I hope again that you will continue that effort.

We just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Family Medical Leave Act.

That directly undermines the 75-year-old Fair Labor Standards Act.

What is worse, this legislation... has nothing to do with promoting workplace flexibility.

I am sure Judge Roby, your father, would be proud to see you in that position.

I would argue that in fact you are almost putting at risk of going backwards, and so we--flexibility is a critical item.

But to be clear, nothing in this bill requires that the worker has access to time off when she really needs it.

I look forward to an opportunity to discuss legislation like the Healthy Families Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act that make a real difference to our nation's working families.

I was hopeful that today would be an opportunity to continue that discussion and that we would examine legislation that gives working families greater flexibility in managing their work and family demands.

Instead, however, we are debating legislation which frankly has been recycled through this committee numerous times and never prevailed that forces workers to compromise their paycheck in order to have more time off from work.

What is worse, this legislation, as I said, has been considered several times before and failed to gain any traction.

This bill just provides a way for employers to pay workers less in the name of workplace flexibility.

We must ensure our federal resources are used more efficiently to give students the opportunity to embrace and succeed in STEM subjects.

As we talk about the issue of young people and debt, one thing is very clear: for 7\1/2\ million young Americans who receive subsidized Stafford student loans, in 103 days the interest rate on those subsidized student loans is going to…

I mean, your testimony, Ms. Bauer, really was focused a lot on, you know, some real horror stories of people who were sort of trapped under the existing system with an employer and nowhere else to go.

Prior to the 2012 election, real, meaningful reform of our nation's immigration policy seemed completely out of the political realm of the possible.

We need to be careful about how we administer any temporary guest worker program to ensure that foreign workers are not exploited and that U.S. workers have a shot at available jobs.

I think more importantly, those jobs would still remain as jobs that would then be available to, presumably, additional guest workers who would come in, and paid under the prevailing wage rate or paid less than the average wage rate, which…

I think we have got to embrace whatever sort of traction we can get around this town.

But nonetheless, the election has really changed the political dynamics surrounding this whole issue.

Again, I just want to reference at the close here the, again, the positive signal that the AFL and the Chamber issued recently in terms of their, you know, joint commitment to try and reform and improve this system.

I particularly want to compliment you for organizing this hearing early in this Congress because there is no question that since the election last November this issue has suddenly gotten a lot more political momentum.

I hope today's discussion is the start of a productive debate on immigration reform--one that seeks to serve this nation's workers and employers.

It seems like a reform is going to have to do better, as far as data being available, again, to U.S. workers.

Together, we believe that in order to be successful in fixing America's broken immigration system, any viable remedy must do four things: strengthen our national security, create a role for employers in an employment system that functions…