[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 16, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H5308]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      TREASURY DEPARTMENT NOT BEING STRAIGHT WITH AMERICAN PEOPLE

  (Mr. CAMP asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, the Treasury Department is not being straight 
with the American people. The Treasury Department is using misleading, 
bogus information about the bipartisan tax relief package.
  For example, they use something called family economic income. Now, 
people are probably wondering what is family economic income? That is 
the imputed rental value of a home, even though one does not plan to 
rent it; inside buildup on a pension or benefits one may receive at 
work.
  That is a definition of income that was dropped by the Joint Tax 
Committee, which is a bipartisan committee, Democrat and Republican, 
House and Senate, and they dropped that definition of income when the 
Democrats were in control of the Congress.
  I think those who are calling family economic income the correct 
definition will have a hard time explaining to the schoolteachers, 
truck drivers, waitresses, factory workers, farmers, and nurses in my 
district that they are rich.
  According to the Treasury Department's absurd calculation, family 
economic income would take someone earning $45,000 a year and, for 
purposes of that calculation, say they earned $75,000 a year. I guess 
anything to deny middle-class tax relief.

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