[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6502-6504]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE MINIMUM WAGE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to start this morning by 
reading an excerpt from a 1998 memo from Gene Sperling to President 
Clinton. It relates to a minimum-wage proposal similar to the one we 
are considering today. Here is what he wrote:

       Your entire economic team believes that this approach is 
     too aggressive and are concerned that . . . [it] could prove 
     damaging to employment prospects of low-skilled workers, as 
     well as to the general macroeconomic performance of the 
     economy.

  But the memo noted there was a plus side to supporting that proposal. 
``[It] would unify [the] liberal wing of the Democratic party.''
  Today feels like deja vu all over again because even though our 
constituents keep telling us they expect Washington to focus on jobs, 
that is clearly not what they are getting from the Senate. Instead, 
Senate Democrats are pushing legislation today that would cost as many 
as 1 million jobs in this country--legislation that the left flank of 
their party demands. That is their response to the pleas of our 
constituents to do something about jobs--a proposal that nonpartisan 
analysts tell us could cost jobs.
  But then again, these are the same Washington Democrats who have been 
at the helm of our economy for 5\1/2\ years, the same ones who have 
been bragging about a recovery for the past 4.
  We learned this morning the economy grew by just 0.1 percent--0.1 
percent. So I can assure you that if this is the Democrats' idea of a 
recovery, the people in my State at least are not terribly impressed. 
They are ready for new ideas. They are ready to turn the page from the 
liberal playbook that just has not worked.
  It is clearer every day that the DC liberal establishment is 
completely out of ideas. They do not even pretend to be serious about 
jobs anymore. The clearest proof of that is today's vote--on a bill 
that could cost about 17,000 jobs in Kentucky alone, and potentially as 
many as a million nationwide.
  But Senate Democrats do not seem to care. They do not seem to care 
that about 6 in 10 Americans oppose a bill like this if--if--it means 
losing hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Washington Democrats' 
true focus these days seems to be making the far left happy--not 
helping the middle class.
  They seem to think they can coast on talking points and stale ideas 
and that the American people have not been paying attention to their 
recent dismal record at actually helping the people they claim to care 
about.
  They seem to think people will not notice that time and time and time 
again they have ended up making things harder for the people they claim 
they want to help.
  But the American people see through that game. It is crystal clear 
from new polling that we have seen this week. People realize the 
Washington liberal establishment is just out of energy and out of 
ideas. If they did not realize it before this year, they got 
confirmation of it when Senate Democrats effectively admitted that 
their so-called agenda for the rest of the year was drafted by campaign 
staffers.
  In short, Washington Democrats are just not serious about helping the 
middle class. That helps explain why they would even consider 
legislation that we all know could cost up to a million jobs at a time 
when Americans need those jobs more than ever.
  It helps explain why satisfying their leftwing patrons has become a 
more urgent priority than helping to create the kind of well-paying 
middle-class jobs our country needs.
  I think our constituents deserve a lot better than what they have 
been getting this year from Democrats who control the Senate. They are 
already struggling under the weight of Washington Democrats' last 
ideological adventure--ObamaCare.
  Washington Democrats promised the Sun and the Moon to sell that law, 
and then just rammed it through anyway when Americans refused to buy 
what they were selling.
  Washington Democrats told us ObamaCare would lower costs, but polls 
show that nearly twice as many people believe the government is adding 
secret mind-control technology to our TVs as believe the law is 
actually decreasing health care costs.
  Washington Democrats promised Americans that they could keep their

