George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). (Mr. BACA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I have the right to close. I have no further speakers.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, and Members of the House, we are down to a very critical point. We are down to a point whether or not this Chamber, the House of Representatives, the People's House as it is known, whether or not we will represent the people or whether we will represent narrow special interests that have a huge economic interest in keeping the minimum wage at the 1997 level of $5.15 an hour. That is a decision that we have to make. We have been trying now for a number of years to force a vote on the minimum wage. I find it rather interesting that the Republicans, who control the Senate, control the House, control the White House, cannot find the time and the place, although apparently they are now sort of for it, to find the time and the place where we could have a vote on the minimum wage. What is wrong with your leadership? Name the time, name the place. We will be there with our votes. And if your leadership will not cooperate, come on down and sign a discharge petition. Mr. Boehlert and others who are supporting the minimum wage, come on down and sign a discharge petition, and then we will be assured that the American people will get the vote that they strongly desire to have. Over 80 percent of the American people believe that raising the minimum wage from the 1997 wage level of $5.15 to, today, of $7.25 an hour is, in fact, the right thing to do, the fair thing to do, and the moral thing to do. The only thing that prevents that from happening is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. Even the Senate allowed a vote to take place, but only in the Senate can you pass something by a majority vote. It got 52 votes, a bipartisan vote, and it still does not pass because they say you have got to get 60 votes. But in the House you cannot even get that vote. You cannot even get that vote. We had a vote in the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis. The members of that committee voted to increase the minimum wage. Under the leadership of Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Obey, they voted to increase the minimum wage. Since that has happened, that bill has been prevented from coming to the floor of the House of Representatives where we could vote, up or down, on increasing the minimum wage. So, apparently, this time and place that the Republicans say they are prepared to go is a mystery to everyone. Maybe we could have a national contest like they are doing for the Johnny Depp's pirates movie. We could bury the time and the place somewhere in the United States, and we could let people decide and play a game and try to figure out where it is. Where is that time and place? Is it in the gentleman's district in California? Is it in my district? We all know where that time and place is. The time is now and the place is the House of Representatives on the floor of the Congress of the United States. That is where we are supposed to be doing the people's business. There is nothing else in this country that is at 1997 levels, not gasoline, not bread, not milk. Do you know what else is not at 1997 levels, where the Congress found the time and the place? Do you want to know what else is not at 1997 levels? Congressional pay. Because we found six times and six places to give ourselves the cost-of-living increase while we insisted that the lowest paid people in this country could not have more than $5.15 an hour, the same wage they were making in 1997. Apparently, it wasn't good enough for Congress, so we increased our COLA. I agree with that increase, but think about the message and the morality that you are reflecting when you cannot reach back, after we receive these COLAs, and say to these people who are struggling to support their families, Here, let us give you a hand, let us help you; you have made that decision to participate in the American economic system by going to work every day. But somehow this Congress just does not value their work. We give tax breaks to CEOs. A guy at Exxon walks out after several years with $400 million in guaranteed pension benefits, $400 million. He made more money brushing his teeth than people make on the minimum wage all year long. What is the justice of this? What is the equity of this? What is the fairness of this? It cannot be what America is about, about the intentional decision by the Republican leadership that 6 million American people will simply be poor, and they will be relegated to the class of poverty and they will be there by edict of the Federal law. The Federal law will keep them in poverty. We ought to also tell the taxpayers that when you make that decision, you are also making the taxpayers of this country part of their employment because when they work at those poverty wages, the taxpayers pay for the school lunches and they pay for the housing and they pay for the healthcare and they pay for the utility bills when it is cold and when it is hot. We end up subsidizing those employers who insist that they cannot make a profit unless they pay 1997 wages. Let me tell you something about those employers. They are not long for this world because there is something very wrong with their business plan that they can only succeed if they pay 1997 wages. Think about that. Think about what you are embracing. You are embracing an economic model that says that success is dependent upon being able to pay forever 1997 wages to my employees. Have we lost our minds here? Do we understand the injustice of this? Again, these are people working 40 hours a week every day. They drive mostly old cars that consume more gas that costs them more to commute to that job. They still do it. America has already said it. It is just the Congress, just the Republican leadership. America says, give these people a raise. They know that struggle. They know that struggle. They know it themselves. Middle-class people know what it means to drive up to a station today and say, Fill it up. Most people do not say, Fill it up. They say, How much do I need to get to Friday? That is what they say to