[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 1, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2789-H2794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SAVE AMERICAN WORKERS ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Salmon). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special
Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Indiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the President proposes a 25
percent increase in the minimum wage. ObamaCare, however, is resulting
in as much as a 25 percent decrease in the pay of millions of hourly
workers. Because of the 30 hours is full time provision, too many
Americans are not able to work the hours they need to support their
families. By passing my bill, the Save American Workers Act, we can
create an America that works simply by restoring the traditional 40-
hour workweek.
I am joined this evening in this Special Order by my colleagues,
Representatives Kelly of Pennsylvania and Barr of Kentucky, but so many
people have helped bring this important issue to the attention of the
American people at large, to rank and file Americans, who during this
down economy are looking for as many hours as they can get and for as
much take-home pay as they might receive.
Let me just kick this evening off by explaining in some level of
detail what this 30-hour provision is because, frankly, for the
uninitiated, it is a bit foreign for most of us to consider full-time
employment to be a 30-hour workweek, but that is the case under the
Affordable Care Act. In fact, the Affordable Care Act mandates
employers provide ObamaCare-sanctioned health insurance to all of their
employees should they employ 50 or more individuals who work 30 or more
hours per week.
We have all heard from employers about the adverse consequences--
unintended, I expect--created by this 30 hours is full time provision.
The unintended consequence is chiefly that so many employers,
especially those who are squeezed by tight profit margins or those who
just wouldn't be financially viable entities, are moving their
employees down below this 30-hour threshold. They are reducing the
number of hours that their hourly employees can work so that they don't
have to provide ObamaCare-sanctioned health insurance.
The employer mandate has been delayed by the administration twice, so
it is clear that this is ill-considered policy. While the White House
says the delays are to help employers, it should be even more apparent
to those of us who visit with our constituents on an almost daily basis
that it is the low- and middle-income worker who is being most
adversely impacted by this employer mandate.
The real result of the 30-hour bill--let me be clear--is fewer jobs,
reduced hours, reduced wages, less take-home pay for things like food
and shelter and clothing for Americans who need it most. I can cite
plenty of examples in my district in which this is having a very
serious impact at this early stage of ObamaCare's implementation. I
live in Bloomington, Indiana.
Indiana University is feeling the pinch of this and is reducing some
hours of some of their hourly employees, from custodians to cafeteria
workers and others, because they cannot remain a financially viable
entity, as taxpayers expect it to be, should it have to comply with
this employer mandate as it is currently constructed.
Ivy Tech Community College is also feeling the pinch. In fact, 4,500
of their adjunct professors are losing hours. This is resulting in
reduced course offerings for many students, but more importantly for
those adjunct professors, they need the wages, they need the hours.
Should Ivy Tech decide to continue on with business as usual, they
would be eating all sorts of compliance costs to try and measure the
hours of their hourly employees and ensure that they are complying with
the law. They have done the math. They have figured out that this 30
hours is full time provision amounts to a $12 million unfunded mandate,
courtesy of Uncle Sam.
I have heard from 39 public school corporations in Indiana about the
adverse consequences of this 30 hours is full time provision. In fact,
they are suing the Federal Government, along with the State of Indiana,
because of this provision, which they say will have catastrophic
financial consequences on their operations, on their balance sheets.
From a practical perspective, the majority of employers who
voluntarily provide coverage to their employees do so for their full-
time employees, and they do so because they want to attract the
absolute best talent they can within the labor market. This system has
succeeded in providing coverage for nearly 160 million Americans. It is
working. In fact, this is the largest source of health coverage in
America, but the 30-hour rule radically disrupts this success and this
model. Many people will lose their coverage, especially your lower-
skilled workers, often your entry-level opportunities where younger
workers get valuable work experience and start to work their way up the
economic ladder. We need to protect the wages of Americans who depend
on them the most. That is what this bipartisan effort, the Save
American Workers Act, is all about.
