Max Baucus: “I rise to oppose the pending motion to invoke cloture. We are here today because the majority chooses not to allow a…”

“I rise to oppose the pending motion to invoke cloture. We are here today because the majority chooses not to allow a vote on a minimum wage. It is that simple. That is wrong. It is wrong because the millions of hard-working Americans making the minimum wage deserve a raise. It is wrong because the Senators from California and Massachusetts also deserve to get a vote on their amendment. It is not right that a person who has a full-time job at minimum wage still has to live in poverty, but that is where we are today in America. For a family of three, let's say a mom and two kids, the gap between the poverty line and the minimum wage is $3,681. That is right, a family would need $3,681 more just to get up to the poverty level, and that is before taking into account the cost of child care, which is a big factor, or the cost of gasoline for the car--we know how much gasoline prices are rising--or the cost of clothes for a job. Often a person has to buy separate clothes for a job. If we want people to be able to move off welfare and into work--and that is what we want, people off welfare into work--we have to make sure the work they get pays enough so they can get off welfare and lift them out of poverty. That is what we have to do, and that is why increasing the minimum wage is so important. Most people who are on welfare will say they want to get off welfare; they do not like it; they hate it. That is what they tell me.…”