Asa Hutchinson: “I have been perplexed. I have asked and I have asked and I have asked Members of the other side of the aisle why this…”

“I have been perplexed. I have asked and I have asked and I have asked Members of the other side of the aisle why this was not done 2 years ago. If they feel so passionate about it, if this is the great means by which we are going to help poor working people, why, when they held the House, when they held the Senate, when they held the White House, they did not bring this to the floor. Well, I think I know why, because the President at that time said that raising the minimum wage is the wrong way to help poor working people. That is why they did not do it. They knew that this is not really going to help the working poor of this country. The Democratic Leadership Council said the same thing, and still says the same thing, that raising the minimum wage is the wrong way to do this. Joseph Stiglitz, the President's own former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, when he was an economics professor, this is the man who worked for the President, he said ``only about 10 percent of the people in poverty work at jobs that pay at or near the minimum wage,'' and then he said, as he concluded, ``the minimum wage is not a good way of trying to deal with problems of poverty.'' That is why it was not done. That is why it should not be done now. The reason this is being done is because there is an election in November. It is the wrong way to help the working poor.”