themselves. Well, think about what poor people are thinking. We value work. We changed the welfare laws to encourage people to go to work. Should we not encourage them to get out of poverty? Should we not help them to get out of poverty instead of sticking them at 1997 levels? This is fundamental. This vote is fundamental. This debate is fundamental. And the time and the place to have it is now in the halls of the Congress of the United States. We cannot continue to have a Republican leadership that says, this is not right, that is not right, this is not the bill, this is not the subject matter. Just bring us a bill. Let us vote up or down. You have the majority. You control it. Either you believe in the dignity of these people, in the dignity of their children, in the dignity of their work, or you don't, because you cannot have that and then insist upon these wages. I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the motion to instruct.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I just want to join him in his remarks that this really is not about this rule, but this is the only place where we can protest the priorities of this Congress when there are millions of American workers who work at the minimum wage, who are unable to provide for their families the basic necessities of their families. And Congress fails to address that issue and fails to address it especially when it is so clear the voids in the congressional schedule, where there are these huge gaps of time where it would be available to debate the minimum wage, hold hearings on the minimum wage, and report out a bill for consideration by the Members of Congress. And yet that is not being done. It is not being done basically because the Republican leadership has committed itself to its supporters and the business community that it will not allow a minimum wage vote to come before the House of Representatives, even though it is clear that there is probably enough support to pass this legislation to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next couple of years. By doing that, we dramatically change the lives of those individuals who today work at $5.15 an hour. We dramatically change the lives of the 1.6 million workers who are parents of children under the age of 18 who earn the minimum wage. All together those parents are working to raise more than 3 million children, and yet with the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour, they are unable to provide the necessities for their family, for those children. Mind you, these families are stuck at a wage of 1997. The Members of this House cannot think of anything else that is stuck at 1997. The price of bread is not struck in 1997 prices. The price of gasoline is not at 1997 prices. The price of health care is not at 1997 prices. But for these people who work every day and work at very difficult jobs, jobs most other people might not take, certainly will not take at this wage, they end up at the end of the year poor. At the end of this congressional year, this Congress will not be able to find the time to address this urgent economic need. We have supporters for increasing the minimum wage, a company I don't generally agree with, but Wal-Mart, who says essentially, even at their stores where they advertise everyday low prices, that the people who shop in the stores at minimum wage are not making enough money to buy the basic necessities that are offered. There is not enough money in the communities to provide for the success of those stores. This is about whether or not we are going to create an underclass in America, an underclass probably we already have because these people are stuck in 1997 wages. But now that you know it, what is the morality of ignoring them? What is the morality of making a conscious decision that you are going to go out of session today at 2 o'clock as opposed to staying a couple of hours longer and dealing with the minimum wage? What is the morality that you are going to end this session of Congress where I think we have maybe 30 days left before adjournment without addressing the minimum wage? What is it you are saying to these people about the worth that they are worth, about their lives, about their desire to take care of their children, to provide the necessities, to provide the wherewithal for the education and the health and the nutrition of their children? Try doing it on $5.15 an hour. It won't buy you 2 gallons of gas today, so I hope you don't have to commute very far. It certainly won't help with health care payments because you have to pay the rent, and today we see rent is going up as housing markets go up. So we leave these people stranded. And you want to talk about values, you want to talk about families, you want to talk about children, you want to talk about community, and you a creating an underclass that is so desperate, and yet these people make the decision to go to work every day. Explain the morality of that. No, you are going to spend your morality on Internet gaming. We are going to say to people, if you bet on a horse, you are legal; if you bet on a dog, you are not. If you bet in one State, you are legal; not if in another. If you want to play Texas Hold `Em, you are legal in some States, but not in other States. No, let's talk about the morality of a family that is struggling every day to hold itself together at a time of increasing utility costs, increasing food costs, increasing transportation costs, increasing energy costs; and this Congress, under Republican leadership, simply will not make time to discuss this issue, to vote on this issue. We are not finding the time under this leadership to vote on this issue. That is why we are going to ask for a vote on the previous question to suggest to you that there is another way to run this Congress, to run it for the benefit of these desperate Americans who are working hard every day, but not getting compensated in today's pay. Imagine. You didn't think it was sufficient that you all get compensated here at 1997 wages, so we have continued to provide a COLA. I think it is justified, but the fact of the matter is, for millions of Americans, you have made a conscious decision while we get a COLA, we are going to trap