I am proud to be joined in this effort by Representative Barr, who
has shown some leadership on this issue, and by Representative Kelly,
who was out front very early with respect to this issue. I look forward
to engaging in some dialogue this evening and in turning over the mike
to them to get their State level perspectives, but I think it is worth
noting, because I do want to recognize them, the fair-minded Members
among us who look for opportunities to work across the aisle.
Representative Lipinski, a Democrat from Illinois, has shown a lot of
leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives with respect to this
issue. There are a handful of other Democrat Members who have signed on
to the Save American Workers Act. It is my fervent hope, not for my
interest but for the interests of my constituents and for those like
them around the country, that other Democrats will join the vast
majority of Republican Members of Congress in supporting this bill.
With that, I would just invite the dialogue of Mr. Barr, my good
colleague in his first term--but he seems far more experienced than
that--to speak to the Save American Workers Act.
Mr. BARR. I thank my friend, the gentleman from Indiana, Congressman
Young, for his leadership on this very important issue.
Mr. Speaker, it is an important issue because ObamaCare is hurting
American families. It is hurting American employers. It is hurting
American workers who are struggling to make ends meet, to put food on
the table. This is a bad economy. We continue to suffer from a bad
economy despite 5 years having passed after the financial crisis.
The project of ObamaCare--the project of the Affordable Care Act--is
really the project of the entire Obama Presidency. It is a project to
determine whether or not Big Government can solve big problems. It is a
project to determine whether or not the Federal Government can
micromanage one-sixth of the American economy. It is a project to
determine whether or not it is a good idea to allow the government to
take away choices from the American people--from American workers and
from American small business owners.
Wages in this country have gone down over $2,300 in the last several
years. The labor participation rate in this country--the percentage of
working-aged people actually in the workforce--is the lowest it has
been in 35 years, and 75 percent of the American people are living
paycheck to paycheck. This is not a sign and these statistics are not
indicators of a healthy economy. This is a very unhealthy economy.
[[Page H2790]]
Why? Why haven't we seen a robust economic recovery in which American
families, American businesses, American entrepreneurs, and American
workers can achieve the potential that they deserve, can achieve the
opportunities, can reach out and take advantage of the American Dream--
why is that objective so illusive for so many Americans today?
Unfortunately, we all know people who are currently looking for
employment and who are unable to care for their families as they would
like. On top of insurance cancelation notices, higher premiums, broken
promises, a malfunctioning Web site, and reduced health care
choices, Americans are now seeing as a result of ObamaCare that the law
is forcing job creators to cut employees' hours just so that they can
comply with the law, just so that they can prevent any kind of
sanctions or penalties that they would incur as a result of running
afoul of the provisions of the law. Thanks to ObamaCare, millions of
these already struggling Americans are having an even harder time
finding work, caring for their families, putting food on their tables
because, again, ObamaCare is putting full-time work and decent wages
out of reach.
Mr. Speaker, we are moving from a full-time work economy to a part-
time work economy, and it is largely because of ObamaCare. I speak with
small business owners across central and eastern Kentucky all the time,
and what they tell me is very consistent: they want to put people back
to work; they want to invest and grow their businesses; they want to be
able to provide good, quality health care to their employees and to
their workers, who are the backbone of the American Dream, who are the
backbone of their entrepreneurial success. ObamaCare is holding them
back. Employers in my district and all over America consistently cite
ObamaCare as one of the top reasons for planned layoffs and their
reluctance to hire more workers.
Think about that.
Why on Earth in a down economy--in the worst economy--and with the
worst labor participation rate in 35 years would lawmakers in
Washington want to punish American businesses--American entrepreneurs,
American job creators--for hiring more people? Yet that is exactly what
this flawed law does.
{time} 1945
This law entangles small businesses in a web of rules and
regulations, making it expensive and nearly impossible to invest in new
workers.
In particular, ObamaCare's 30-hour rule, which defines full-time work
as averaging only 30 hours per week, is resulting in fewer jobs,
reduced hours, and less opportunities for so many Americans.
