Burgess Owens

Today in America, 73 percent of the foreign corporations doing business in our country pay no Federal income tax, none, zero; profitable, huge, multinational corporations. The U.S. Tax Code is full of credits and giveaways that actually…

this fiscal year 1997 budget of the Republican majority continues the same extremism of the fiscal year 1996 budget. American people have rejected that extremism, but it goes on and on. It is an assault on the majority of the American…

I think it has been a bad week for mothers and a bad week for families and a bad week for children. We had a Republican housing bill which passed, which greatly reduced the participation of the Federal Government in the provision of…

I do not know whether the gentleman here comes from a farm State or not, but the people in my district want to know how you have a situation where farmers' home loan mortgages are forgiven. Over a 5-year period, the Department of…

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.

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.

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.

An enlightened employer would know that paying the minimum wage helps the economy as a whole. These are very poor people and every dollar they make they are going to spend in this economy. They are not like the CEO's, who make millions of…

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…

No, I will not yield now. There are some other factors that are involved that drive the prices down so low, as there is in many businesses. There are many other factors involved than the wages paid. We have a thriving economy, and we owe…

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…

last Thursday we passed a large appropriations bill which completed the process of budgeting and appropriations for the fiscal year which began last October 1. It is finally all over and I have read the boast in the papers and heard them…

the omnibus appropriations for fiscal year 1996 (H.R. 3019) represents a partial victory for common sense and the Democratic Party. We have forced the Republican Majority to cancel devastating cuts in programs such as Title I; Head Start…

the Republicans are attacking the lowest wage earners in America, the people at the very bottom, on two fronts. First, they deny them an opportunity for an increase in the minimum wage; an in this legislation, which this rule concerns…

In the process of revamping the budget, do they realize that--they realize above all that money comes into Washington and then flows out. Why does Louisiana, why does Louisiana get so much more money from the Federal Government than it…

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…

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.

I thoroughly agree with both of my colleagues. We have a moral duty, and we are charged as public officials by our Constitution to promote the general welfare. If you look at it in hard, cold terms in terms of promoting the general…

Ron Brown was a renaissance politician, a jack of all trades who mastered them all. He was a mentor for seasoned professional politicians and he was qualified to tutor most of us. Ron used his considerable influence and charm to become an…

People in the poorest parts of my district would welcome an increase of 45 cents or 50 cents. We really need more. They do not care where it comes from Republicans or Democrats. There are people who are suffering that need that increase in…

So there is a kind of war on the poor. I want to yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia and say to her that her State is about the same in terms of the percentage of people who are making only the minimum wage, working people who are…

Some of these people are at the very bottom of the rung. Although they are working, they are at the very bottom in terms of wages and income and were benefiting from the earned: income tax credit. You just mentioned that. But not only have…

I would very much like to continue the discussion on the minimum wage. I serve as the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, which is directly responsible for the minimum wage, and I am certainly delighted that I…