them in 1997 wages. I thank the gentleman, I thank him for his leadership, for allowing his cooperation on allowing this opportunity to have this vote and again to try to express to this Congress, because now we are lobbying the Congress on behalf of the people that are not politically engaged, are not politically active. They are working too hard; they are working too hard at work, and they are working too hard the rest of the day trying to figure out how they hold their families together. And what do they get from the Republican Congress? They get the back of their hand. They get the back of their hand. These people's workday does not end at 5 o'clock. They spend the rest of the time trying to figure out how they are going to juggle transportation costs, food costs, health care, education, how they are going to do that for those 3 million children. And we sit by and we end the workday at 2 o'clock? At 2 o'clock, they are just getting started. We end the work day at 5 o'clock; they are driving home and figuring out whether or not they can go by the supermarket. Or we are not going to work on Fridays. They go to work on Fridays. They go to work all day on Fridays. We are going to work at 6 o'clock on Monday night. They went to work at 6 o'clock Monday morning. Do you start to get the sense of the inequities that are taking place here that are within your power to change? Let me tell you, you say, oh, you are going to kill jobs. There is no evidence that that is the case. In fact, those States that have increased the minimum wage apparently are doing a little better economically and having more job creation than those States that did not. But let me tell you, if you have a business plan that is dependent upon paying people 1997 wages, there may be something wrong with your business plan. I do not think we should become co-conspirators in creating this underclass, and we should not be able to look the other way as we live a life that is completely out of touch with the struggle of these people, with our neighbors, with people living in our community. They struggle on the job and off the job because it never ends for them trying to make ends meet. And we stroll in here on a Tuesday morning, we stroll out of here on a Thursday night. We stroll out of here for the month of August and we stroll out of here in November and we can't find time? We can't find time to address this issue? We are not asking you to raise the wages from today. We are asking you to raise the wages from 1997. I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing Major Donald F. Fulton, USAF Ret., a resident of Vacaville, California, who has been awarded the Silver Star Medal for extraordinary gallantry in action while on a combat mission. The incident took place on August 14, 1969 when Maj. Fulton was serving in the United States Air Force as a Forward Air Controller, FAC, while supporting classified combat operations in Laos during the Vietnam War. Approval was announced by the Department of the Air Force for the award of the Silver Star Medal, the nation's third highest award for valor, to Donald F. Fulton. Don Fulton is a native of New York City, NY, and has lived in the Vacaville, CA, area since 1975. He graduated from Point Lorna Nazarene University in 1965. As a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he served as a FAC while assigned to Pleiku Air Base, Republic of Vietnam, with the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, TASS. On August 14, 1969, Captain Fulton was the pilot of a lightly armed observation aircraft (0-2) and was participating in aerial flight deep inside Laos in support of Military Assistance Command--Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group, MAC-V SOG, Command and Control Central (CCC). Operating under call sign Covey 538, Captain Fulton coordinated Tactical Air Support for an eight-man Special Operations Strategic Reconnaissance Team while it conducted Operation Sad Sam, a raid on a major North Vietnamese Army unit headquarters. Recon Team New York was subsequently heavily engaged by a North Vietnamese Infantry Regiment and was immobilized with casualties and surrounded at dusk in mountainous rain forest. With a low ceiling and heavy rain approaching, and no tactical air support immediately available, Captain Fulton, firing marking rockets and an M-16 rifle, made numerous aerobatic, treetop level attacks on the enemy forces. During these passes, he was subjected to heavy fire from small arms, 12.7mm heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and 23mm and 37mm antiaircraft weapons, inflicting substantial battle damage to his aircraft. His actions forestalled enemy attacks on the besieged Recon Team, until tactical air support could arrive. Subsequently, Captain Fulton directed the air assets in attacking the enemy and in conducting a night extraction of the Reconnaissance Team during a heavy rainstorm, while his fuel level dropped to near empty. In his recommendation for the award of the Silver Star to Major Fulton, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Wolcoff, U.S. Army, Ret., stated that the ``operation resulted in the discovery of a major enemy headquarters and nearby main force bivouacs and fortifications, which were subjected to aerial attack and subsequently ground attack by an exploitation force from CCC, whereby the enemy sustained heavy losses and was forced to abandon the complex. The Sad Sam operation and subsequent ground operation caused the enemy to reinforce security in its sanctuary area at the expense of main force units, and its order of battle in South Vietnam was decremented.'' Major Donald Fulton is also the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Medal with eight Oak Leaf Clusters.