Mike Enzi: “Well, here we are again. A couple of weeks ago, we were here in the Senate Chamber talking about the need to have full…”

“Well, here we are again. A couple of weeks ago, we were here in the Senate Chamber talking about the need to have full disclosure of earmarks--pet projects that are added into bills, only to find that the underlying bill only disclosed about 5 percent of all the earmarks. After a lot of procedural maneuvering and give-and-take, fortunately, Republicans and Democrats came together and realized that if we are going to do this--tell the American people we are going to disclose earmarks--then we should do it, and we should do it for all earmarks, and we should be open and honest about what we do. Fortunately, we fixed that problem. But here we are again today. Now we are talking about raising the minimum wage for American workers. We have had passionate pleas, which are warranted. There are too many people in this country who don't make a livable wage. We, as Senators, Congressmen, and as Americans, should do everything we can to help people earn a livable wage and better. There have been a lot of passionate speeches on the floor about, What do we do with a single mom with two kids working at the minimum wage? How can they possibly get by? It is true. It is very true.…”