[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 14, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2648-H2649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        OFFICER BRIAN GIBSON TAX-FREE PENSION EQUITY ACT OF 1997

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, come tomorrow, we will be celebrating the 
16th annual National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the President of 
the United States is going to be here on the west front. I am sure, 
regardless of party, many of us are going to be out there to honor 
slain police officers. It is the culmination of National Police Week, 
and I come to the floor this afternoon to encourage my colleagues to do 
something more than mourn slain police officers.
  I have sponsored the Officer Brian Gibson Tax-Free Pension Equity Act 
of 1997. This is a bill that has almost no fiscal consequences, but it 
would allow the families of officers killed in the line of duty to 
receive survivor benefits tax-free.
  We already allow officers who retire on disability to receive their 
benefits tax-free. Surely we would want to this year erase the 
disparate treatment between officers who still live, but are disabled, 
and survivors of officers who have been killed in the line of duty. Is 
this small deed merely honorific, or is it necessary?

                              {time}  1600

  I got the idea, Mr. Speaker, when Officer Brian Gibson was killed a 
few months ago. I learned that this officer was only 28 years old and 
had left infants behind. Then, right after that,

[[Page H2649]]

two more officers were killed. Each had young children, ages 5, 3 
months, 3 years. Each of them had been on the police force only a few 
years; 3 years, 4 years.
  Even though a slain police officer gets generous treatment because he 
gets a larger percentage of his pension than he would otherwise get, 
even getting half of the pension you have earned when you have only 
been on the force 4 or 5 years is not going to pay the mortgage, it is 
not going to put the kids through college.
  There is going to be a lot of rhetoric tomorrow, as there has been 
all week, about our officers who have given up their lives to protect 
us, and well there might be, because in a real sense going out on these 
streets today is going to war. This is not cops and robbers. It used to 
be that. They had a gun, you had a gun. Indeed, our police were able to 
take care of what needed to be done.
  Today, as we saw in the shootout in California a few weeks ago, they 
have outgunned our police officers, or, as in the District in recent 
weeks, they are so brazen as to engage in execution or assassination of 
police officers.
  What do we say to a young widow? If you go to three funerals in a 
row, as I have, and you cry and talk about how sorry you are, then what 
are you going to do? One of the things I am going to do, I assure the 
Members, with another bill that I have written, is to get the Federal 
police officers outside of these Government buildings so they give some 
aid to the D.C. police, who then can go into the high crime areas and 
perhaps protect policemen like Officer Brian Gibson who was not 
protected, as he was in the District by himself and alone in a police 
car.
  If Members want to do something besides talk about it, besides mourn 
about it, let us think of these families and take this bill, which has 
de minimis cost. I do not think it would even register. I have every 
reason to believe it would not. I have done some preliminary checking.
  Let us move forward and say we are going to do something this 16th 
Annual National Police Officers Memorial Day. We are not going to come 
up with remedies that do not work. We will not divide over who is for 
gun control or who is not for gun control. We are going to lay down our 
weapons. Our weapons are our debating points.
  We are going to come together on the proposition that when a police 
officer goes out here with his life on the line, and when he gives it 
for his community, at the very least we are going to stand up on this 
Congress and we are going to say, we are going to take care of your 
family. We assure you, we are going to take care of your family.
  Since we do not pay for police officers but we do tax them, we 
promise that as we do not tax officers who retire on disability, we 
will not tax your wife and your children who are left here by 
themselves. We will pull back, with almost no cost to this 
extraordinarily rich Government, and say, this is our contribution to 
the family that has been left behind.
  It is a small, I concede, a small point and a small bill, but for 
that very reason I think we would want to mark National Police Week 
this week with this bill that of course is supported by Members. It is 
bipartisan, and I urge support from both sides of the aisle.

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