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and this measure. Mr. Speaker, today the House will vote on a resolution that is allegedly intended to reaffirm Congress's support for stemming the flow of money to terrorists. I support efforts by this Administration to cut the financial supply lines to terrorists. But the resolution before us today is really just an open-faced attack on America's free press for telling the American people what its government is doing. After 9/11, the Bush Administration announced that one of the ways it would go after terrorists was by cutting off their funding sources. A major part of this effort has been monitoring suspect international financial transactions. I believe that, at the time, this was the correct decision. We can and must do everything we legally can to protect the country from those who wish to bring us harm. The Administration's efforts to monitor financial transactions have been a frequent topic of public discussion: By members of the Administration; in open, on the record Congressional testimony; and in the United Nations. However, to date, I am not aware of any harsh recriminations from the President or Republicans in Congress as a result of any of these discussions over the last few years. But now that the program has been discussed in the New York Times and other newspapers, the radical right wing Republican enemies of a free press in America have come out swinging--again. Congress had a choice when the NY Times reported on the SWIFT program. It could have announced hearings on the effectiveness of the SWIFT program and on the impact of public reporting on the SWIFT program. But it did not do that. This extremist Congress instead has chosen a different, but very familiar, path--a partisan political attack for which it has become famous. The Bush Administration and this republican-controlled Congress represent the most partisan and most anti-free press Republican party this nation has seen since the days of Richard Nixon and his infamous `enemies list.' The fact remains that this president and this Republican Congress wants to manipulate the press to its advantage through the use of covert propaganda and through lying about intelligence and other matters, but it wants to curb the press's role in communicating to the American people information about the actions of its government. That sounds more like the Soviet Union before the wall came down than the America that I know and love and whose freedom, and free press, is so revered around the world. The fact is that the party in control of this Congress is out of gas when it comes to leading, they are out of gas when it comes to big bold new ideas to re-energize America. They have resorted, nearly every day now, to their tired old whipping posts, including the free press, in a desperate effort to hold on to their power, an awesome power that they have failed to use to help America. As this bill's sponsor, Mr. Oxley, so wisely stated earlier, we do need accountability in Government. The President promised to hold those accountable in his Administration involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press. He has yet to do that. Instead he and his rubberstamp Congress choose to go after leaked information only when it suits their political agenda. We have yet to hold anyone accountable for the falsified intelligence about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Instead we get the rubberstamp Congress's version of a weapon of Mass Distraction just in time for the November elections. This Congress has not held anyone accountable for pulling military resources away from Afghanistan to prepare for the unjustified war and occupation of Iraq, which allowed Osama bin Laden to escape capture. If only the Administration and its Republican allies in Congress were as aggressive in attacking Osama bin Laden as they are when attacking the press, we might be safer as a nation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. Am I correct in my understanding that if the motion to adjourn carries that there will be no opportunity to address the minimum-wage issue before the Congress goes home for the July 4 break, and these men are raising their voices because they don't want to deal with the minimum wage? Is that what's going on here today? Could you answer my parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker? We need to understand what's going on here.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from West Virginia for yielding. Mr. Chairman, there are many reasons to oppose this legislation. You can begin with the fiscal reasons. Just last week, we had the Republicans on the floor pleading for line-item veto so the President could help them cut deficit spending and cut spending. The President now says he opposes the spending in this bill, but they are not going to take that into regard this week. They are going to go ahead and spend and going to go ahead and increase the deficit. So, apparently, they just cannot stop themselves from doing that. But a more important reason is this. It is because of the threat to the coast that this bill presents and the threat to the coast that is not necessary. If the rest of the Nation would just follow California, we banned offshore oil drilling a long time ago, but we also recognized that we had an obligation as a State to meet our energy needs and not be as dependent on others as we were at that time. What you now see is California is the most efficient energy user per capita in the country. But that is not enough. We are going to go beyond that. The Public Utilities Commission is putting in a conservation program and energy efficiency program that will end up being a positive payback for the consumers. They will save money at the end of the expenditures of about $2 billion. We will, in fact, increase the use of biofuels dramatically. The governor has asked for 180 million gallons of biofuels I think in 2010, and we are going to meet and exceed that level. So there are these alternatives that dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and this is really where we ought to be going. This is a continuation of a philosophy that has gotten this Nation into so much trouble, and that is, while we use 25 percent of the world's fossil fuel resources and we hold 3 percent of the reserve, that somehow we can drill ourselves out of that problem. It is a continuation of a policy that was in vogue and popular and maybe even right-headed in 1950 and 1960, but everything we have learned since then tells us that we cannot continue in this direction. So we tried to believe that we could drill our way out of our problem in Alaska, and now we are going to some of those