[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 61 (Monday, April 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4086-H4087]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                FAMILY TAX RELIEF IMPORTANT FOR AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to appear 
before the committee today to discuss the importance of family tax 
relief. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, how must I appreciate 
your personal commitment to the American family and your leadership in 
promoting legislation which strengthens and empowers American families.
  The intact family is our country's most effective government--the 
most effective department of housing, the most effective department of 
education, the most effective department of human services, and the 
most effective department of labor.
  The family is the fundamental unit of society, the guardian of our 
social fabric and primary conveyor of values. Yet it has been under 
attack by an unsympathetic government. We could not have devised more 
antifamily public policy--to the end of undermining the traditional 
American family--than if we had sat down and consciously designed such 
a plan.
  We have taxed them until both parents have to work in the job market, 
regardless if one wishes to stay at home and rear the children. The 
average family of four now spends 38 percent of its income on taxes--
more than it spends on food, clothing, housing and recreation combined.
  We have allowed the value of the dependent exemption to erode over 
time until it is worth only a fraction of what it was 40 years ago. In 
effect we have said that children and families are of less value than 
they were in the last generation.
  We have allowed a marriage penalty to exist in our tax law that sends 
the undeniable signal to our citizens that marriage isn't really all 
that important.
  We have codified inequitable IRA tax provisions that say a spouse in 
the marketplace is more valuable to society than one in the home.
  We have created a costly and bureaucratic adoption system that leaves 
thousands of adoptable children in less stable and secure environments 
than they could be enjoying.
  [[Page H4087]] And we have defended a welfare system that offers cash 
subsidies to unmarried teen-age mothers.
  Why are we than surprised when family break-up becomes commonplace, 
dysfunctional families are routine and 1 out of 3 children born in 
America are born out of wedlock?
  If it were a foreign government that had imposed these policies, it 
would be regarded as an act of war.
  It is not too much to expect that government be the friend, not the 
foe, of the family. One critical step toward that goal is the passage 
of the $500 per-child tax credit. Seventy-four percent of this tax 
relief would go to families with incomes under 75,000. it is 
progressive and would be worth a lot more to the cuy with a lunch 
bucket than to the corporate executive in the country club dining room.
  This $500 per-child tax credit would shift power and money from 
Washington bureaucrats and return it to the moms and dads of middle 
America.
  For a middle class family of four that $1,000 could mean the 
difference in whether both parents have to work, it could mean the 
difference in whether health care premiums can be paid, it could mean 
clothing costs for an entire year, it could mean the down payment for 
the cost of a collage education or it could mean a trip to the pizza 
parlor once a week, but it should be the families' choice not ours.
  Please remember family tax relief is not a new spending program, not 
a new entitlement, not a give away from the Government. It is simply 
allowing the American family to keep something that already belongs to 
them--more of their earned income. The time for family tax relief is 
now. Forty-five million American families making less than $75,000 a 
year would receive meaningful relief from the heavy burden of taxation. 
The American family is tired of high sounding rhetoric and empty 
speeches about family values while policy makers kick them in the teeth 
again by saying ``we can't afford it now.'' We can't afford not to do 
it now. Our national security is intertwined with family security. 
Strong and secure families mean a strong and secure society.
                              {time}  1945

  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am glad to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. STUPAK. I just had a question, Mr. Speaker. In your statement you 
indicated that the person would be better off under your tax plan 
because he would have more money in his pocket. Yet how do you justify 
the gentleman with the lunch bucket paying Federal taxes, and yet your 
tax bill repealed the alternative minimum corporate tax, so the 
corporations do not have to pay their taxes? How would that help the 
gentleman with the lunch bucket?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am referring specifically to the $500 tax 
provision, the tax break we offer for the children. I think it is clear 
that someone in the middle and low income is going to benefit a lot 
more than someone eating in the corporate dining room.
  Mr. STUPAK. I am asking about the corporate tax repeal.
  

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