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August 4, 2006, 9:26 am
By
The National Association of Manufacturers
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.
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August 4, 2006, 8:25 am
By
Conn. Dem. Candidate for Congress Diane Farrell
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.
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August 4, 2006, 8:03 am
By
Wyo. GOP Sen. Mike Enzi
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.
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August 4, 2006, 6:45 am
By
Ohio Dem. Senate Candidate Rep. Sherrod Brown
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.
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August 4, 2006, 6:38 am
By
Ct. GOP Rep. Chris Shays
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.
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August 4, 2006, 5:13 am
By
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
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August 3, 2006, 2:12 pm
By
N.D. Dem. Sen. Kent Conrad
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.
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August 3, 2006, 2:03 pm
By
Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn
It's very important to address immigration this year and it is my number one domestic priority. What I am concerned about is that, while Republicans are ostensibly in charge, we have yet to sit down and negotiate a compromise in the conference committee. I find that pretty disconcerting.
Funding the border fence is a partial response and what we need is a comprehensive response. You put up a 300-mile fence, and people are going to come around it or they enter the country legally and overstay, which is where 45 percent of illegal immigration comes from.
We need to deal with the work site verification issue, we need to deal with the border security issue, and we need to deal with a temporary worker program that is not a path to citizenship.
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August 3, 2006, 2:00 pm
By
Okla. GOP Sen. Tom Coburn
Why do we have a prescription requirement for oral contraceptives? Because there is a risk associated with oral contraceptives. There is significant risk of sudden death, in terms of increased risk for people that have advanced cardiovascular disease or that have blood vessel disease. Before we give anybody oral contraceptives, we do a thorough history to make sure they don't have any risk factors. We also make sure they understand how to use them.
Plan B is nothing but a very high dose of the same medicine, taken over a short period of time. Why would we give somebody the same medicine and not know what the risk factors are? You're also going to have people taking it more than one time a month, which means they are getting more than a normal month worth of oral contraceptives. I think that is bad medicine.
A lot of times, when people are going to be taking that, they really need to be seeing a physician for the sexually transmitted diseases that may have occurred, and for the social and psychological counseling that may be necessary as the result of the unplanned or unwanted event. Finally, what about a 20-year-old guy buying it for a 14-year-old girl? There is no control over that with Plan B.
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August 3, 2006, 12:22 pm
By
Calif. Dem. Rep. Xavier Becerra
Since its inception in 1938, the federal minimum wage has been increased over the years to adjust for inflation and enhance the purchasing power for modest-income Americans. At $5.15 an hour, the federal minimum wage today stands at an abysmal, even embarrassing level.
A full-time minimum wage worker - and there are 6.6 million of them in our country - will earn only $10,712 this year. That's less than $900 each month! How much do you pay every month just on your mortgage, for your rent or car payment?
Perhaps most disturbing is that the White House and the Republican controlled Congress have done nothing about this. My Republican colleagues have had ample opportunity to raise the minimum wage. In just one month (from June 22 to July 19), Democrats were able to call up seven votes on this issue. All the votes failed on strict party lines. And then on Friday evening, July 28, a "minimum wage" bill was brought up for a vote. But was it a clean bill that only dealt with the minimum wage? Absolutely not. It was a 183-page piece of legislation titled the "Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006" (H.R. 5970). The minimum wage increase was dealt with on page 181 of the legislation.
And to get an idea of where the priorities of this Congress lie: if H.R. 5970 is enacted into law, 6.6 million Americans will get an average annual raise of $1,200, while 8,200 Americans will get an average tax cut of $1.4 million.
Congress has not increased the federal minimum wage since 1997. The cost of living, however, has risen significantly. Consider that since 1997, the cost of a gallon of regular gas has increased 136 percent; a loaf of bread has increased 25 percent; a gallon of milk has increased 24 percent; a four-year public college education has increased 77 percent; and health insurance has increased 97 percent.
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