valuable coastlines and risking that coastline on the idea that, again, we can continue to drill our way out of it. Because the people of this Nation do not want it, this bill has a perverse set of financial incentives to States and localities to try to make money talk, as opposed to the people of that State, to try to get the political establishments to overwhelm the people who have spoken in the Carolinas and Florida and California and Oregon and Washington and elsewhere in the country against this policy. So now we are just going to see if we can bribe them into changing their mind. This is not about an energy policy. This is about an etiology. Finally, the other reason to do this is that this legislation drains money from every other State, money that would be available to the Federal Government for deficit reduction or for whatever purpose, and throws it into a couple of States that become the winners of this great offshore oil lottery. This House ought to reject it on budget grounds, on environmental grounds, on energy grounds and on simply a vision of the future.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Committee also for working with my colleagues. I ask unanimous consent to vacate the requests for recorded votes on the five amendments on which proceedings were postponed, to the end that each of them stand adopted by the voice vote thereon.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, later today, Mr. Thompson and Mr. DeFazio will offer an amendment seeking emergency assistance for an economic disaster that the Bush administration is creating on the Oregon and California coast, and that disaster is about to strike hundreds of small independent businessmen who fish for a living. These individuals are going to lose the economic support for their families. They are going to probably lose the ability to keep their boats so they can fish if the recovery takes place, and they are going to end up deep in debt. It is just unfair that this would happen, especially when this is a disaster that was created by the Bush administration. They ought to take responsibility. They ought to be held accountable for their actions, and they ought to provide relief to these hardworking families who are so much a part of our community and our culture and our economy. And they ought to do it now. The Congress can correct this matter later today by passing the amendment. Unfortunately, we have been put on notice that that won't happen, so we are going to put you on notice. We are not going to relent on this effort until some relief is forthcoming from the administration, as has been asked by the Governor of California, the Governor of Oregon, the delegations in the Senate, but nothing from the administration except obstruction and an economic disaster for these families from the coast.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is fitting that we are talking about the line item veto when we are doing the estate tax. President Clinton left you guys an estate of $5 trillion, and like irresponsible relatives, you went off and blew it. And now you are saying to the country, like so often serial killers leave notes for the police, as the Son of Sam did, saying, ``Help me before I kill again,'' you are saying, ``Help me before I spend again.'' You control all the mechanisms of spending. You control the House. You control the Senate. You control the Presidency. And you need help before you spend again. What is this, Comedy Central? What is it you are doing here? ``Help me, I can't stop spending. Give me a line item veto, and maybe the President will veto 1 million here or 10 million there or 5 million there.'' We have an $8 trillion debt. You inherited a $5 trillion surplus. The money you are going to give to the richest families later today in this country, the richest 7,000 families, you are going to borrow from Social Security. Mr. Crenshaw says you are now being fiscally responsible because you have a rainy day fund. You are the only family in America that went out and borrowed money to put into a rainy day fund because you do not have any money. The American people do not have any money in this government. All they have is debt. And you want a bill to help you to keep from spending again. What you need is a 12-step program on spending. It is called intestinal fortitude. It is called having a spine. It is called having some guts to do what is necessary. But the first thing you did was get rid of the discipline and pay-as-you-go. So now you are stuck. But more importantly, the Nation is stuck, and so we see this little plea, on the morning that we are going to give away almost $1 trillion to the richest people in the Nation, you have a plea here that maybe the President will stop the bridge to nowhere. How about Congress stopping the bridge to nowhere? How about doing what you were elected to do? You don't need a line item veto. This isn't about statutes. This isn't about vetoes. This is about what the Congress is to do. You walked in here fresh, newly elected, and you got handed $5 trillion. And now you can't stop yourself. You can't stop yourself. You can stop yourself from giving the people an increase in the minimum wage that hasn't increased since 1997. You can't give those people 70 cents more an hour. But you give it away to the richest estates, and then you can plead that but for the line item veto, we would somehow get to a balanced budget. Every dollar you are going to spend today, tomorrow, and every dollar you spent yesterday and the day before came out of the Social Security Trust Fund. I am sure that America, while you are putting away a rainy day fund on borrowed money, I am sure America is delighted that you are putting away the estate tax on their Social Security earnings, on their trust fund. You are taking their trust fund that belongs to all Americans called the Social Security Trust Fund and you are raiding it for the trust fund of the heirs of the richest estates in America. What a wonderful example today. What a wonderful example for young people to learn about our obligations to future generations. This is a theater of the absurd. You have run the country into the ditch financially. You got a $1 trillion war going that you can't