This 30-hour rule forces employers who have been providing coverage--
in some cases, for decades--which is good, quality health care, to
fundamentally alter their benefit plans, to drop coverage altogether,
or shift more of their workforce to part time by cutting workers' hours
below 30 a week because they can't afford to offer the health insurance
mandated by ObamaCare.
The Wall Street Journal had an editorial and called these the 49ers
and the 29ers--49ers because these are businesses that will not hire
more than 49 employees because ObamaCare will punish the employer if
they hire more than 49 employees, 29ers because employers will not and
cannot hire people for more than 29 hours a week.
So these are the 29ers. These are people who are struggling to take
care of their families. This is hurting people.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Reclaiming my time, I sometimes like to distill
the narrative down to some numbers.
You just mentioned the movement down to 29 hours a week. Let's
consider the Kentuckian or the Hoosier who is currently working 39
hours a week, and because of this provision, their employer is unable,
under the current economic conditions, to offer them ObamaCare-
sanctioned health insurance.
They are incentivized to move that hardworking hourly work down to 29
hours. That is a loss of 10 hours per week. Over the course of a month,
that worker is losing an entire work week.
How is an hourly worker that has to pay for food and shelter and
clothing and other basic expenditures supposed to take care of their
family?
It is imminently unfair, and someone needs to stand up for our low-
and middle-income workers. I think that is the essence of what this is
all about.
Mr. BARR. Absolutely. I totally agree. You are absolutely right. I
would commend the gentleman for being one of those leaders in our
country who is standing up for the working people of this country.
I would just note the president of the Teamsters Union, James Hoffa,
has said that this rule will ``destroy the foundation of the 40-hour
work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.''
In short, ObamaCare is hurting the very people that it was intended
to help. I don't think this is a partisan issue. There are well-meaning
people on both sides of the aisle who want to help working families
make it a little easier and get by a little easier and put food on the
table and earn a living wage, but this law is punishing people for
working hard. Hard work is what made this country great.
Why would we disincentivize hard work? Yet that is exactly what
ObamaCare does.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. If I could interject because I think you hit on
a key point. This isn't ideological. This ought not be partisan at all.
In fact, we have a number of Democratic cosponsors. I am gratified by
their intellectual honesty, their courage, their support. They are
doing the right thing here. They are looking out for their
constituents.
We have all been asked to come here and get something done while
people are feeling pain. This was certainly an unintended consequence,
is my reading. I don't want to impugn the motives of those who
hurriedly passed this Affordable Care Act. I don't think they intended
this.
So we repeal the provision. We replace it with something that makes
sense and restores wages for workers that need it most.
Mr. BARR. Absolutely. This is commonsense reform.
Again, I commend Congressman Young and other colleagues who have
sponsored the Save American Workers Act. This is a simple piece of
legislation. It would simply repeal the 30-hour definition of full-time
employment in the Affordable Care Act, in ObamaCare, and restore the
traditional 40-hour definition.
It makes perfect sense. It would help employees who are seeking the
hours that they need to take care of themselves and their families. It
would lower the burden and the regulatory costs on employers.
It would allow American businesses to be more productive. It will
allow American workers to be more productive. It will get to the heart
of why our economy is not where it should be today.
I really appreciate the gentleman's leadership on this issue.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Thank you for not just your support, but your
vocal support, engagement, leadership, and education of your colleagues
and others who are important stakeholders with respect to this issue.
Thank you so much for being with us here this evening.
I would like to pivot off of your discussion of this down economy. We
are at a 35-year low in labor force participation. None of us is happy
with the rate of job creation or business creation.
One of my constituents was sharing with me recently they saw a stat
indicating that business creation and entrepreneurship are at a 15-year
low. Clearly, we are experiencing the hardest of times.
