Burgess Owens

That was the basic principle that ought to be the bedrock of American capitalism, and they are throwing it away because we are not producing workers that can buy the products any more.

And if we had some tax laws with the people who are making the profits, instead of the present situation where individuals and families are paying 44 percent of the income tax in this country while corporations are paying a little more…

That is the task before us, to repeal those pieces of legislation; also to do everything possible to get laws in place which will not allow them to keep beating down the work force, to wipe out organized labor. There are a lot of things we…

The Japanese CEO's, the German CEO's, and other CEO's around the world are not earning those kinds of salaries.

The gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] was implying before that the challenge to us is to stop them from making products in other countries with the cheapest possible labor and then bringing them back here to sell them duty free. That…

And consumer spending is still two-thirds of our economy. We are going to wipe out consumer spending.

Every new NAFTA, every new GATT adds to that corporate power. It allows them to make higher and higher profits, 59 percent since 1993. That is light stuff compared to what is going on now, I am sure, in terms of the stock market still…

I think that is very much on track. That process is being endangered now. If you wipe out the ability to organize and you wipe out unions, who have the resources and the know-how to organize, then you are going to shut off that whole…

We have a situation in America where we cannot take care of, or we refuse to take care of, a large part of the population of our children. We refuse to take care of it, even though the gross national product is quite healthy, the profits…

Not for one moment would I want to minimize the role of the caucus in stimulating, the caucus stimulated the activity from the general community and from the White House. We played a major role. The leadership of the first Reconstruction…

You have the overwhelming support of the African-American community. Our community overwhelmingly supports this effort. They want to see the truth come out. They want to get to the heart of this problem.

So the Justice Department will not conduct its own independent investigation; it is going to cooperate with the CIA Inspector General?

This ``just say no'' slogan; was it not originated about the same time that the other hand of the Government, the CIA, was encouraging the sale of drugs?

Is it true that the Justice Department has already concluded that they do not need to investigate?

Those of us who oppose the TEAM Act say that the legislation and the context of union-busting that is taking place in the country now is another form of intimidation, another form of ambush that can be set for workers and that we do not…

The caring majority budget of the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Progressive Caucus meets the mandate that we produce a balanced budget. But this budget does not produce a murder of Medicaid. It does not reduce EITC or wipe out…

It is an insult to workers who make the minimum wage to say that they are there because they are no good, they cannot improve themselves. My father is one of the smartest men I ever knew. He worked in the Memphis furniture factory all his…

We are encouraging them to improve by saying we are going to pay you what you should be paid in this economy. In this economy you cannot live on $8,400 a year. You need more than that. You cannot live off $4.25 an hour. So we are going to…

We need employers who understand that it is better for them, like Henry Ford understood at a certain point that he had to pay his workers a decent hourly wage so they could buy the cars.

We would have to go up to $6.25 an hour. If we put it on an index inflation now it should be at $6.25 instead of $4.25.

I am not accusing anybody of anything. We need entrepreneurs and people to be successful.

You should live the experience of the people that do not have any money to make out checks for. There are large numbers of people who would love to have your pain and your grief in terms of the difficulty of making out checks for payroll.

Let us take care of our economy. Mr. Greenspan wants to take up inflation. Seems to me Mr. Greenspan would address his concern to inflated salaries at the top levels, and deal not so much and scrutinize not so much the wages paid to people…

Just the opposite has happened. The common denominator is becoming the prison laborer in China, the workers in Bangladesh, the workers in Mexico. The philosophy behind the assertion by the Republican majority that we need to keep our wages…

Nowhere in Japan will you ever find anybody earning $60 million or $20 million. It is absolutely incredible. Two hundred and twelve times more in compensation than the average American worker.