figure out how to stop. You have stolen most of the money from Social Security Trust Fund. Every year we have a deficit. We have a $8 trillion debt. And you want to talk about the line item veto. You know, the government is spending money like a drunken sailor, and Ronald Reagan said, well, at least the sailor was spending his own money. You are spending the public's money at a rapid, illegal, unconscionable, immoral rate, and you ought to stop, but the line item veto won't do it. Lots of things have changed since 1997, but the value of the minimum wage isn't one of them. Because of Congress' failure to act on behalf of the lowest paid workers in America, the minimum wage is still just $5.15 per hour. $5.15 per hour. Think about that. At $5.15 per hour, you would have to work all day just to fill a tank of gas at today's gas prices. At $5.15 per hour, you would have to work for at least 30 minutes just to afford a single gallon of milk. Democrats have a simple and reasonable proposal: We want to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour over the next two years. Doing so would directly benefit 6.6 million American workers. The vast majority of those workers are adults. Hundreds of thousands of them are parents with children under the age of 18. We have all heard the well-worn economic arguments against raising the minimum wage, and we all know they simply aren't true. The truth is that raising the minimum wage won't hurt the economy, and can even help it. But forget about economics. That's not what this issue is about. This issue is about doing what's right. And it is just wrong that, in the wealthiest and most advanced country in the history of the world, millions of adults work full-time, all year, and yet still earn an income that leaves them deep in poverty. It is just wrong for the Republican leaders of this Congress to refuse to allow even a vote on raising the minimum wage. But what makes all of this far worse is that today, once again, as it has done so many times during the past several years, the leaders of this House are going to push tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country . You know, starting in 2009, only the largest and wealthiest 7,500 estates nationwide will pay the estate tax. The Republican plan to gut the tax on these 7,500 estates will add three quarters of a trillion dollars to the federal budget deficit over the next decade. That's trillion with a T. Lee Raymond, the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, stands to save as much as $160 million if this estate tax repeal goes through. This is the same Lee Raymond who left his job with a $400 million retirement package. Why is the Republican leadership so worried about people like Lee Raymond? Why is the Republican leadership constantly looking for new ways to help the absolute richest people in the country? When is the leadership of this House going to do something for the lowest-paid families in America? If you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you stand to inherit millions or even billions of dollars that you did not work to earn, then this Congress wants to serve you. But if you get up every day and go to work to earn a living, then don't expect any help from this Congress. The message all of this sends could not be clearer. The Republicans value wealth, not work. If you hold up your end of the bargain and contribute to your community and our economy by working hard every day, then you should not have to live in poverty. It is well past time for this Congress to treat America's working families with the respect and dignity they have earned. The choice to provide hundreds of billions more in tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy is shameful. It's even more shameful to do it while steadfastly refusing to raise the minimum wage.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. So I have 25 minutes; is that correct?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would say to those who are going to speak to be aware of that so others get a chance to speak. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield time to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues for joining me in this Special Order to try to bring to the attention of this Nation the unwillingness of the Republican Congress to raise the minimum wage for these workers that my colleagues have described. We are talking about the dignity of millions of workers. We are talking about millions of workers who must rely on the Congress of the United States to give them a raise, and this Congress has refused to do so and has refused to do so for the past 9 years. These are people who work very hard. They get up and go to work every day, just like we tell them we want them to do. We don't want them to get on public assistance. We want them to take responsibility, and they do. They work at some of the most difficult jobs in the Nation, and they do it every day, and at the end of the year they simply end up poor. They end up poor not because they are not tough people, not because they are not diligent, not because they are competent; they end up poor because they simply do not get paid enough, and this Congress is unwilling to lend a hand to them. When we refuse to pay these workers, we refuse them the dignity of that work and the recognition that we all understand. This country could not survive without their effort. They cook our food. They take care of our families and clean our offices. They do so many things for us without asking the question, and we come to expect it. It is just that way when we show up in the morning, it is just that way when we go home because of their hard work. I dare say most Members of Congress couldn't toil at these jobs for a day, a week, or a month. And yet these people do it all year long. And they are now working for a wage that has its lowest value in 50 years. That is what we tell them that they are worth, that they are not entitled to that increase. And yet, do we see in just one week's time the Congress voted to give itself a COLA, turned around and we thought vote to raise the minimum wage in the Labor-HHS bill after 9 years, finally voting to raise the wage. But the Republican leadership