The way to grow an economy, based on my economic background, is not
to reduce the hours of workers and impose new compliance costs on our
employers. Instead, we need to be removing obstacles to realizing the
sorts of income that people need and opportunities to work your way up
that economic ladder. Unfortunately, this goes in the opposite
direction.
I am pleased today to be joined by my good colleague, Mike Kelly of
Pennsylvania, who partnered with me in helping to draft this
legislation. He has proven himself to be a fine leader in the Ways and
Means Committee.
Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman. It is really a
pleasure to be with you tonight.
Representative Young's piece of legislation, H.R. 2575, is really
something
[[Page H2791]]
that I think that perhaps if more of us who serve in this body were
actually people who experienced what it was like to be in the private
sector, more of us would understand.
I was very fortunate to have a family business, and I can tell you,
from an employer standpoint, that one of the greatest thrills you have
in your life is to sit across the desk from somebody who has come in
and applied for a job and to be able to say to them: you're hired, we
need you on board, we need you to be part of our team to make the
business successful.
You can see in their eyes, at that moment, that they look at this
opportunity as: my goodness, now I can put a roof over the head of my
family, I can put food on the table, and I can put clothes on their
back, and I can plan for a future.
Now, why in the world would we all of a sudden say: You know what? We
are going to change that dynamic because it is no longer going to be a
40-hour week; we are going to dial it back to 30 hours a week.
You say to yourself: How did anybody come up with those numbers? Why
would they come up with those numbers, and what is the benefit of those
numbers?
The answer is that it helps make the Affordable Care Act work. It
doesn't help America work. It helps a piece of flawed legislation work.
It is about the dynamics of the math.
It is not about the dynamics of allowing men and women to go to work
and be able to go home at night and say: I went to work today for you,
I went to work to make your life better.
You look at some of the numbers, Mr. Young. The 30-hour rule puts 2.6
million workers with a median income of under $30,000 at risk for
losing jobs or hours. Eighty-nine percent of these workers impacted by
the rule do not have a college degree. 63 percent of these folks are
women, and over half have a high school diploma or less.
When I look back at my district, District Three in Pennsylvania, they
are hardworking good American people. I have no idea how they are
registered. I have no idea how they vote. I have no idea what they
think about at night and what they pray for at night before they lay
their head on the pillow.
I do know who they are, basically, because they are all of the same
ilk. They are the same people. The blood that courses through their
veins is pretty much the same. They believe in America. They believe in
paying their fair share. They believe in lifting the load and helping
out.
Barb Wilson works for the Arc in Mercer County, Pennsylvania. This is
a phenomenal organization that assists people with developmental
disabilities. Barb is a part-time employee who used to work 30 to 35
hours a week.
Her employer recently informed her and her coworkers that all part-
time employees will be having their hours cut to around just 20 hours a
week because of the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate.
Barb tells me that she was shocked when she heard this news. Because
of her hours being cut, she says she will no longer be able to afford
the cost of living.
I have more people in my district that come to me and talk to me. One
of the things--and I think you found the same thing in Indiana, and I
am sure Mr. Barr has in Kentucky--I have people that say: You can use
my story, but you can't use my name.
Now, that is a very chilling effect to think that, in this country,
the United States of America, people are afraid to be identified with
their story because they are afraid of a retribution from the
government. That is just totally unacceptable.
One of those people is in the fast food business. How about this?
In 2012, 92 of its 993 employees worked more than 30 hours a week.
Think about that. All of these 92 employees have had their hours cut to
less than 30 hours.
On top of that, more than 30 employees have had access to their
health insurance plans ended. Even though their plans made sense for
them, they did not meet ObamaCare's standards, and so the company could
not afford to keep them.
This doesn't make any sense. At a time when we want to get America to
work, when we want to increase jobs, why would we make it harder for
those people to accomplish those goals? It just doesn't make sense.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. It makes absolutely no sense. For example, I
have a school corporation in Washington County, Indiana, which I
recently visited. I was visiting their superintendent and members of
their school board.
