Steny Hoyer: “Thank you very much. The hour is late and the time is limited. Mr. Speaker, I rise, however, to briefly urge my…”

“Thank you very much. The hour is late and the time is limited. Mr. Speaker, I rise, however, to briefly urge my colleagues to take action on raising the minimum wage. This is an action of fairness. It is the right thing to do. It is an issue of values. The American people believe it is the right thing to do. Eighty-six percent of them have said we ought to raise the minimum wage. This issue clearly illustrates the different priorities, it seems to me, between the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. We Democrats have been trying to get this issue on the floor for years now. Let us look at the facts, Mr. Speaker. Democrats have been fighting to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over 2 years. Today, if the minimum wage were at the rate it was in 1968, we would be paying $9.05. We are not getting there, but we ought to do better than we have done. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the Republican side of the aisle is fighting us tooth and nail while attempting this week to bring up legislation once again that gives the heirs of the wealthiest families in America a break on the estates tax and drive our Nation even deeper into debt. That is right, while the working people struggle to make ends meet, doing what we expect them to do, this Congress is rushing an estate tax bill, what I call the ``Paris Hilton Tax Relief Act,'' to the floor.…”