Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Pocan. I want to say, at the outset, that I was impressed with the colloquy that you had with our colleague from California (Mr. George Miller), and I wish to associate myself with those comments. They were very well-taken. I, for one, and I know I speak on behalf of the entire Congressional Progressive Caucus, but I, for one, hope that the National Labor Relations Board revisits what happened in Chattanooga, because what we believe here in America is free and fair elections, and that includes labor union elections as well. We are here to talk about raising the minimum wage, and it was only appropriate that Mr. Miller from California was here with us this evening because he is one of the coauthors of H.R. 1010, the bill to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, a modest proposal, I should add. But let me attempt to address this House. I know that there are those who think that everything that could be said about raising the minimum wage has already been said, but allow me to address this House as if nothing had been said about raising the minimum wage in this country to $10.10. It is simply a matter of arithmetic. You know, if you just take what people were making at a minimum wage in the late 1960s in this country and put it on a cost index, a consumer price index, any kind of measure of inflation that has gone on since 1968, you see that, as my colleague and good friend from Wisconsin mentioned, it is well over $10.10 an hour. It is something like $10.60 an hour.…”