[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 5, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H4331]]
        FURTHER DISCUSSION ON TAX BILL JUST PASSED BY THE HOUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, we now move on to the Senate to discuss 
what has happened here today in the House of Representatives, where we 
have just provided to the privileged few in this Nation, the 
opportunity to have massive tax cuts. I would like to have an 
opportunity to go through a few of the things that we have just heard 
discussed over the last several hours of debate on this tax bill. But I 
would like to do it under the context of what will happen in many 
situations that will, of course, not help at all with single Americans, 
especially middle-income Americans, but will in effect help some of the 
wealthiest, not so much individuals, but some of the wealthiest 
corporations in America.
  I have before me some headline news. Headline news not of 1995, 
although I must tell you that the headlines will be very appropriate in 
1995 if this tax bill goes through, but these are headlines from 1984, 
1985, and 1986, years when we did not have what we call the alternative 
minimum tax.
  The alternative minimum tax, for those who do not know, is a proposal 
that took effect in 1986 because we had situations, as you see here, 
declared in some of our major newspapers throughout the country. We had 
situations as Newsday reports where 50 major firms paid no U.S. taxes. 
We are talking about firms that made profits in the billions. We had 
corporations, as the headlines say, that paid less taxes then our 
families, in some cases families earning less than $20 to $30,000. We 
had headlines of firms misusing their tax breaks, as demonstrated in 
studies that were done.
  We see also that in a study that was done as well that 50 big firms 
paid the IRS zippo, nothing, not a single cent, when we had taxpayers 
earning perhaps $20 to $30,000 paying much, much more than the biggest 
corporations in America, the biggest corporations throughout the world.
  Because of situations like this, in 1986 Congress passed the 
alternative minimum tax. What we said is that at some point at the end 
of that year, a corporation that has made billions of dollars in
 profits has to pay some minimum tax. You cannot get off with no taxes, 
when even some of America's poorest families are paying even slight 
amounts of taxes.

  Well, in 1986 this went through. Now every corporation in America 
that shows some profits must pay some taxes. That seems pretty fair to 
me.
  Well, this bill that just passed this House floor by a very small 
margin will now eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which means we 
will revert to the days before 1986 where we saw banner headlines like 
this in our major newspapers. So let us not be surprised when we hear 
people say ``Why am I not receiving anything out of this supposed tax 
cut bill for America, and I hear that corporations no longer are having 
to pay any taxes, even though they have made billions in profits?'' 
That is, in my mind, very disturbing for America.
  But let me go through some of other aspects of this particular 
legislation that just went through that also should concern Americans, 
especially those who are middle-income taxpayers and those that are 
making perhaps less than that.
  Touted throughout the day by Members on the other side of the aisle 
was this tax break, $500 tax break for children. A family with children 
would be able to deduct $500 per child. That, of course, went for 
families with incomes up to $200,000, which includes the wealthest 2 
percent of Americans in this Nation.

                              {time}  1140

  But what they did not say was that if you happened to earn about 
$18,000 in your family income and you have a child, you are not going 
to benefit from that particular tax break for children, because 
although you have children, because your tax rates are going to be so 
low or your taxable income will be so low because you make so little 
that you will not be able to benefit.
  So you are lucky if you are very wealthy because you have a lot of 
things to deduct that $500 from, but if you happen to be a very hard-
working American with a child, you will not have a chance to deduct a 
single cent because your income level is too low to make use of a $500 
deduction.
  There are other things like the child care credit which will not go 
to those families that are lower income and when you take a close look, 
you will see that this is not a tax break for America. It is a tax 
break for the very privileged few.

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