[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 10, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H7247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               SUPPORT THE CHILD TAX CREDIT FOR FAMILIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Campbell). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida 
[Mr. Weldon].
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me the time. You are truly a gentleman for doing that.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on an issue that I think is of critical 
importance to the people in my district, and that is the people who I 
believe truly are the forgotten people, and those are the people that 
work day in, day out to try to struggle to make ends meet.
  It is really a privilege to be in this body, it is really a privilege 
to try my best to represent the people of my district. But one of the 
things that bothers me and that honestly I am sick and tired of is that 
there are thousands of people in my district who I honestly feel are 
ignored, their concerns, their interests are overlooked by the 
politicians in this city. They are the people who dad works, dad works 
two jobs to try to make ends meet, mom is working as a cashier at the 
supermarket to try to make ends meet, and honestly at the end of the 
month, at the end of the day, they frequently do not have enough money 
to try to pay for the things that they need.
  They are trying to set aside money for college, and they cannot do 
it. They do not know how they can pay for braces for the kids. The car 
needs new tires, and they do not have enough money after they pay the 
rent. They do not have enough money after they buy the food to be able 
to put new tires on the car. So what do they do? They drive around with 
a car that needs new tires.
  And one of the biggest problems for these working families is the 
burden of the taxes that forces them to have to put mom out to work 
when she does not want to or forces dad to have to work that second job 
and, as a consequence, he cannot spend the time with the kids that he 
really needs to.
  We Republicans, we were trying to do something about that this year. 
We put forward a $500 per child family tax credit. Those families today 
in America, typically the working family today in America, they are 
sending 25 percent of their income to Washington, DC, and 40 years ago 
when I know when my mom and dad were raising us, when I was a kid 
growing up, they were sending 4 percent or 2 percent of their income to 
Washington, DC.
  It is the burden of government, of the bureaucracy, of the programs 
after program after program, the wasted money that is shackling and 
hurting our working families in this country. So we put forward a $500 
per child tax credit, a tax credit that I thought was really going to 
help some of those working families, working families like the Tanner 
family in my district, who Bill Tanner works as an electrician. His 
wife, Anne, just recently had their fifth child, and our $500 per child 
tax credit would have meant $2,500 more for Bill and Anne Tanner to put 
toward the new tires on the car, to put towards money for college for 
the kids, to help them make ends meet.
  The President of the United States, he opposed us on that $500 per 
child tax credit after he ran in 1992 promising a middle-class tax cut, 
and we put forward a reasonable proposal, and the Democrats in this 
body opposed us on that $500 per child tax credit.
  I think it is wrong for politicians to come up here to Washington and 
say that they are working hard and they are fighting for those working 
families, those families that are having trouble making ends meet, and 
what happens, what is the end result: that they oppose the proposals 
that we are trying to put forward to honestly try to help them.
  They even opposed us on the balanced budget. The economists tell us 
if we could balance the budget, interest rates in this country could 
drop 2 percentage points. What that means for those working families is 
a car loan that is 2 percentage points less, a mortgage that could be 2 
percentage points less. That can translate for those working families 
into more money in their pocket, and that is money again that they 
could turn around and use for their families.
  This government has gotten too expensive. It has gotten to be too 
costly. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that taxes are the price we pay for 
civilized society. I believe that the price is too high and that 
working families in this country need a break. The President and the 
Democrats in this body need to change their position on this issue. 
They need to support the family child tax credit. They need to support 
our balanced budget effort.

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