[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 136 (Monday, September 26, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Pomeroy). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentlewoman from 
Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized during morning business for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk a bit more about the 
contract that we are going to see made tomorrow on the House steps by 
the Republican leadership and many people who are running for office 
and also those who are in it.
  When we get more details about this contract, for them to make that 
contract, we are going to have to break contracts that I think are 
fairly sacrosanct.
  One of the things we did these last 2 years has been very important, 
and that is for the first time we got an earned income credit that was 
high enough so it really made it profitable to work, much better to 
work than be on welfare. That is the kind of handout we want for 
people.
  Yet if Members read this contract, it talks about, they are not going 
to give any credits that are refundable, that are refundable. 
Therefore, the earned income credit will disappear.
  In my district in Colorado, over 30 percent of the young working 
families qualify for this earned income credit. They have been able to 
use it to make down payments on homes, to get caught up on bills, to do 
all sorts of things. It gave them a little breathing space for the very 
first time, so it will be the shortest lived handout in a long time or 
hand-up, because it is going to be taken away if this were to pass.
  Also, when we look at the numbers, the numbers really do not quite 
figure. If we add up the numbers, we are not going to have a balanced 
budget. We do not know how it is going to be paid for. So we start 
looking for what else is in the budget that would give us the numbers 
to pay for it.
  Well, there is only two major areas: Medicare and Social Security. So 
to make this contract, they are going to have to break a contract with 
the seniors that are out there. So first we break a contract with the 
working poor, and then we break a contract with America's seniors who 
are out there.
  Again, the beneficiaries of this are going to be the very wealthy 
people, because it almost does away totally with income tax on capital 
gains.
  Now, there is not a lot of people working at minimum wage who have 
capital gains, and we know that one has to be in a fairly high income 
bracket to be able to put money away and be doing capital gains. So 
that is one other area where we see the rewards are going to the people 
who have already been rewarded, being rewarded very, very well.
  I think one of the things that has concerned me the most in the last 
5 years is to watch this continuing breaking of our society into a two-
class society, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting 
poorer. I think that is a lot of what is causing the anxiety that we 
all sense out there among the voters, that the middle class is all 
becoming panicked that they are going to fall down, not climb up, that 
it is getting harder and harder to be rich because they keep finding 
ways to make their money go further, and they are going to have a lock 
on most of the capital. So everybody in the middle class wants to stay 
in the middle class and does now want to descend into the lower income 
strata. Yet they have all known a lot of people who have, and that 
anxiety builds anxiety about change, builds anxiety about every other 
such thing that is out there.
  If we see this contract enacted, it will only exacerbate and 
accelerate that division between two classes in our society.
  Prior to my coming here, there was a gentleman on the floor talking 
about building a middle class in Haiti. That is right. We have to build 
a middle class in Haiti. But in so doing, let us not destroy the middle 
class in the United States. It has been very clear, this has been a 
citizen government. This is a government by, for, and of the people. It 
has been a government that has tried to bring community. Yes, we all 
came here with ancestors that came from boats, from different places, 
but we got here. We were on the same boat.
  The idea is, how do we say to people, work pays. You work, you get 
ahead.
  We started to find a way in many of these different areas, and this 
contract would take them all away.
  I think people should have a real sober second thought about signing 
that contract, about where that contract would really lead us. What is 
the vision that that contract will project for the next generation. Is 
that the division that we want for our young people. I do not think so.

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