[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 86 (Thursday, June 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3932-H3933]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONGRESS IS NOT DOING ITS JOB

  (Mr. GEJDENSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just have a slight 
correction to my colleague in that these people do pay taxes, and they 
pay a lot of taxes because they are at the bottom and their FICA taxes 
eat up a big portion of their earnings. The basic question is, what is 
the job of Congress?
  Under the Republican proposal, a family that makes $17,000 a year 
will lose a thousand dollars, and a billionaire corporation will pay 
lower taxes. It seems to me there can be arguments for lowering 
everybody's taxes, but a Congress that in the same product

[[Page H3933]]

takes away a thousand dollars from a struggling family trying to eke 
out a living on less money than most people in this room spend on their 
vacations a year is a Congress that is not doing its job.
  The choices for people are clear, that at the bottom of the economic 
ladder in this country people still have to make a decision about 
clothing, feeding and providing health care for their children. We are 
debating whether we are going to provide health care to half the 
children out there without health care or none of them. We need to take 
care of those responsibilities first.

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