Maxine Waters: “I join in this discussion because I want to raise the question of why we are using this time to try and talk about the…”

“I join in this discussion because I want to raise the question of why we are using this time to try and talk about the need for tax cuts for the wealthy. This is all about increasing minimum wage. We are being sidetracked. We are being taken off course while the Republicans are attempting one more time to get their outrageous tax cuts into law by any means necessary. Whether we are talking about the tax cuts that are being indicated in order, as they would say, to do minimum wage increase, or whether we are talking about the ongoing, continuing effort to just give more tax breaks to the rich, we find ourselves having to defend time and time again against trying to do more and more for the rich corporations and the richest Americans in this country. Let us force this discussion on whether or not there is a need for an increase in the minimum wage for the poorest of the working people in this Nation at a time when everyone is touting how well we are doing in this economy, how well people are doing in Silicon Valley. There are 260,000 millionaires in Silicon Valley alone. My colleagues would dare say that we cannot have this modest increase in minimum wage until we do some more tax cuts for the rich. This is outrageous. We have had to fight our Republican friends every step of the way. The alternative that we have designed would, of course, take care of some of those areas where we could do some targeted tax cuts. This is not the way to do it.”