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plans if they liked them too. As we know, that turned out to be the 
``Lie of the Year.''
  Washington Democrats downplayed ObamaCare's negative impact on jobs, 
just as they are doing with this legislation we will consider later 
today.
  Yet the government's own nonpartisan analysis shows that ObamaCare 
will effectively drive 2.5 million people out of the American 
workforce. We are already seeing the effects in Kentucky, where 
hospitals are laying off workers and cutting salaries because of the 
impact of this law.
  One of the largest health care systems in the State recently let go 
nearly 500 employees, and its CEO stated that ObamaCare was a factor in 
that decision. The head of another community hospital in Glasgow, KY, 
also said that ObamaCare was a factor in his hospital's recent decision 
to reduce salaries and cut as many as 49 employees.
  It is happening at other businesses too.
  As a result of ObamaCare, a company in Kentucky with 8,000 employees 
was forced to cut part-time workers' hours to below 30 hours a week. 
That was a difficult decision--one that particular company, like so 
many others, never wanted to make because of the impact it will have on 
its own employees, but one that it felt was necessary to comply with 
ObamaCare.
  I recently read a story about Paul Deskins, who runs an auto 
dealership in Pikeville with about 50 employees. Paul says that 
ObamaCare might force him to reduce his workforce or sell his body shop 
altogether. ``We were hoping that Obama thing would go away,'' he said. 
Millions of Americans feel the same way.
  Washington Democrats promised this law would help the little guy, but 
it ended up hurting many of the people it purported to help.
  We are seeing the same thing with the legislation before us today. 
Six in 10 Americans do not want a policy like this if--if--it costs 
jobs. No matter how Senate Democrats try to spin their support for this 
bill, the bottom line is this: It could cost up to 1 million American 
jobs--17,000 of those jobs in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. That is 
really the opposite of what Americans expect us to do on jobs.
  So it is time for Washington Democrats to drop the tired ideological 
approach that has failed so miserably the last 5\1/2\ years. It is time 
for them to work with Republicans to boost job creation and start 
helping the middle class. That has been Republicans' focus all along, 
and it is about time Washington Democrats joined us in working for the 
middle class too.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I rise today out of a genuine concern that 
the foreign policy that our administration is conducting is creating 
danger for the U.S. citizenry and creating danger throughout the world. 
Let me speak a little bit about that.
  I think all of us have seen what happened in Syria when the 
administration had an opportunity on the front end of a conflict to put 
its thumb on the scale to change the dynamic of what was happening 
inside the country and stated that it would do so. It did not.
  This weekend I was at a security conference and people on both sides 
of the aisle expressed dismay at the way the administration had 
conducted its operations--or actually had not conducted it operations 
in Syria, and yet had stated so many times what it was going to do.
  Today we find ourselves in a situation where I am absolutely certain 
that one of the policies we will end up carrying out in Syria will be a 
counterterrorism policy because of our concern about the fact that 
because we did not act when we could--not with American boots on the 
ground; that is not what anybody has proposed--but when the 
administration could have done something to prevent the disaster that 
has occurred there, to prevent 60,000 more Syrians from being killed 
indiscriminately--in many cases by helicopters from the administration 
dropping barrel bombs on innocent civilians there--when the 
administration could have acted to keep those types of atrocities from 
occurring, to keep Al Qaeda and other extremists from coming into the 
country--when it said it was going to act and did not, when it could 
have done that--now we are going to find ourselves, very quickly, in a 
situation, in my opinion, where we realize this is a threat to our 
homeland, and we are going to be engaged in counterterrorism 
activities.
  I say that as a predicate to the issue I am going to discuss, which 
is Ukraine.
  So many Members of our body have recently been to Ukraine. As a 
matter of fact, I count 12 Members--Members on both sides of the 
aisle--who have spent time visiting Ukraine and going to Maidan and 
seeing what the people there did. They rose up to hope for a free 
world, to hope for human rights, to hope for democracy, and to rid the 
country of corruption.
  Today, we have a prime minister who is young, who is taking on the 
issues of the day, and doing everything he can to usher this country 
into a new era--a country that is destined to join the West on its 
current path.
  At the same time, we see a country whose greatest threat to that 
occurring is Russia--a country that, as we know, illegally went into 
Crimea and annexed it, a country that today has 40,000 troops on the 
border, a country that has black ops operators inside eastern Ukraine, 
the industrial part of Ukraine that it hopes over time will, in a 
sense, become a part of what they are doing in Russia.
  We see every day the destabilization occurring. We know the most 
important next step in Ukraine is for them to go to this May 25 
election and have an election that the world community believes was a 
valid election. Yet we know that daily Putin and Russia do everything 
they can to destabilize Ukraine and to delegitimize this process of 
elections and moving forward.
  So a number of us, out of grave concern for what is happening--out of 
concern about where this is going to lead America, where this is going 
to lead Europe--have come together to write a piece of legislation 
because what we have seen from the administration is a lot of rhetoric. 
Unfortunately, what we see is an administration that cannot help itself 
but to try to be in every 24-hour news circle, talking about what it is 
going to do, but then when it actually comes to the time of actually 
doing it, that is not what has occurred.
  This week I was very disappointed when the administration unveiled 
its next round of sanctions. We had all hoped the administration would 
put in place sectoral sanctions, sanctions that would have an impact on 
the Russian economy, so that Putin and all those around him who are 
carrying out these activities would understand they would pay a price 
for what they are doing illegally in this part of the world, which, by 
the way, goes against the agreements we all came to around the Budapest 
Memorandum, where we said we would honor the sovereignty of this 
country.
  For that reason, a number of us have come together to write a piece 
of legislation. It is legislation that is intended to try to drive an 
outcome. It is a piece of legislation that moves away from the way the 
administration has been dealing with this, where they are always a day 
late and a dollar short. They are always responding to what Russia 
does. They are always doing something that, in essence, deals with the 
situation after something bad has already occurred. This legislation is 
designed to, again, drive an outcome, to show the administration there 
is a strategic way to deal with this issue.
  Let me tell you what this does not do. I was very disappointed to 
pick up the Wall Street Journal this morning and read on the front page 
that those of us who are concerned--which, by the way, is strongly 
bipartisan, strongly bipartisan in this Senate: concern about what is 
happening in Ukraine and concern about the fact that the administration 
has not done those things with economic sanctions in a stronger way to 
cause Russia to pay a price for what it is doing--but I was very 
disappointed to pick up the paper and read where the President said 
those

