Progressive Caucus Hour

Floor Speech

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Thank you very much. And I especially appreciate your remembering that I was reared in Florida. That is important to me. I now dwell in Texas, of course. But not many people remember that, so thank you so much. I am honored to be on the floor with you this evening.

I think this is a very timely topic that we are having an opportunity to give some opinions on, and I think that it is important for us to remember that America is not a poor country. America is not a poor country, and I want to emphasize that because too often we come to conclusions about what we should do based upon our lack of resources. I think that is appropriate to come to conclusions based upon a lack of resources, but the truth is that we are still the richest country in the world.

We are still the richest country in the world. As a matter of fact, in America, 1 in every 12 American households--1 in every 12--have investable assets of $1 million or more; 1 in 12 have investable assets of $1 million or more. As a matter of fact, in the United States of America, in 2013, we were fortunate enough to have the average CEO make $11.7 million. That is 331 times what the average worker made. The average worker made $35,293. So the average CEO did well.

And by the way, I don't begrudge the CEO who makes $11-plus million. I do not. I believe in capitalism. I believe that in this country you should succeed on your merits or fail on your demerits. And if a CEO can make $11-plus million, I think that is great. I do think that that CEO ought to pay a fair amount of taxes, just as the person who makes $35,000-plus pays a fair amount of taxes. But I think it is a wonderful thing, $35,000 versus $11.7 million.

Now, a full-time worker, a full-time worker, the average CEO that year made 774 times what a full-time minimum wage worker made--774 times.

We are in the richest country in the world; 1 in 12 households has investable assets of $1 million or more.

In 2007, an interesting thing occurred. A man made $3 billion. I don't begrudge him. I salute him for making $3 billion. I don't envy him for making $3 billion. I commend him for making $3 billion. I would note, however, that he did not pay ordinary income tax on that $3 billion. I think that if you are going to make $3 billion, you ought to pay your fair share of taxes on it.

Mr. Speaker, $3 billion, that is a lot of money, and it is very difficult to get your mind around it. So let me help you understand what $3 billion is. It would take a minimum wage worker working full time 198,000 years--198,000 years--to make $3 billion. I don't begrudge the person who made the $3 billion. I salute him. That person made about $400 a second.

This is the richest country in the world. People are making money in this country. Just because those of you who are at home, you don't know these people, I want you to know they are there. They are there, and they are doing quite well, and they ought to be the first in line to talk about raising the minimum wage.

It would take 198,000 years for a minimum wage worker to make $3 billion. A hedge fund manager made $400 a second. At $400 a second, it would take that hedge fund manager about 37.7 seconds to make what a minimum wage worker makes in a year--37.7 seconds. I don't begrudge him. I commend him. I salute him. But I do think he should pay a fair amount of taxes on it.

I think that paying a fair amount of taxes is the American way. Others pay their taxes, a fair amount. I think people who make billions of dollars ought to pay a fair amount of taxes as well.

When Dr. King gave his speech, when they had the March on Washington back in August of 1963, they had a list of 10 demands. Number eight on that list of 10 demands was to have a wage that people could make a living on. At that time, it was thought that $2 an hour would be a sufficient amount of money. Today we would call that a living wage. It was $2 an hour in 1963. Well, today, that $2 an hour would be about $14.90. So there is a rationale for the $15-an-hour hue and cry that we hear.

A lot of things have changed. A lot of things have also remained the same. Fifteen dollars an hour is not an unreasonable amount of money in the richest country in the world, in a country where we have people who can make $400 a second, hundreds of times what a minimum wage worker makes, more than 700 times what a minimum wage worker working full time makes in a year.

This is the richest country in the world. However, in the richest country in the world, we still have people who work full time and live below the poverty line.

For edification purposes, I believe every person ought to work his or her way out of poverty. I would like to see subsidies ended and people have wages that will allow them to work their way out of poverty. If I had my way, we would have people without subsidies who work hard, succeed on their merits, fail on their demerits, and elevate themselves out of poverty by simply working full time and not living below the poverty line.

It is interesting to note that, in 2015, the poverty threshold for a family of four is $28,850--for a family of four. I pray for the people who have to live off of that amount of money with a family of four, but that is what it is.

I believe that we should not only raise the minimum wage, but we should index it. I think that we should index it to poverty because right now a full-time worker with a child makes about $15,080 a year. That is below the poverty line of $15,930 a year--working full time, living below the poverty line in the richest country in the world where at least one person made $400 a second, where the average CEO made more than $11 million a year. It seems to me that we are talking about trying to bring a balance between the CEO's salary and the workers'.

