[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 24, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H7285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REPUBLICAN STIMULUS PACKAGE IN JEOPARDY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Flake). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, about a week ago, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Secretary O'Neill, referred to the Republican so-called 
stimulus package as a showboat plan. He implied that it was going 
nowhere with the administration, that it did not support many of its 
provisions. I guess I would say after the vote on the floor of the 
House today, we could say that the showboat is listing, taking on a lot 
of water and about to sink. By the narrowest of margins, despite the 
larger Republican majority, the bill passed the House by three votes 
today.
  It is not going anywhere. Why is that? Is that because the Members of 
the United States House of Representatives do not care about the 
economy, do not care about the millions of people who have lost their 
jobs, do not have continuation of their health insurance? No, it is 
because they knew that this bill was a charade, a farce. This bill does 
nothing to help average Americans, working families, those who have 
lost their jobs, the small businesses that have been hit by the 
recession and are struggling to make ends meet. No, it goes and gifts 
the largest, most profitable corporations in America, those who have to 
have a special provision in the tax bill, that have been able to 
shelter so much income that they do not have any apparent taxes, they 
have to pay something called the corporate alternative minimum tax. 
This was a reform put through by a Republican Senate, a Democratic 
House and signed into law by Ronald Reagan because of the outrages of 
the 1980s, when the largest, most profitable corporations of the world 
were not paying any taxes, who in fact were getting rebates for taxes 
they had not paid. So this loophole was shut.
  Guess what? They just blasted it back open again. This bill would 
provide $25 billion, paid for out of the Social Security Trust Fund, in 
retroactive tax rebates to the largest, most profitable corporations in 
the world. That is an outrage. $2.3 billion to the Ford Motor Company, 
$1.4 billion to IBM, $833 million to GM, $671 million to GE, with no 
requirement they pass on a penny to their workers, the workers they 
have laid off because of the recession, without a single word saying, 
they might cover the health insurance of those they have laid off 
because of the recession.
  No, in fact this money is a retroactive gift under the Republican 
version of a stimulus package which will do nothing to stimulate the 
economy, do nothing to help those workers or their families, do nothing 
to help small businesses who are crying out for relief.
  There are even more outrages in the bill. The bill also has $20 
billion of tax incentives for corporations to make investments 
overseas. I guess the Republican majority is concerned about burgeoning 
unemployment in the Third World or in Europe or Japan or elsewhere but 
not here in the United States of America. They have given a bigger pile 
of money to corporations as a tax break, $20 billion, for overseas 
investments than they put in here to help out America's working 
families and small businesses who have been hit so hard in this 
tumbling economy. This is outrageous.
  This follows on the heels, of course, of the $16 billion airline 
bailout bill which, of course, did not contain a penny for workers or 
workers' health insurance or extended unemployment or even aviation 
security. None of those things are in the bill. But we were told at the 
time when I raised objection, offered a motion to recommit on the 
floor, wait till next week. Well, it is 5 weeks later. Guess what? We 
are still waiting for some assistance to those airlines workers and 
people in related industries and small businesses like the travel 
agents who have been hit so hard. Nothing has been done for them. We 
are still waiting for one penny to be appropriated by this House of 
Representatives for aviation security. We are still waiting for a 
comprehensive aviation security bill. All those things can wait. But a 
retroactive repeal of a tax provision that closed a loophole cannot 
wait. That had to be rushed through this House today.
  We just cannot wait to see the way those corporations will spend the 
money. I am sure they will put millions to work. Well, maybe not. Maybe 
they will give the money in dividends to stockholders, maybe they will 
give bonuses to the CEOs because they were able to maneuver this kind 
of a tax break through the Congress. It is not likely it will flow into 
the pension funds that have been raided by IBM and others. It is not 
likely that it will flow to the workers who have lost their jobs. It is 
not going into extended unemployment benefits. It is not going to give 
health insurance coverage to those people. This is simply an outrage.
  That is why this was such a narrowly divided vote in this House of 
Representatives. Not because we do not care, that we do not want to do 
what is right by the American people and the economy. We do. That 
requires a combination of assistance to people who have lost their jobs 
and small businesses that have been hit hard. That should have been one 
element of the bill; targeted tax cuts, those that would increase 
investment, increase jobs; and, third, investment in America, the 
transportation infrastructure of this country in a fiscally responsible 
way. That would have been a true recovery package. Maybe we can still 
get there if the Senate has the guts to stand up to the minor part of 
the majority here in the House.




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