So I challenge Congress to consolidate 70 overlapping, antiquated
job-training programs into a simple voucher worth $2,600 for unemployed or
underemployed workers to use as they please for community college tuition
or other training. This is a G.I. Bill for America's workers we should all
be able to agree on.
More and more Americans are working hard without a raise. Congress sets the
minimum wage. Within a year, the minimum wage will fall to a 40-year low in
purchasing power. Four dollars and 25 cents an hour is no longer a living
wage, but millions of Americans and their children are trying to live on
it. I challenge you to raise their minimum wage.
In 1993, Congress cut the taxes of 15 million hard-pressed working families
to make sure that no parents who work full-time would have to raise their
children in poverty, and to encourage people to move from welfare to work.
This expanded earned income tax credit is now worth about $1,800 a year to
a family of four living on $20,000. The budget bill I vetoed would have
reversed this achievement and raised taxes on nearly 8 million of these
people. We should not do that.
I also agree that the people who are helped under this initiative are not
all those in our country who are working hard to do a good job raising
their children and at work. I agree that we need a tax credit for working
families with children. That's one of the things most of us in this
Chamber, I hope, can agree on. I know it is strongly supported by the
Republican majority. And it should be part of any final budget agreement.
I want to challenge every business that can possibly afford it to provide
pensions for your employees. And I challenge Congress to pass a proposal
recommended by the White House Conference on Small Business that would make
it easier for small businesses and farmers to establish their own pension
plans. That is something we should all agree on.
We should also protect existing pension plans. Two years ago, with
bipartisan support that was almost unanimous on both sides of the aisle, we
moved to protect the pensions of 8 million working people and to stabilize
the pensions of 32 million more. Congress should not now let companies
endanger those workers' pension funds. I know the proposal to liberalize
the ability of employers to take money out of pension funds for other
purposes would raise money for the treasury. But I believe it is false
economy. I vetoed that proposal last year, and I would have to do so
again.