Burgess Owens: “I serve on the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on…”

“I serve on the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workplace Protections, which is directly responsible for the minimum wage, so I have quite a file on the minimum wage and have been living with it for some time. The bill that is presently out, sponsored by Minority Leader Gephardt and the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, Mr. Clay. That bill calls for an increase of 90 cents over a 2-year period, and I must say that I am awfully sorry that at its last count we only had about 125 people who are cosponsors of the bill. I hope we will have more cosponsors, not only from the Democratic side, a complete cosponsorship, but also some of the Republicans who have decided that this is the humane and sensible thing to do will also join us and will get on with the business of giving the lowest paid workers in America a 90-cent increase over the next two years. It is a very conservative approach. We have an economy right now that is booming.”