I don't know their politics, but I certainly know that they care
about children. They care about all the employees who work for them.
They were absolutely distraught.
They said: Congressman, I don't know what we're going to do with
respect to this 30 hours is full time provision. When we think about
our substitute teachers, we are actually contemplating having to reduce
the number of hours in the middle of classes because we don't have a
large enough pool of substitute teachers available to draw on.
We can literally have somebody substituting for half of a class. In
order to fall under the 30 hours is full time provision in the
Affordable Care Act, these folks are having to leave early.
The students are unattended. They are not being educated. Parents are
certainly upset. It is imposing undue costs upon the school corporation
in order to track the hours of their employees.
This is the sort of Rube Goldberg sort of contraption that only could
be conceived of in Washington, D.C.
I cannot make sense of why anyone would oppose trying to change this
provision, as we have done in this bill. Some have speculated that it
is a matter of saving face. You pass a big bill; you pass it quickly.
It perhaps was most ill-advised in any sort of fundamental change to
the bill. Any sort of repeal of a major provision within the bill and a
replacement with something that works better undermines the credibility
not only of the bill itself, but of those who supported it originally.
I would like to think better of my colleagues than that. I think
there has to be something else at work here, but I don't know how to
explain to that superintendent and those concerned school board members
in Washington County, Indiana, why others won't sign on to this.
Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. I agree with you. In my district, Butler
Area School District has had to implement procedures to keep all of its
part-time employees working less than 30 hours. This hurts education.
In New Castle, Lawrence County, their local government has reduced
all of it employees to just 28 hours.
So we talk about these things. You and I just got here 3 years ago.
You look at a government that is supposed to be a citizen government--a
government that works for the people and does things in the people's
best interest--and then you look at this piece of legislation and say:
My goodness, how did we come up with this?
The answer is always: There are unintended consequences.
I understand that there are unintended consequences, but they are not
always painful consequences. If we are going to do anything here, we
better start responding when we hurt the people we represent.
We also better understand that these unintended consequences are also
fixable. They are not unfixable. Why wouldn't we fix it if you know it
is hurting someone, if you know it is taking away opportunity?
I talked about being in the private sector. When we bring people on
board, it is mutually beneficial. It is to share in success.
{time} 2000
I can tell you that the gap right now has widened between those who
own businesses and run them and those associates who work there. We
have put them at odds with each other because now it becomes: well, you
know what? The people that employ you really don't care enough about
you. And you say: my goodness. No, no, that is not true. That is not
true.
I can tell you from the position that I have been in from a business
that my dad started in 1953 after being a parts-picker in a Chevrolet
warehouse and coming back after the war and starting a little Chevrolet
dealership and watching it grow into something where we have 110 people
that every 2 weeks get a check, I know that when they are successful,
the business is successful;
[[Page H2792]]
and when the business is successful, the community is successful,
because we all participate at every level.
Now, why would you destroy a model that is so perfect? Why would you
destroy something that is so fundamentally strong? Why would you take
apart the American Dream in order to have a flawed piece of legislation
meet the metrics that this is looking for? It just doesn't make sense.
In a town that you and I have discussed many times is devoid of
common sense, we need to take a look at it, because if our real concern
is the next election and not the direction that we are going in, then
we are here for the wrong purposes.
So I want to thank the gentleman. I have got to tell you, we talked
long and we talked at great length about the effects this was having.
H.R. 2575 corrects a flawed idea. It just makes sense what you are
doing, sir. And I would just tell you that, for all of those thousands
and thousands and millions of workers who have been hurt by this law,
our ability to fix it, which is what some of our colleagues say--I know
you don't like it; I know you don't agree with it, but help us fix it--
we need to fix it, not so much for a political agenda but for the
people we represent.
I thank you for what you are doing. I think that this piece of
legislation is timely and is needed, and your dedication to the
American worker and to the American families is to be heralded.
Thank you so much.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Thank you for your leadership on this important
issue.
