[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4607-H4608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TAXPAYERS RELIEF ACT OF 1997

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to remind my colleagues that 
tomorrow, part 2 of the budget agreement, the historic agreement that 
has enabled us today to have a great victory for the American people by 
saving money, by reforming entitlements, by saving Medicare, that that 
agreement goes into phase 2 tomorrow with a very, very important 
Taxpayers Relief Act of 1997.
  I want to take just a moment to remind my colleagues of the human 
side of the Taxpayers Relief Act of 1997. This is a bill which will 
provide more money for working taxpaying families with children; it 
will provide more money for folks who are going on to college and 
vocational and technical school; it will provide more money for 
families who have family farms or family ranches or family businesses 
and have the head of the family die and would potentially even lose 
that business to the IRS; and it provides for more resources to go to 
savings and investment and job creation, which is very vital if our 
welfare-to-work reform is going to succeed, because if we are going to 
ask people to leave welfare to go to work, we have to have enough 
economic growth, enough new jobs, in order to have the work for people 
to leave welfare to go to.
  So the Taxpayers Relief Act of 1997 is very, very important. Let me 
put it in personal language. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, 
Marilyn and Ray Heddleson out in Leetonia, Ohio have two young boys, 
Jon and Mark. Jon has graduated from high school, is about to go to 
college; Mark has one more year in high school. They know that the 
educational tax components of this is going to help them pay for the 
cost of those two boys being in school, and they know that when both of 
those boys are in school, that that is a lot of money for a working, 
middle class family.
  My sister Robin and her husband David have two young girls, my 
nieces, Emily and Susan. They are not at that age yet, and they know 
that that $500 per child tax credit, $1,000 a year in extra take-home 
pay for their family means a lot and is going to enable them to do 
things, whether those things are saving for education, doing something 
with health care, doing something with the family; frankly, maybe just 
having fun and bonding closer together because they go on a vacation. I 
do not think we in Washington should define for parents what they think 
their priorities are for their children. This $500 per child tax credit 
creates the opportunity for those young folks to have a chance to have 
a better life.
  My brother Randy and his wife Jill have two children, my niece Lauren 
and my nephew, Kevin. Again, they are not of the college-going age yet, 
but when they think about savings for college with the tax advantages 
of this bill, when they think about that extra $1,000 per year in take-
home pay, having two children, when they think about the chance for 
when they go to college or vocational-technical school to have that 
extra tax credit, they know that we are going to help their family have 
a better future with this bill.

                              {time}  1830

  My oldest daughter, Kathy, owns a little company called the Carolina 
Coffee Company down in Greensboro, North Carolina. She actually lives 
in the district of the gentleman from North Carolina, [Mr. Howard 
Coble]. She knows, as a small business woman, that this bill is going 
to make it better for her employees, because they are going to have 
more take-home pay.
  This bill is going to make it better in that college town, because 
there is going to be more help for people who go on to college and vo-
tech school. And this bill has relief in it that helps small 
businesses.
  She is also looking forward to the work that the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Rob Portman], has done on the commission to simplify and reform 
the IRS, because she knows if we will simplify taxes and simplify 
paperwork, we are going to have a dramatically better

[[Page H4608]]

future for small business in this country. She knows that it is small 
businesses that create the jobs, that create a better future.
  We all believe that it is very important to encourage people to save, 
to invest, to create jobs, because we know that if we are going to 
enter the 21st century and compete in the world market, if our children 
are going to compete with China and Japan and Korea, with Germany and 
France and Italy, with Brazil and Mexico, we need to have the best 
equipment and the best factories with the best jobs.
  So this bill provides for the kind of incentives to save and invest 
and create jobs, called capital gains, because it cuts the tax on those 
who are willing to take the risk to create jobs, and that is very 
important to every citizen who wants a job, and it is very important to 
all of us who want our children to have the best jobs in the world.
  Finally, this bill helps families that might have worked all their 
lives, who might have a family farm or a family ranch, who might have a 
small business they have created and worked on. We do not believe it is 
right for someone to have to visit the undertaker and the Internal 
Revenue Service the same week. We think that is just wrong.
  We do not think it is right for someone to be in a position where 
they have worked all their life, they love their children and 
grandchildren, they have saved all their lives, and now the government 
is going to punish them when they die by taking away 55 percent of 
everything they save. We just think that is wrong.
  So this bill begins to reduce the burden of the death tax, it begins 
to help small businesses and family farms so families can pass on to 
their children and their grandchildren their life's work.
  So on balance, whether you are a young person with children who are 
young, and you are going to get that extra $500 per child. Remember, 
for a family with 3 children that is $1,500 in take-home pay more this 
coming cycle. So that year after year, let us say you have a child 
born, as our majority leader, the gentleman from Texas [Dick Armey], 
had a grandson born last week, Chris faces the prospect that over the 
next 16 or 17 years his parents are going to have $8,000 or $8,500 more 
before he gets of an age to go on to college or a technical school, and 
that is, we think, good for America; better for the family, better for 
the parents, better for the children, better for job creation, better 
in creating the work so people can leave welfare and go to work.
  That is why we believe the Taxpayers Relief Act of 1997 is the right 
thing to do.

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