Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call on my colleagues to join in the effort to pass the Fair Minimum Wage Act and raise the Federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Fifty years ago, 200,000 Americans marched on Washington. Appealing to the soul of the Nation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his fellow speakers charted out the long journey for equality and justice ahead. In the pamphlet promoting the March on Washington, they listed 10 specific legislative demands. A number of these demands would go on to become some of the most significant achievements of the Federal Government in the postwar era: comprehensive civil rights legislation, desegregation of all school districts, an end to discrimination in Federal housing programs. It is clear that we have made progress on many of these issues, but for many of us here, the fight for these goals remains unfinished. Let us not forget, though, that the March on Washington was actually called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Let us remember number eight on that list of demands: ``A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. Government surveys show that anything less than $2 an hour fails to do this.'' On whole, the American economy has made tremendous strides in the last half century. Many in this Congress have been benefactors of that growth, but the American worker has been left behind. The $2 an hour that Dr.…”