interceded. When the amendment was offered today, this Republican Congress changed their vote and voted against the minimum wage. And the majority leader, Mr. Boehner of the Republican Party, is quoted as saying he is against it. It is not going to happen. It is not coming to the floor and he hasn't voted for minimum wage in 25 years of his public service, a boast of pride. I think it is a boast of shame. It is a shame this Congress doesn't understand its obligation to these workers who are in such desperate need. These are people who are trying to hold their family together. Again we ask them to take care of their children to keep them safe, to provide for the care for these children. Do you know how difficult it is to put a family together on $10,000 a year? At a time, as Ms. Schakowsky says, what is it that isn't going up? You have to pay the utility bills. You have to pay increased prices. These people have to work all week to fill the gas tank. All week. $5.15 an hour. How do you do this? How do you do this? You have got to fill the gas tank; you have got to drive the car. You have got to take care of your kids. You have got to buy groceries. You can't afford the rent. How is it they do this? How do they do it? One day is for gas; one day is for food. It doesn't work out. It simply doesn't work out. So what happens to these people? They become dependent on the taxpayer. Because the employers won't pay them the wages, the taxpayers come in and subsidize the jobs. They subsidize the jobs in terms of housing, in terms of free and reduced-price lunches, in terms of health care. So the employer simply decides that he won't pay this wage. We don't know whether or not he can afford to. That is the claim. But they end up just handing them off to the taxpayers. And even that voice of an industry that was doing the same thing at a different level, Wal-Mart, now has come out and asked for an increase in the minimum wage. Why? Because they realize that people who are shopping and earning at the minimum wage simply don't have enough to buy the necessities of life. Even at Wal-Mart with everyday low prices, as they advertise, people cannot do this. So that power, that bastion of capitalistic spirit is saying, if the Nation doesn't do something for these workers, growth is going to go down in the retail industry. You know what it means? You know what Wal- Mart understands? They understand that this increase of the minimum wage would mean about $4,300 to these families, to these individuals, that that is real purchasing power and that is what the communities that Mr. Tierney cited and Ms. Schakowsky cited. What we see is jobs were created in those communities. Retail sales are actually up in those communities because people have money to spend. They can go to the grocery store. They can go and buy their kids clothes. They can buy them things for school. None of that is possible at the minimum wage. None of that is possible at the minimum wage. And that is why this Congress has got to understand the human dimensions of this. If the Republicans are so callous that they can't understand how hard these people work and how they toil, and they cannot figure out that these people are worth more than $5.15 an hour, something is terribly wrong. I heard one of the spokesmen for the Club For Growth today said there shouldn't be any minimum wage. Just let the marketplace set the price. Just let the marketplace set the price. And former Secretary Rice said, oh, you mean like it does for executive salaries? And the answer was absolutely, just like it does for executive salaries. Are those the same executives that were backdating the stock options? They didn't let the marketplace set their compensation. They backdated the stock options so they were guaranteed a profit in those stock options. No, they didn't rely on the market. They manipulated the market. They manipulated the market. And how is it that somehow they want to suggest that for people at the minimum wage that they are the ones that have to survive in the marketplace? The fact of the matter is the marketplace is exploiting these individuals by failing to pay them a decent wage so that they can raise their families. And it has got to stop. And it has got to stop here because the times has come to do this, to make sure that after 9 years, after 9 years of no increases, after six times of increasing congressional salaries, somehow something is terribly wrong for these individuals, and we have got to change that. We have got to make sure that that can't happen. The disparities are just unbelievable in terms of these people and the rest of the country. And we cannot believe that each of these children who are in these families are going to have the same kind of opportunity that other children have, and that is why we have got to raise the minimum wage. This is an issue of moral dimensions. It is way beyond the pay for the hours worked, the pay for the week's work. It is about whether or not we really do, in fact, believe in the value of work, whether we really do believe in the human dignity of these individuals who toil at these jobs. That is what this minimum wage is about. And it is a tragedy, it is a tragedy that the Republican leadership is now vowing that it simply will not be able to be voted on. This is a Congress. We have a bipartisan solution; clearly we have enough votes in the Congress to pass the minimum wage. But they are going to do everything they can from keeping that vote from taking place. So the democracy is not going to work its will. The House is not going to work its will. All of the jabbering that goes on about bipartisan government is not going to work its will because bipartisan government in the House of Representatives would vote to increase the minimum wage. But that apparently is not going to happen. But we have got to continue to struggle on behalf of these families, on behalf of their children, on behalf of this Nation in terms of human dignity. And I want to thank my colleagues for joining me in this Special Order to raise this issue with our colleagues and with people in the country.