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people who want to see military action by the United States in 
Ukraine--that is not what this bill does. As a matter of fact, what the 
bill does is it lays out a strategy to try to keep that from happening, 
which I think numbers of us on both sides of the aisle are concerned 
that under the current policy of saying what we are going to do and not 
doing it, of basically continuing to allow Russia to do what it is 
doing inside eastern Ukraine, that this is actually the very policy 
that could lead to significant problems down the road. We all 
understand these are how major conflicts unfold, and we all understand 
we are talking about two countries that are armed with nuclear weapons.
  So today at noon a number of us will gather around and introduce a 
piece of legislation that does three things.
  No. 1, it strengthens NATO. I think everyone would agree that the 
commitment of NATO to its allies, our commitment to NATO, our partners' 
commitment to NATO, has waned over the last period of time.
  By the way, this is not something that has just occurred under this 
administration. It has been going on for some time. We have only three 
countries, as a matter of fact--three countries--within the NATO 
alliance that are actually honoring their commitments relative to the 
support of NATO.
  So the first piece of this is to strengthen NATO. It is to expedite, 
by the way, this administration's own plan relative to missile 
defense--the plan they have laid out. It does not change that 
technology.
  The second piece of this legislation is intended to deter Russia from 
what it is doing.
  If my colleagues remember, the Geneva accords said Putin would move 
the Russian troops who are intimidating people inside Eastern Ukraine 
away from the border. But I think what we have seen now is that ``red 
line'' has changed. Now what the administration is focused on is them 
actually not going inside the country, but all of us understand that 
Russia is actually accomplishing what it wishes to accomplish inside 
Ukraine without even sending troops in because they are able to do it 
again with black ops.
  So this piece of legislation that my friend from Wyoming and so many 
others were involved in developing lays down clear sanctions first--
beginning today, or after passage, beginning with sanctions--sanctions 
that hit several important entities in the banking sector and in the 
energy sector, so we actually do something that affects the Russian 
economy until such time that they pull those troops away from the 
border and they remove those black ops operators inside the country who 
are fomenting the problems.
  Secondly, in the event Russia does actually cross the border with 
military troops, this bill again imposes much deeper sanctions on 
Russia and certainly signifies to them what kind of price they would 
pay.
  Again, earlier this week when the administration put forth its 
sanctions, it was a marvel to see that the stock market in Russia, 
several days in a row, continued to go up. It had no affect on Russia, 
none. Editorial writers and people on both sides of the aisle 
understand this was nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Putin 
understands that. Russia understands that. They understand that we as a 
nation so far have not signified that we are willing to use these 
economic sanctions in a way--through the President's own Executive 
order, I might add--to change behavior. So we are very concerned about 
the direction this is taking.
  The third thing this bill will do is harden our non-NATO allies. I 
think my colleagues know that in the country of Moldavia, from where I 
just recently returned--and Senator Barrasso on another trip just 
recently returned as well--and in Georgia and in Ukraine, there are a 
number of things we need to do as a nation to help them harden their 
country and this bill lays objective things out. Let me give one 
example. In the Russian-speaking area of Eastern Ukraine, the only 
information the people who are Russian-speaking in that part of the 
world are receiving is coming from Russia. It is propaganda about 
actions the United States is taking, which we aren't, and the great 
lives they will have if Russia is able to annex that part of the world. 
So at a minimum we need to make sure the information those people are 
receiving is very different. There are so many actions that we as a 
nation can be taking to ensure that Ukraine is not destabilized, that 
Moldavia is not destabilized, that Georgia is not destabilized.
  Let me say this in closing because I see my friend is ready to speak 
on another topic. This bill we are introducing today is a serious piece 
of legislation. As a matter of fact, I am gratified by the work so many 
Members have put into making this legislation as it is. It is 
strategic. It is serious. It tries to accomplish a good outcome. I hope 
the introduction of this legislation will cause the administration to 
step away from the microphones and the cameras and to step away from 
the empty rhetoric that has been shared all across this world, to step 
back and say wouldn't it be good if we laid out a strategic approach to 
Europe.
  It is time we realized Russia is destabilizing Europe, and that 
affects our citizens. Our citizens are 4\1/2\ percent of the world in 
population. We benefit from 22 percent of the world's gross domestic 
product. So the fact of the world being secure is not only important to 
us because of human rights and democracy and freedom, but it is 
important to the very livelihoods of the people of our country.
  So I thank those involved. I look forward to discussing this more 
fully at noon today when we unveil this. Again, I hope the White House 
and those involved in setting foreign policy will step back, they will 
sit down, and they will begin to do take actions that strengthen NATO 
more fully. I hope they will take those actions that will certainly 
cause Russia to understand exactly what will happen if they continue on 
the path they are on, as well as strengthen our non-NATO allies which, 
because of the policies we have not put in place, are continually being 
destabilized.
  Mr. CORKER. I yield the floor and I thank the Chair for the time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, first, I commend my friend and colleague 
from Tennessee for his leadership on foreign affairs and his efforts in 
these areas. I fully support all of his efforts to bring forth a united 
position on behalf of our country.

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