[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.

                          ____________________