Jamie Raskin

So on that theory we would not want to allow extreme inequality in the private sector to become the justification for driving wages down further in the public sector.

The Federal Government historically has been a place that has been open to people facing serious discrimination in the private sector like women, like African Americans

I can't visualize who we are talking about as being overpaid within the government workforce.

High-ranking public employees... are underpaid compared to what they could be making in the private sector.

The timing of this hearing is at least a bit unusual.

That is ridiculous. That is ridiculous.

We have got misplaced priorities, we really do, on this committee, and I think there is a hell of a lot more we could be doing about issues that are real.

I think the leadership of this committee is actually suppressing a lot of the important issues that really should and in history have been grappled with by this committee.

I want to note my very strong objection to this committee's refusal to allow Senator Bernie Sanders to testify here today.

For years, they have refused to allow Congress to vote on democratic legislation to raise the minimum wage.

She said when you are sick, you can't work. And if you can't work, you can't earn. And if you can't earn, you can't pay a policy.

It is not just wages that are stagnating. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that inequality in total compensation is worsening even more rapidly than wages alone.

Over the past several decades, the productivity of American workers has grown higher than ever before. At the same time, corporations, shareholders, CEOs have been exploiting these workers and hoarding more and more of the wealth that…

The real lesson for today's hearing is not that middle class Federal workers are making too much. It is that private sector workers, especially those with the lowest incomes and educations are making too little.

I close by restating my support for this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I encourage all of my colleagues to support this wonderful legislation, and I take the occasion of National Police Week to restate everyone in this body's appreciation for the hard work that our responders and our officers do. Mr. Speaker…

I thank the chairman for yielding me time. Just to close, I want to echo Congressman Ratcliffe in observing it is National Police Week, so we have the opportunity to highlight the successful efforts that have already taken place to combat…

The Hobby Lobby case dangerously opens the idea that churches are political organizations

The vast majority of the American people have accepted the idea that churches should not be political slush funds

I mean, that's a miracle of nature. That's remarkable in the United States of America.

Well, we seem to have differences to the facts, because some people seem to think that the First Amendment is working great.

I think that what they perceive is that the repeal of the so-called Johnson Amendment is an attempt to open up a gaping hole in the law for super divine dark money to pour through into the political system.

You think it's constitutional to ban that.

Do all of you agree that corporations and citizens should not be able to funnel dark money through churches in order to get into political campaigns?

The First Amendment doesn't need a fairness act. The First Amendment is supreme to any statute we might pass.