[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4611-H4612]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REPUBLICAN TAX CUT PACKAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, the reconciliation spending bill that we 
just

[[Page H4612]]

passed leaves me deeply concerned about this Congress and where we are 
heading. The spending package violated the letter and the spirit of the 
budget agreement and hit hardest at the working and poor families of 
our Nation that struggle every day to get by.
  Before I speak about tomorrow's vote on the unfair Republican tax cut 
package, I want to say a few words about what we as a body have done in 
voting for this budget reconciliation spending bill.
  While there are many serious attacks on working families in the 
spending bill, like privatizing portions of Medicaid and food stamps, 
slashing the Federal funding for those hospitals who serve a 
disproportionate share of low-income patients, and block-granting 
children's health care, one of the most serious attacks is against the 
minimum wage and workplace protections for workfare participants.
  The budget reconciliation bill condemns working welfare recipients to 
second class citizenship. The bill specifically states that benefits 
provided to these workers in their jobs are not to be considered wages 
or compensation. With this devious language, the bill denies these 
hundreds of thousands of hard-working mothers and parents the rights 
that all American workers now enjoy, and it denies these workers the 
enforcement and remedial protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act. 
This is wrong. It must not be retained in the final passage of the 
bill.
  Tomorrow we turn our attention to the other half of our Nation's 
budget, the tax cut package. The Republican leadership have made their 
priorities known with their budget proposals.
  Their $835 billion tax cut package gives the wealthiest Americans the 
largest tax benefits and pushes the poor further into poverty. The 
wealthiest 20 percent of the U.S. population would receive a whopping 
87 percent of the net benefits. But the bottom 60 percent would share 
only 4 percent of these tax benefits. In fact, the poorest 20 percent 
of the population that has only 4.5 percent of the Nation's after-tax 
income would receive none of the gain.
  Most of the tax cuts benefit upper-income people. Open-ended estate 
tax cuts would benefit only the richest 1.5 percent of families. They 
give the wealthiest Americans deficit busting capital gains tax breaks. 
In addition, the Republicans have the audacity to propose that these 
tax breaks for the wealthy be indexed for inflation. And this is the 
same leadership that is opposed to cost-of-living increases for working 
Americans.

  At the same time, the Republicans' proposal denies the working poor 
the tax relief they guarantee the rich. The Republicans took the 
President's education tax package, including the HOPE scholarship, and 
undermined its goal of reaching the neediest students. The Republican 
plan would cover only half of tuition costs, even for the first 2 years 
of college.
  The bill also denies the $500 per child tax credit to over 15 million 
families. It does this by denying the full benefit of the child tax 
credit to the poorest of working poor, those who are eligible for the 
earned income tax credit. Contrary to what the Republicans allege, it 
is only those that are employed and pay payroll taxes that are eligible 
for their earned income tax credit. They deserve all the help they can 
get, and this bill denies them this much needed help.
  We should not forget that the budget deal was a serious compromise 
from the President's original budget proposal, which many of us felt 
fell short of the Nation's needs in many critical areas.
  For example, the measly $5 billion requested by the President for 
education infrastructure, that is, to fix up the Nation's schools, 
schools with no air conditioning, schools where the heating systems are 
broken, schools where windows and roofs need repair, all of this was 
denied, taken off the table because the Republicans said no.
  But at the same time, conservative estimates put the real cost of 
addressing the infrastructure problem at over $100 billion, and we 
could not get them to agree to $5 billion. And what about a real jobs 
program that pays a living wage, instead of trying to pay the working 
poor subminimum wages and deny their workplace rights?
  Let us be clear, this Republican tax bill is an outrage. We will all 
end up paying dearly for it in the end. It will make it much more 
difficult it address our Nation's real problems.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this unfair tax cut bill and 
reject this attack on working Americans and poor Americans.

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