Save American Workers Act of 2014

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2575. You know, sometimes you have to figure out, first of all, where did you come from to find out to where you got.

I was trying to understand the 40-hour workweek. Where could it possibly have started? How did we come to accept that, and for 70-some years that is full-time employment, 40 hours? I found out it was actually the product of the Depression. When they did the Fair Labor Standards Act, they said we need to have a measure, so it will be 44 hours--part of the New Deal, by the way. In 1940, they changed it to 40 hours a week was full-time employment. Then, all of a sudden, ObamaCare comes along and the New Deal has been replaced by a bad deal. We told people, no, no, no. It is not 40; it is 30 hours. That is what full-time employment is.

Now, when you go back to 1937 and 1940, what were they trying to do? They were trying to get America back to work. It was after the Great Depression, so it was about getting folks back to work. Now, you fast-forward to today, and it is not about getting people back to work. It is about getting ObamaCare to work.

This makes absolutely no sense. Who does it hurt the most? It has hurt low-income and middle-income people. 2.6 million folks have been affected by either losing a job or losing hours.

So you have got to scratch your head and say, Wait a minute. If we are really trying to get America back to work, why would we take their hours from them? Why would we slash their workweeks by 25 percent and think it is going to work? It has nothing to do with working people. It has to do with making ObamaCare work.

I have got to tell you that we have the New Deal that got replaced with a bad deal, and now we have H.R. 2575. Do you know what it is? It is a good deal. This is a good deal. With 435 Members, any one of us could say that this just doesn't make sense right now for the folks we represent. Why would we do this to them? Why would we take their work hours away? Why would we put in jeopardy 2.6 million people just in an effort to make ObamaCare work?

If it is about making it easier for Americans to work, then it is high time we start to turn the tide. It is time we look at what is going on and that we say to ourselves, If it worked before, why can't it work again? Why can't we go back to 40 hours? Why can't we make it easier for American families to get through the hard times that they are going through right now?

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we have had an interesting conversation today. We have talked about the 40-hour workweek and what was established back in the 1930s under the New Deal, how it switched then under ObamaCare to a bad deal. Thirty hours is considered now full-time employment.

Now we talk about Mr. Young's bill, H.R. 2575, that will be a good deal for American workers; actually gives them back those 25 percent of the hours that they were going to lose each week.

Now, we can play ring around the rosy with this and talk about who doesn't like whom and how these terrible, terrible businessowners don't go to church, they don't have a heart, they don't seem to worship anywhere, but they want to make sure that they take advantage of their very associates with whom they have a close relationship.

I can just tell you, after being in business my entire life--I am the son of a parts picker from a General Motors warehouse, a guy who worked his fingers to the bone to have something. I have got to tell you, it is really important, though, sometimes to step out of this room and go out into the marketplace and sit down with people who actually sit across the desk from somebody and hire them. There is no greater thrill for an employer than to be able to tell somebody: You know what? We are going to bring you on our team. You are going to be able to work with us. You are going to have wages that can support your family, plan for the future, do things that you never thought you were going to do, and you can do that because of a job.

Then, suddenly, because the numbers just weren't working for ObamaCare--and as the President says all too often, it is just the arithmetic--we are going to do something that makes it work for us, not for you, but for us. We are going to make full-time employment 30 hours. We are going to take 25 percent of your workweek away from you, and we are going to say it is 30 hours now. And now we say to these people who have a great association and a great relationship with the people they work with every day, because the success of the business is also the success of the employee, we are dividing these people and making them enemies in the marketplace. You don't need to do that.

But only in this great House and only in this great town and only in the place that is so out of touch with everyday America can we stand up and make these statements and think that they stick.

2.6 million people are affected by this in a very negative, negative way. They are going to lose jobs and they are going to lose hours. It is not the fault of the employer because he is trying to make his model work. It is the fault of the government who works at such great deficits that people can't even begin to understand what it is.

My little 9-year-old grandson says to me all the time when he looks at these things: Grandpa, it just doesn't make sense. A child can get it, but we can't get it. And in a time when we need to be more united than ever as a country, as we make our way back through a very tough time, we need to stand together on these things.

What I have heard since I got here is: You guys just don't like this Affordable Care Act. Help us make it work.

So we said: Why don't we give people full-time employment, 40 hours again?

That is not the kind of help we want. That doesn't fit our narrative. Don't you get it?

So we stand here today and we have this debate. I told you how the New Deal got replaced by the bad deal, and I also told you how this bad deal is going to get replaced by a good deal by Mr. Young. H.R. 2575, that is going to help America get back to work.

Honestly, if that is not why we are here today, if that is not what our main purpose is, why are we here? What are we doing? Why do we continue to spin this so much?

Hardly any American can walk straight anymore because they get spun every day by a message from Washington. We continue to do it, and we continue to thump our chest and say we did good, we did really good.

The lowest labor rate participation in 35 years in a country that has been so blessed by our Creator that the rest of the world looks at us and says: What in the world are you doing? What is holding you back? You have every asset you could possibly want. You have great workers. You have great energy sources.

We have sources of energy that would last for several decades, several centuries. Great, great abundance and affordable and accessible energy, but we hold back on it. We have assets that make sense to everybody in the world but us. We have one-fifth of the world's freshwater sitting right in our Great Lakes, and our production per acre exceeds anybody's wildest dreams. We can have energy independence. We can feed ourselves, and we have drinking water. Everybody else in the world wants to have it.

Let me just ask the gentleman and the rest of the Congress--listen, there are 435 of us--if it is really about getting people back to work, let's do things that make sense. Let's not beat around the bush about some type of an ideological debate over what we are trying to do to each other.

Forty hours a week was always considered full-time employment. It is just that simple. It is not hard to figure out.

I can tell you, as an employer, having to let somebody go is the worst feeling you can ever have, and I do go to Mass every day, and I do pray about it every night, and I do pray about the future of this country. To suggest that anybody, any of the great employers we have and the job creators we have around this country are all somehow godless, heartless people who don't have feelings is absolutely absurd.

And it is what continues to make it hard to come to this House every day and say: You know what? We are going to fix this for America. We are going to get America back to work. We are going to do the right thing every day, in every way.

No, that just doesn't fly here.

Well, we could go on with this for hours, Mr. Speaker. But I would just tell you this. Returning America to a 40-hour workweek just makes sense. This is not a hard thing to figure out. If a 9-year-old child can understand it, why can't the Congress of the United States? If we are truly going to turn this economy around, if we are truly going to get people back to work again, let's make sure that we renew that great sense of dependency that we have on each other, not divide ourselves between those who don't like you and those who do like you.

By the way, Senator Cruz's poll, I know that the gentleman referred to several replies that had gone to that poll. There were 57,444 people that actually answered that poll, so I am sure there was probably some good stuff on there, too.

But that is not my point. My point is we have an opportunity here in this House like no other place in the world. When something is wrong, we can fix it.

I have heard from the time I came here the problem with a lot of these laws that are passed are the unintended consequences. Well, let me tell you there may be unintended consequences, but there are not uninsured people. There are not people out there that are not feeling the pain. There is a lot of pain out there right now. So the unintended consequences have certainly not been unpainful.

You know the other thing? They are also not unfixable. Do you know we can fix this today? Do you know we can fix this and send it over to the Senate? Do you know we can make people go back to work, make their futures look brighter? Do you know we can do that in this House of Representatives?

So forget about whether you are wearing a blue tie or a red tie. Forget about whether you have an R on your back or a D on your back, and start thinking about who you really represent, because each of us in our districts represent not just Republicans, not just Democrats, but every single American.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source