looked for ways to cut costs, this job was one of the 
     first to go. Now, my colleague buys lettuce already chopped 
     from a nearby automated facility.
       It's a good example of the split personality of the minimum 
     wage. When you make it more expensive to hire people who lack 
     basic work skills and experience, you risk shutting them out 
     of the workforce.
       My second point: A minimum-wage increase jeopardizes 
     existing jobs by threatening businesses that may be 
     marginally profitable. In my case, for example, Godfather's 
     Pizza, Inc., has nearly 150 company-owned and operated units, 
     and a few of them are either marginally profitable or not 
     profitable at all. If you raise costs for the many thousands 
     of enterprises like these, you risk shutting their doors 
     permanently.
       When you're running a restaurant that's on the edge, you're 
     scrutinizing every penny. Can ninety cents an hour put me 
     under? It could. Maybe not by itself--but when labor 
     accounts for about 30 percent of my expenses, second only 
     to my food costs, a mandated wage increase is one more 
     factor tipping the balance. A mandated wage increase 
     triggers wage inflation by rippling up through the entire 
     wage spectrum and by causing increases in payroll-related 
     expenses like FICA taxes.
       Some people would say ``Just raise your prices.'' It 
     doesn't work that way. In a competitive market, that's the 
     fastest way to drive away customers with limited 
     discretionary income. That can close a business fast.
       My third point: A minimum-wage increase is an ineffective 
     way to raise someone out of poverty. Most minimum-wage 
     earners are part-time workers under age 25--mostly first-time 
     workers, students, people holding down second jobs or 
     supplementing the income of their household's primary earner. 
     In my restaurants, for example, nine out of ten of my hourly 
     employees choose to work less than 35 hours a week--even 
     though full-time work is available. These are not the poor 
     people policymakers most want to help. By shooting wide and 
     hoping to hit the right target, you're taking a gamble with 
     harmful side effects.
       The best way to lift a family out of poverty is to get 
     people into the job market and give them a chance to acquire 
     skills. I think of my father, who worked three jobs until he 
     was skilled enough to cut back to two jobs, and who kept 
     going until his skills were good enough that he could support 
     us on one hourly job.
       There are other dangers with a minimum-wage increase. Like 
     the fact that a federal mandate prescribes the same wage for 
     a mom-and-pop restaurant in rural Nebraska as it does for a 
     restaurant located in a high-cost-of-living metro area. It's 
     not a good idea to try to overrule the laws of supply and 
     demand that do a pretty good job of setting local wages 
     according to the specific conditions of specific markets.
       Congress has recently been playing close attention to the 
     state and local officials--Democrats and Republicans alike--
     who say ``enough is enough'' when it comes to picking up the 
     tab for unfunded federal mandates. Please give businesses the 
     same hearing: An increase in the minimum wage is also an 
     unfunded federal mandate. Someone has to pay--and it's 
     usually the entry-level employee.
       I urge you to look deeper for solutions. Some people lack 
     the skills to make them competitive for entry-level 
     employment. This is why we have tax credits to encourage 
     businesses to hire employees who typically have a hard time 
     gaining a foothold in the job market. This is why politicians 
     are setting up empowerment zones to help businesses hire in 
     impoverished areas. These programs rightly recognize that 
     some workers may be overlooked if it gets too expensive for a 
     business to hire them. Congress should be looking for ways to 
     encourage people to work, and businesses to hire, instead of 
     making it more expensive for employers to give the low-
     skilled a job.
       You're getting a good dose of information lately on the 
     theories behind successful welfare reform. In businesses like 
     ours, real life crowds out theory. While our main expertise 
     is in getting out good meals at good prices, as entry-level 
     employers we've also become fairly expert at finding ways to 
     help millions of troubled teens and troubled adults get 
     beyond some daunting barriers to employment. We see that real 
     entry-level jobs provide training in the fundamentals--
     reliability and teamwork, to name just two--and thereby yield 
     long-term social payoffs that don't come in any other way.
       Right now we have more than four million people earning the 
     minimum wage in this country, 7\1/2\ million unemployed 
     persons, and nine million adults receiving welfare payments. 
     Tackle the right problems first. Focus on creating more jobs, 
     not on raising the cost of entry-level employment and 
     eliminating existing jobs. A minimum-wage increase doesn't 
     attack the right problem. I urge you to reject it.
                                                                    ____


                  Fact and Fiction on the Minimum Wage

       Minimum-wage workers are the most vulnerable Americans, 
     right?
       Actually, more adults who earn the minimum wage live in 
     families with over $30,000 in annual income than live in 
     families making under $10,000. Over all 22 percent of minimum 
     wage earners are poor. The majority of poor Americans don't 
     work at all, at any wage.
       Minimum-wage work is undignified.
       Fifty-five percent of minimum-wage workers are youths age 
     16-24. Many of these live with their parents. Only 2 percent 
     of workers age 25 or older are paid the minimum wage.
       You can't raise a family on the minimum wage.
       Few have to: 89 percent of all workers now making less than 
     the proposed minimum have no spouse or child depending on 
     them as sole breadwinner. Of these, 44 percent are single 
     individuals living with their parents or other family member, 
     22 percent are single individuals living alone, and 23 
     percent have a spouse with a paying job.
       Minimum-wage jobs are a dead end.
       Sixty-three percent of minimum-wage workers earn higher 
     wages within 12 months. Seventy percent of the restaurant 
     managers at McDonald's, plus a majority of the firm's middle 
     and senior management, began in hourly positions. (This 
     includes CEO Ed Rensi, who started at 85 cents an hour in 
     1965.)
       Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employment Policy 
     Foundation; Wall Street Journal; industrial Relations and 
     Labor Review.

                          ____________________