Dol Overtime Rule

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to represent the concerns of Kentucky's Sixth Congressional District's business, education, and nonprofit leaders who will be negatively impacted by the Department of Labor's final rule on overtime pay. These new regulations will have a crippling effect on businesses' ability to create jobs and even continue operations in our already tough economic climate.

Today I want to share some stories from my constituents, who are among the millions of Americans whose businesses and educational institutions and nonprofits will be significantly harmed by the Department of Labor's final rule.

Darshana Patel, a first-generation American who emigrated to Kentucky from India, sat in my office with tears in her eyes, voicing concerns to me about the impact of the overtime rule on the three hotels that she worked hard to build and own.

As a result of the high cost of the rule, Mrs. Patel's small business will be forced to demote a manager who has worked with her for 14 years to an hourly position on December 1. She also worries that she will have to let go some of her employees. She says she will be forced to take these drastic actions because, with this rule, she will have to come up with about $25,000 per property--money that she did not budget for.

This hardworking, first-generation American entrepreneur was crying because she said she came to this country to achieve the American Dream, and the government of the United States is tearing that dream apart with overregulation.

According to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, more than half of hotel managers in the United States start in entry level positions. The Department of Labor rule will reduce employment opportunities for these workers just starting off and significantly limit upward mobility.

The Department of Labor's overtime rule will also negatively impact educational employment opportunities at our colleges and universities. The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, which includes the University of Kentucky, in my district, has stated that the overtime rule will likely place upward pressure on tuition and adversely impact outreach missions of universities. Because of the rule, students who are already facing significant barriers to accessing higher education will be further burdened by increased tuition.

Caroline Ruschell, the executive director of the Kentucky Association of Children's Advocacy Centers, also reached out to me about the negative impact of the overtime rule on her organization's critical work with child victims of sexual abuse.

To avoid penalties under the overtime rule, many clinics that provide vital exams and treatment to sexually abused children will be forced to reduce the hours of salaried workers, while supplementing those lost hours by overworking other employees. This will result in lower quality care and longer wait times for children to receive the critical treatment they need after facing such horrific trauma.

While the Department of Labor bureaucrats claim that the overtime rule will improve economic conditions for middle-class employees, this onerous regulation on businesses, educational institutions, and nonprofits will have the exact opposite effect by reducing job opportunities and limiting hours for many workers. Nonprofit and universities doing critical work in our communities will be forced to reduce the reach of their efforts by these burdensome regulations.

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, regulations cost us $1.89 trillion in lost productivity and growth. At a time when job creation and small business growth are critical to our recovering economy, the Department of Labor's final regulation will be detrimental for millions of hardworking Americans.

This regulation, like so many other regulations in the avalanche of red tape coming out of the Obama administration, hurts the very people that they claim that they are trying to protect and that they are trying to help.

Nearly 8 years after the Great Recession, Americans are stuck in the slowest and weakest economic recovery of their lifetimes, and the reason is simple: this administration is burying the American economy in red tape.

Enough is enough. Leave the American people alone and let them do their work.

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