This is not a political issue. There is an old saying that good
policy is good politics. Those who are driven primarily by political
considerations--and I think there are, frankly, few that are primarily
driven by those--they need to be on the right side of history. They
need to be adopting a more optimal policy with respect to how we treat
our low- and middle-income workers, so I would invite their support.
Please understand, even in this sometimes shrill, divided Congress,
even in this sometimes divided Nation, there are still things we can
agree upon. There are commonsensical solutions that we can adopt. There
are problems that we can solve.
Repealing the first ever definition of ``full time'' in full law at
30 hours and moving it up to 40 hours, the traditional full-time
workweek standard, just makes common sense. It is going to restore
wages for millions of workers. $75 billion in foregone wages will be
realized if we pass the Save American Workers Act.
Now, there has been quite a bit of talk about wages in this town and
beyond in recent weeks, the minimum wage, in particular. I didn't come
here to talk specifically about the minimum wage, but let me just
illustrate the impact of this 40-hour provision. Let's consider the
worker who works at the Federal minimum wage, which few actually do,
but $7.25 an hour. So many States have a higher minimum wage. So many
people get multiple jobs and, you know, gosh, my heart goes out to
them. I appreciate their work ethic. But as a proportion of our
economy, most people are not working at the $7.25 rate.
But let's suppose someone is and they work 40 hours a week. That is
$290 in take-home pay per week. Now, if we were to raise the minimum
wage as the President suggests to $10.20 but this person got dropped
down to 29 hours a week, guess what they would be making? Roughly $290
a week. The same thing.
So, for those who see this as a sort of an issue that is somehow
partisan but care deeply about the issue of the minimum wage, which I
think can create distortions in the economy and kill jobs and so
forth--that is a separate debate that I suspect we will have--but those
who care deeply about this ought to be on board with this 40 hours is
full time legislation, the Save American Workers Act, so I would invite
their bipartisan support.
I note that we have just about every Republican who has signed on to
this bill. We have a handful of courageous Democrats, and I commend
their participation. I think we have some others with us this evening
who are supportive of this legislation, prepared to speak to their
constituents' experiences and their thoughts about the adverse
consequences of a 30-hour definition of ``full time'' in the United
States of America.
I am joined by my colleague from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), who is a
very thoughtful and articulate member of the Budget Committee and cares
deeply about his State. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. LANKFORD. I thank the gentleman from Indiana.
It is my privilege to get a chance to be able to speak out for the
constituents that I represent who are asking the same questions a lot
of Americans are asking: Why did you just drop my hours?
People that have jobs, go to work every day, trying to pay for their
family, barely eking by, working hourly, suddenly got their hours
dropped, and they are asking all of us: Why did this happen?
Well, the difficult thing is we are trying to explain to people it
happened because more people were needed onto the exchanges, and so the
administration needed additional people to get onto this health care
coverage. So it isn't actually something to help people; it is
something to help the administration and their formula, which makes
them even madder.
They don't want to be a pawn in some game. They want to take care of
their family. They want to be able to do what they can do in their job
and to take care of their kids and play soccer with them on weekends
and be able to spend time, but things have changed dramatically for
them now.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. So would it be accurate to say that, in part,
it is our lower-income to middle-income workers, through reduced hours,
who are paying for the Affordable Care Act, which is wildly unpopular
nationally?
Mr. LANKFORD. It is. And it is wildly unpopular larger in that group
as well. Every section of Americans, when you go and get a chance to
visit with them, they will tell you the same thing: my premiums went
up; my deduction went up; I lost access to a doctor; I had to change to
a different hospital; I lost some of my choices.
And this whole belief that suddenly now we have 7 million new people
that got there, millions of those individuals that are now in the
exchanges used to be on health care that they liked. They were kicked
off of it January 1, and now they are forced into a new system, and the
President is somehow celebrating.