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, there is no more pressing issue in our country today than bringing an end to the war in Iraq as quickly as possible. I thank my colleagues on the other side who just completed their discussion of the war on terror. They remind us that it is a war in which we can never yield and about which we have no choice. They also remind us that Iraq has become a recruiting ground for those international terrorists; that Iraq has become a proving ground for those international terrorists; and that Iraq has become the motivation for many of those international terrorists, none of which existed before the President's choice to go to war, a war not of necessity, a war that was unjustified based upon falsified intelligence. In fact, we see the new CIA Director said that intelligence that the administration used to make the case for war was wrong, inaccurate, and misleading. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and there was no connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. The administration used fear to scare this country into war based upon those lies. He refused to properly prepare for the war and its aftermath, and now our soldiers, our families, and our Nation are paying an enormous price for this President's tragic blunder. Two thousand five hundred Americans soldiers, we are informed today, have died in Iraq. 19,000 American soldiers have been wounded, many of them missing limbs and suffering other very serious debilitating injuries that will afflict them the rest of their lives. The war has cost almost a half a trillion dollars in taxpayer money, and America's international reputation and respect in the world has been severely damaged. The President often says that he makes decisions about the future of Iraq based upon what the generals say; but when the time came to listen to the generals prior to Iraq, the President refused to listen to them. He refused to listen to them when they questioned the force structure that was available to us to go into Iraq at that time, but he went anyway. He refused to listen to them when questions were raised the day after we seized Baghdad. What we now see is massive national chaos for which our soldiers were not trained, not given any instructions on how to deal with, and certainly did not have sufficient numbers to deal with. The President sent the troops into that war with that poor planning, that poor structure, and that poor understanding of what would take place afterwards. The American public had to witness soldiers being forced to buy their own body armor, have their families buy it because we did not have a proper supply prior to going into that war. Many men and women were sent into battle with unarmored, old Humvees that were used for flood control in the California rivers before they showed up in Iraq, and those soldiers died because of that inadequate equipment and because of the roadside bombs that are the number one killer in Iraq. We see the torture of detainees was approved at the highest levels in the Pentagon; and this, again, has led to an undermining of our position in the world, our moral position in the war in Iraq and the war against terrorism. This is a policy blunder of historic proportions by this President, and it is very important that we understand that we are paying a huge price for these mistakes by this administration. Tragically, we stand here on the floor of this Congress today 3 years after the beginning of this war, but for 3 years questions were not raised in this Congress about that force structure, about that preparedness, about the detainee policy, about these actions that have so severely undermined us. Yes, we saw the taking of Zarqawi, and what do we have there? We have the real use of smart intelligence on the war against terror. As you pointed out, they are not going to come after the 130,000 troops. They are not going to come after our strengths, but that is what people have been saying for a long time. That is what people have been writing about at the military schools, about the networking of terrorism and how you had to go after it. We went after it exactly the wrong way, in exactly the same way, as people who made these historic blunders throughout history, when confronting this kind of force. Yes, we should provide the special ops; yes, we should provide the surveillance; yes, we should provide the intelligence and we should work together. In the case of Zarqawi, we saw, once the Jordanians were insulted enough by the attacks on their land, they put their intelligence sources to work, combined with ours, and Zarqawi was run down, and we provided the 500-pound bombs. We provided the special ops. That is not what is happening day to day in the war in Iraq, and our troops are paying a horrible, horrible price for the lack of preparation, the lack of planning and the lack of prosecution of this effort and the initial mistake and lies by the President of the United States. The President's policies in Iraq have severely undermined America's national security and made the world less safe. In response to the clear failures in Iraq, the Republican Congress has acted like a rubberstamp for President Bush rather than the elected representatives of the people of America. Republicans in Congress have hid their heads in the sand and refused to question the President, instead sheepishly pretending success is around the corner. As a result, Iraq is engaged in a civil war that threatens to consume the country. Congress has done nothing to stop the civil war in Iraq, nothing to hold the President accountable for the failures in Iraq, and nothing to put our troops on a safe and speedy path toward home, or to other parts of the world where they are needed to fight against terrorism. The President and his allies in the Republican leadership in Congress have made up their minds. They have a plan for Iraq. It is the same failed plan they started the war with. It is chaos with no end in sight. There is no more that we can ask of America's troops. They have done everything they have been asked to do. It is time for them to serve their nation where they are needed most, and that is surely not in Iraq. Now is not the time to stay the course of failure. America needs a new direction in Iraq--a new direction that will make Americans safer.