[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 22, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H5494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TAX BILL MUST PASS CLEAR TESTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, as the press now starts to 
report and to analyze the Republican tax cut legislation, the reviews 
are coming in from across the country and from independent journalists. 
What we now see is a recognition that what the Republican bill does is 
provide for a forced feeding of tax cuts to the wealthiest people in 
this country.
  As Time magazine's journalist Jonathan Alter noted, the Republican 
bill showers millions of dollars on the richest 1 percent of Americans.
  As the Wall Street Journal noted, it allows the IRA provisions to 
create opportunities primarily for upper income Americans to shift 
large chunks of their assets into tax-free accounts, where they would 
be beyond the reach of Uncle Sam forever.
  The Washington Post notes that the Republican tax bill is heavily 
tilted toward the better off, and the Democrats are right for calling 
the Republicans on this.
  They go on to note that the plain facts are that the bill would not 
only benefit the better off but would cost the Government revenues it 
cannot afford.
  Yesterday, the Post quoted a number of economists supporting 
different political parties which reached agreement that the 
Republicans are relying on numbers that mask the extent of the size of 
the Republican tax proposals favoring high-income households which 
would mushroom over the years to come.
  What we now see as the conventional economic analysis suggests that 
the permanent benefits of the tax cut will favor high-income 
individuals, and it will do so by denying the $500 tax credit to 
families who pay thousands of dollars in payroll taxes but the 
Republicans have determined somehow are welfare families and not 
entitled to the $500 tax credit. Unfortunately, for thousands of 
working families in America today, they pay more in payroll taxes than 
they pay in income taxes; and yet the Republican proposal would not 
share the child care tax credit with them.
  What we now see is someone like Gary Bauer, the conservative head of 
the Family Research Council, saying, ``The family tax credit ought to 
go to any working families that pay income or payroll taxes. That is 
not welfare.''
  Gary Bauer has it right. The Republicans have it wrong. These 
families are entitled to share this. But why can't they share in the 
tax cuts, the family child credit tax cut? They cannot share in that 
because the Republicans are so busy providing capital gains tax cuts to 
the wealthiest people in this country, the vast majority of which goes 
to the top 2, 3, 4 percent of the taxpayers in the United States.
  These are not the people who need relief from taxes. The people who 
need relief from taxes are people who are trying to raise their 
children, educate their children, provide shelter for their children 
and are doing it on a few thousand dollars a year. Yet the Republicans 
say they cannot do that. They cannot do that because they want to get 
rid of the alternative minimum tax that suggests that corporations 
ought to pay something for the privilege of doing business in America.
  When they get done with all of their deductions, where they can 
eliminate their obligation to pay taxes, there ought to be something 
they pay in this country. By giving away capital gains tax, by doing 
estate tax relief for the wealthiest people in this country, there is 
no money left. There is no money left for hard-working families in this 
country that, unfortunately, earn between $15,000 and $30,000 a year; 
and the Republicans are going to deny them a tax cut.
  The bill should be changed in conference, it should be fair, and it 
should take care of working families. It does not do that now.

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