At one time in this country there was a sense of moral responsibility that CEOs had for their workers. CEOs would literally sit and talk to the board of directors and talk about the needs of workers and how workers should be paid so that they could take care of families, so that they could educate children. There really was, at one time, this sense of moral responsibility to workers that CEOs had.

I saw an example of that just today. A CEO decided that he was going to cut his salary so that his workers could have a better quality of life, with higher earnings that would be paid to them.

We have a responsibility to each other in this country. We who happen to be blessed are not blessed so that we can just enjoy it all ourselves; we are blessed so that we may be a blessing to others. That sense of moral responsibility to those who are less fortunate than we has to return. If we don't get that sense of moral responsibility so that others can receive some of the blessings and some of the goodness of the richest country in the world, we do ourselves a disservice.

Dr. King reminded us that life is an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What impacts one directly impacts all indirectly. What happens to people who are living below the poverty line directly will indirectly impact all of us.

How does it happen? Well, here is how it happens:

When they live below the poverty line and they are being paid a salary and they don't get health care, they are going to get health care in the richest country in the world. It is just that it is going to cost us a lot more. When they live below the poverty line and they are working full time, they are going to get subsidies. Taxpayers are going to take care of that.

So there is an indirect impact on you, taxpayers, who are listening to me right now. You are paying for it. They are not getting it on the job. We are paying for it. We are subsidizing very wealthy people by paying a minimum wage on the job and then providing subsidies for people from the Federal Government such that they can have a decent living in the United States of America, the richest country in the world.

What impacts others indirectly impacts all directly. Health care, food subsidies, this is all coming out of the pockets of taxpayers. Why not have a wage that allows people to take care of themselves?

In this country, we tend for some reason to equate our net worth to our self-worth. That is unfortunate. We shouldn't do it, but a good many people do. A good many people do. And a good many people don't feel so good when they work full time and live below the poverty line, taking care of a family, playing by the rules.

Some would say, well, that living wage, that minimum wage is just a wage that you start out with. It is just a wage for young people. The statistical information does not bear that out. Unfortunately, too many people find themselves in minimum wage jobs for more than just a few months.

If you think about it, a good many of you who are listening to this, you know people who have been in minimum wage jobs for years and years and years. You know people who are doing their best to make ends meet at $7.25 an hour.

This is the richest country in the world, and 1 in 12 American households have these assets that I have talked about, have these investable assets of $1 million or more. I think that in such a rich country we should be able to allow people who are willing to work--willing to work; not people who are asking for a handout, but people who want to work, they want to earn their way through life--we ought to be able to pay them a decent wage.

What we have in Congress would raise it to $10.10 an hour, far below what I think it should be; because I am of the opinion that it should be $15 an hour based on what Dr. King said in 1963 with that list of 10 demands, number eight, which was to raise it to $2 an hour, which, by today's standards, is right at $15 an hour.

I think it should be 15, but I don't believe we will get 15 through the House, and I regret to say that. I support the bill that would raise it to $10.10 an hour.

My bill, Mr. Speaker, the Original Living Wage Act, would raise it higher than $10.10 an hour and would index the minimum wage to poverty so that as the poverty rate goes up--at some period of time, I'm willing to negotiate what that period is--the minimum wage would go up, too; and we wouldn't find ourselves on the floor trying to debate what the minimum wage ought to be, as we are doing currently.

I know that not everybody thinks that there should be a minimum wage at all. There are some people who think that market forces should control. Well, market forces have, in this circumstance, produced some very unpleasant circumstances for people who are working and trying to make ends meet on jobs that pay what we will call entry-level wages if we don't have a minimum wage.

Mr. Speaker, I am of the opinion that we ought to raise the wage, and I think we ought to index it to poverty. The bill that seems to have more support, and I confess that it does, would index it to the CPI. I am not a hard person to get along with. I can live with indexing it to the CPI, but I do think that it should be indexed, and I do think that we should raise it.

I say this to you, my dear friends, because Dr. King, who was so far ahead of his time--so far ahead of his time--was the preeminent fighter for those who live in the streets of life and those who are trying to eke out a living on little, who have learned how to take very little and do a lot with it, Dr. King was a fighter and a champion for these folk.

I think that as we continue to celebrate the anniversary of his birthday--now, he is being recognized on the Mall, there is a statue on the Mall--I think we ought to go further and recognize what he asked for in 1963, and that was a living wage. I think that it is time for us to honor the request of Dr. King which has not, to this date, been honored; and let us let everybody work his or her way out of poverty.

I thank you so much for this great opportunity to speak, and I pray that you will continue to be strong and carry on. You have done a stellar job. What you are doing now, you don't do for yourself. What you do now, you do for people you will never meet and greet, people that will never get to touch your hand, but they will be blessed by what you are doing to help them elevate themselves to a better standard of living.

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