I was astounded by the sense of, at the very last minute, all these
people filed and they got excited about it. There are around 43 million
people that are uninsured in the United States. Seven million of them
have actually capitulated to the administration's forced enrollment
into this program or face a fine. That would be something akin to,
during tax day coming up just 15 days from now, the administration
standing up and celebrating that 25 percent of Americans actually filed
their taxes on time because they would face a fine if they don't. Well,
no one would actually celebrate that, but this administration is
celebrating 25 percent of the people actually following through on it.
There are real lives and real people that are attached to this. Let
me tell you about one of them. Her name is Cindy. And like some of the
other individuals that were here visiting before, Mr. Kelly from
Pennsylvania, didn't want her name put out publicly on it because, in
this day and age, people are becoming more and more afraid of their
government and what their government is going to do to them rather than
for them.
So Cindy works at a job at a restaurant. She works more than 40 hours
a week, and then finds out, after the transition happens, January 1,
they are dropping her hours back to 26 hours a week. Twenty-six hours a
week is really hard. Her job plus 30 hours was really difficult for her
to make ends meet. She can't make it at 26 hours. So now this
individual has to go out and try to find a different job to add up to
two different jobs.
Let me talk to you about a dad that his son just graduated from high
school. He didn't make great grades in high school, but he is a good,
hard worker. So he is engaged in a job, and he is out looking for a
job. Doesn't have a college degree, just a working guy. He cannot find
a job for more than 28\1/2\ hours, so he is looking for two jobs
[[Page H2793]]
to try to get that, to try to build up to enough money to be able to do
it.
So suddenly, this sense of we are going to help provide for people by
forcing people to get to this providing health care, what is actually
happening is people are just dropping the hours. It is the same thing
everyone said before.
And the President's statement today that there is no good reason to
go back to a time before ObamaCare, I would have to tell you, Cindy
would disagree with that; this other gentleman would disagree with
that. A lot of people would look back and say: I would much rather go
back to working one job than be forced to work two jobs and still not
have health care coverage.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. You mentioned a very compelling story,
incidentally, and I think all of us hear these stories, Republican,
Democrat, Independent. It matters not. I suspect we all hear them
around our district. You mentioned the President's Statement of
Administration Policy which came out today, April Fools' Day. I had to
wonder whether it might have been an April Fools' joke. It, in part,
reads: Rather than attempting, once again, to repeal the Affordable
Care Act, which the House has tried to do over 50 times, it is time for
Congress to stop fighting old political battles and join the President
in an agenda focused on providing greater economic opportunity. And
then it goes on and on.
Listen, this is not a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. This is a
repeal of a provision that we recognize that a bipartisan group of
United States Congressmen and many Senators recognize is flawed. So, I
mean, it is an absolute red herring.
I cannot understand why the administration won't engage with us in a
fair-minded, statesmanlike way to mitigate the pain so many Americans
are feeling.
Mr. LANKFORD. I would have to tell you honestly, I would like nothing
better for my citizens that I represent to not have to live under this
law. I would absolutely vote again, as I have multiple times, to repeal
this entire law.
But I also have a responsibility to do whatever I can to protect the
people of my district from the harmful effects of this law, and this
law has many harmful effects. One of them is it is forcing those that
struggle the most in our economy to make two ends meet to have to go
out and get multiple jobs, and it has made it even harder for them, in
transportation, in timing, in time with their family. They are losing
all of those things. It has been taken away from them based on a
preference of an administration, not something that is actually
economic responsibility of the President.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. I would like to associate myself with those
remarks pertaining to preferring to start over in an open, deliberative
fashion. My belief would be that, if we started over with respect to
health care reform, we could actually control costs, increase access,
continue to incentivize innovation, and do all the other things that
were purportedly the rationale behind this law.
We want to broaden coverage to those who don't have coverage, but the
Affordable Care Act, so-called, does not even accomplish that. And so
the administration, at least according to the Statement of
Administration Policy put out today, welcomes ideas to improve the law.
