Economy & Budget

From a personal standpoint, I hope we look at drought relief.  I'm from a state that was affected by eight years of drought.  Also the inheritance tax reform - we badly need it because the inheritance tax reform expires in 2010 - it's very difficult for people to do estate tax planning because the change so distorts their decisions.  We need something people can hang their hat on.

I hope that we raise the minimum wage. There are majorities for raising the minimum wage in both the House and the Senate. The question is whether the majority leadership will let it up.

Let's get a comprehensive immigration reform this September. We will have severe repercussions if we don't act. Also, we need to have earmark reform. We're going to consider a reform this September that's now separate from lobbying reform.

Once again, the rules of the U.S. Senate have hurt the American people.  With 56 percent of the Senate voting in favor of increasing the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour and extending reductions of the death tax, a majority prevailed- but not a supermajority.  I was one of the 48 House Republicans who encouraged our leadership to raise the minimum wage and was very pleased when 56 percent of the House voted to pass the measure.  But 56 percent in the House is different than 56 percent in the Senate.



Some of the 44 percent of members who disagreed with combining a raise in the minimum wage with the extension of the death tax reduction want people to believe that the death tax reduction benefits only the super.  Well, there are no Paris Hilton's in the Fifth District of Ohio but what we do have a lot of are small business owners and farmers.  In my district, there are more than 12,000 farms and with more than two-thirds of the new jobs in the U.S. being created by small businesses, Paris Hilton had nothing to do with this vote.  I only hope we the American public can persuade the minority of the Senate who chose not to increase the minimum wage in order to satisfy their political base.

Start with an overwhelming majority of Senators in favor of extending the R&D tax credit. Add a healthy majority who support a permanent solution to the death tax. And then add another majority of those who favor increasing the minimum wage.

And the sum is… well, not 60 votes, unfortunately.

Election-year politics was apparently the variable yesterday that led to the Senate’s regrettable inability to invoke cloture on H.R. 5970, the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act. Read more...

The American people see the minimum wage bill for what it is - a blatant political trick to make voters think Republicans like Chris Shays actually care about them and their ability to make a living. If Chris and the rest of the Republican leadership really cared about enacting a fair and equitable minimum wage, they would have had an up or down vote on just that measure - but Congressman Shays refused to allow even that. Instead he joined the rest of his party to pass a minimum wage bill he knew would never pass the Senate and therefore not be enacted.

I support an up or down vote on a minimum wage increase, which is long overdue for hard-working Americans.

I am proud that we can now send the President the most sweeping changes to our nation’s retirement laws since the enactment of ERISA itself.  This legislation will provide greater security for our nation’s workers who have retirement benefit plans and greater stability for the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporations (PGBC).  There is little doubt that this bill will be the foundation on which the future of our retirement system rests.  Thursday night we secured the future for American workers and their families.  We have now ensured that their hard work is rewarded and their hard earned dollars go towards their retirement needs.  Promises made will be promises kept.

As the drug and insurance industries rake in tens of billions of dollars in profits, Ohio seniors and people with disabilities are being forced to pay full price for their prescription drugs as they hit gaps in coverage. This Medicare drug plan has provided windfall profits to the drug companies at the expense of Ohio seniors.

While seniors and people with disabilities continue to express frustration with the Part D disaster, Senator Mike DeWine continues to tout his vote in favor of the drug plans. The legislation included a $100 billion subsidy for the pharmaceutical industry, and has allowed the industry to earn tens of billions more off of the backs of the poorest seniors and taxpayers.

After taking $300,000 in campaign contributions from the drug industry over the course of his career, Senator DeWine voted to prohibit Medicare from negotiating for lower drug prices. Mike DeWine can try to distort his record, but the truth is that the price of prescription drugs has gone up under Medicare Part D. Part D has provided a boon to the drug and insurance industry but has saddled Ohio seniors with higher costs and gaps in coverage. Read more...

The House bill took an important step forward in ensuring that hard-working Americans can support their families better and I am grateful the moderates' were able to secure that vote. With this bill, minimum wage workers' pay would have increased 41 percent to $7.25 per hour over the next three years.  Economic research has shown that an incremental increase in the minimum wage -- like the one passed by Congress in 1996 and passed the House -- is the best way to ensure there is little to no impact on employment or prices.

It is completely irresponsible, it is reckless. This place is increasingly detached from reality. My Republican friends that used to be fiscally responsible have now turned their history on its head.

Every day they increase spending. They just added billions of dollars to this defense bill, and then they cut the revenue, cut the revenue, cut the revenue. They just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper and stacking up more and more debt.

Where this ends, we all know: Higher interest rates and America in a weakened financial position.
If this isn’t reigned in, the next thing they are going to do is to propose shredding Social Security and Medicare. It is very clear that’s where this is all headed because it is the only way to balance the books after everything they have done.