John Joseph Moakley: “Mr. Speaker, the gentleman, my colleague, my friend, is right. Maybe we should have addressed minimum wage. But as he…”

“Mr. Speaker, the gentleman, my colleague, my friend, is right. Maybe we should have addressed minimum wage. But as he knows, we had other things on our pallet. We had the health care bill that took a lot of time. We had the budget bill. We had the appropriation bills that the Republicans did not let come out through the proper process. So we really were distracted doing other things. But now we are looking clear eyed at the minimum wage, and maybe we should have done it before. Having said that, we have just received notice from Speaker Gingrich that he does not want to allow the minimum wage to go forward, so we cannot rely upon the ordinary committee process. This is the process we have to take.”