Well, this is an idea to improve the health care circumstances of so
many Americans. We need to repeal this 30-hour provision within the
law, so that is what the Save American Workers Act does.
Now, I noted that this created some perverse incentives, this 30-hour
threshold. I heard a story from a constituent who will remain unnamed
for obvious reasons, but they indicated they own some fast-food
restaurants, and they are actually contemplating employing some of
their workers at one fast-food restaurant under the 30-hour threshold
and then making an arrangement with a nearby restaurant, whether they
own it or someone else owns it, of a different name to finish out their
workweek. So basically, to use a colloquial example, you take off the
Subway shirt or the McDonald's shirt and then put on a Burger King
shirt.
These are the sorts of perverse incentives created by ill-considered
provisions in a very hastily passed and, frankly, partisan law.
Mr. BARR. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman.
I would like to note a point that the President made in his State of
the Union address and, really, why Congressman Young's bill should be a
point of agreement for all of us--for the President, for Members of the
other side of the aisle, for those of us on this side of the aisle.
Here is what the President said in his State of the Union address,
speaking to the state of our economy: Inequality has grown, he said,
income inequality. Upward mobility has stalled.
That is what the President of the United States said. I agree with
the President. Upward mobility has stalled.
Why has it stalled?
Well, one of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, upward mobility has stalled in
this country is because we are punishing hard work. ObamaCare is
punishing people for working hard. That is what made this country
great.
{time} 2015
The Congressional Budget Office released a report a few weeks ago,
and that report projects that ObamaCare will force 2.5 million
Americans to leave the workforce in the next decade.
Think about that. There are Members of Congress who are defending a
law that will shrink the American workforce by 2.5 million Americans.
And what is the administration's response? They say it is a good thing.
They say it is a good thing that Americans are going to be forced to
leave their jobs.
So this law does two things: it forces Americans to lose their jobs
or leave the workforce, and it forces employers to reduce the number of
hours for those who remain in the workforce. This is a prescription for
continued economic stagnation.
Now, we have a solution before us. The solution is the legislation
H.R. 2575, proposed by my friend from Indiana, Todd Young, the Save
American Workers Act. Not only is this proposal good for working
Americans--because it would repeal the 30-hour workweek definition and
replace it with a traditional 40-hour workweek definition for full-time
work--but it would also, according to the Congressional Budget Office,
it will create $75 billion in higher cash wages for American workers.
Now, if that is what the nonpartisan CBO says--and we know that wages
have been declining in this country; we know that working families are
struggling to put food on the table because they are not making enough
to make ends meet and to take care of their kids--why on Earth would we
not vote in favor of legislation that will create $75 billion in higher
cash wages?
I just want to, once again, thank the gentleman from Indiana. I want
to thank my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, also for his
leadership and the gentleman from Oklahoma who spoke earlier and
eloquently shared a story of his constituent.
This is about American workers having the ability to achieve that
upward mobility that the President spoke about in his State of the
Union. I invite the President to join us. I invite my friends on the
other side of the aisle to join us in helping the American workers
achieve their potential, reinvigorate the work ethic in this country,
allow people to work the way they want to without punishing small
businesses and workers for achieving their potential.
At a time when Americans are struggling, we must do everything we can
to invest in real solutions like the Save American Workers Act of 2014
that would grow the economy and get the country working again.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. I thank the gentleman.
I am going to close where I began. The President is proposing a 25
percent increase in the minimum wage, but ObamaCare is resulting in as
much as a 25 percent decrease in the pay of millions of hourly workers.
Because of the 30 hours is full time provision, too many Americans
aren't able to work the number of hours they need, aren't able to get
the take-home pay they need to support themselves and their families
and to go after the dreams that they want to realize.
So by passing my bill, one which has bipartisan support and which has
enjoyed great leadership by so many of
[[Page H2794]]
my colleagues, the Save American Workers Act, we can create an America
that works simply by restoring the traditional 40-hour workweek.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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