Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, we have debated today a very difficult issue. There are those who are convinced that the wage hike is necessary. There are those who are convinced that the wage hike is unnecessary. But one thing that both sides of the aisle agree on, however, is that certain forward-looking reforms need to be made to the Fair Labor Standards Act, written in 1938, for the 21st century. Taking out the three FLSA reforms is not only a purely political act ignoring the needs of the American workplace, it is also a purely political act that ignores the bipartisan foundation these three sensible reforms rest upon. The bipartisan reform measure that updates the FLSA with respect to computer professionals is identical to H.R. 3038, a bill introduced by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). The bipartisan reform measure reflects the computer professionals' problem that they are faced with today. The current computer exemptions which remain require that they be paid $57,000 a year. That does not sound like a minimum wage problem to me. The reform measure recognizes the real world and our changing economy by simply updating the current computer professionals' exemption from the overtime provisions of the FLSA. The measure simply clarifies existing law.”