[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 71 (Tuesday, June 4, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3092-H3094]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 REPEALING SUNSET OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TAX RELIEF RECONCILIATION ACT 
     OF 2001 WITH RESPECT TO EXPANSION OF CERTAIN ADOPTION PROGRAMS

  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill

[[Page H3093]]

(H.R. 4800) to repeal the sunset of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief 
Reconciliation Act of 2001 with respect to the expansion of the 
adoption credit and adoption assistance programs.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 4800

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. REPEAL OF APPLICABILITY OF SUNSET OF THE ECONOMIC 
                   GROWTH AND TAX RELIEF RECONCILIATION ACT OF 
                   2001 WITH RESPECT TO ADOPTION CREDIT AND 
                   ADOPTION ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS.

       Section 901 of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief 
     Reconciliation Act of 2001 is amended by adding at the end 
     the following new subsection:
       ``(c) Exception.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to the 
     amendments made by section 202 (relating to expansion of 
     adoption credit and adoption assistance programs).''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Camp) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) each 
will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp).
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4800, a bill I 
introduced to make permanent the adoption tax credit of the Economic 
Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001.
  While the enactment of the Tax Relief Act was a monumental step 
forward for the families who wish to adopt and the children they will 
take home, the bill only completed half the job. The adoption provision 
of that bill limits the tax credit to 10 years. This temporary 
extension of the tax credit will cause uncertainty in adoption planning 
in years to come. By eliminating the 10-year limitation, we will make 
adoptions easier for all families for generations to come.
  Currently there are more than half a million children in foster care, 
of which only 27,000 are adopted each year. This bill is vital for the 
protection and well-being of foster care children, a majority of whom 
are in protective custody due to neglect and abuse. We need to provide 
these children and future foster children where there is no hope of 
family reunification a permanent home and a safe environment in which 
to bond and grow with loving parents. With H.R. 4800 we will 
permanently put the health and safety of children first and give our 
Nation's foster children a fighting chance.
  Many do not realize just how costly adoption can be. After paying 
legal fees, doctor bills and travel expenses, a family can easily incur 
expenses of up to $20,000 or even more. We owe it to the thousands of 
waiting children to make adoption an option for all working families. 
By repealing the 10-year sunset enacted last year, Congress will make 
one of the most important events in a foster child's life and the life 
of his or her new family financially attainable.
  If H.R. 4800 is not enacted, then beginning in 2011 the adoption tax 
credit will be cut overnight from a maximum of $10,000 to $5,000. 
Families who adopt special needs children will no longer receive a flat 
$10,000 credit. Instead they will be limited to a maximum of $6,000. 
The credit will no longer be permanent. It will have to be extended 
each year, causing uncertainty for families. Families claiming the 
credit may be pushed into the alternative minimum tax. The income caps 
will fall from $150,000 in annual income to $75,000 so that fewer 
families will be eligible for the credit. We cannot allow this credit 
to lapse.
  Over half a million children are counting on us to finish the job we 
started over a year ago. Temporary is not an option for adoption and 
should not be for this tax credit either. I urge my colleagues to 
support this vital piece of legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. CARDIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, there is broad bipartisan support for 
assisting adoptive families in meeting their expenses. Helping families 
afford the cost of adopting children into loving homes is clearly a 
worthwhile policy, and targeted tax relief can help promote that goal. 
I, therefore, support this effort to eliminate the sunset provision in 
the current adoption tax credit.
  I think the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) has explained the 
substance of the removal of the sunset of last year's tax bill, which 
only was effective for 10 years. This removes that sunset in last 
year's tax bill. However, let me make two general points about the 
majority's effort to eliminate the expiration dates for specific 
provisions in last year's tax bill.
  This is not the first, but there have been several efforts to remove 
the sunset provision, many of which have been supported on a bipartisan 
basis. My first point is that if the majority had agreed to a more 
modest and balanced tax bill that did not provide such a huge windfall 
to the wealthy, there would not have been a need for a sunset provision 
on such worthwhile tax changes, such as increasing the adoption tax 
credit. For example, by the year 2006, last year's tax bill would have 
spent $44 billion to reduce taxes for individuals earning over $200,000 
a year while spending only $8 billion for families earning $30,000 and 
$40,000 a year.
  Second, Mr. Speaker, by bringing this bill up on the suspension 
calendar, the majority has prevented any Member from offering an 
amendment to offset the future cost of extending the adoption tax 
credit. There are bills now pending in Congress to stop companies and 
individuals from evading U.S. taxes by transferring assets to foreign 
countries.
  Such legislation could pay for the extension of the adoption tax 
credit and other provisions that we would like to pass to remove these 
sunsets in last year's tax legislation.
  By preventing any consideration of budget offsets for today's bills 
and much more expensive legislation to be considered in the future, the 
majority will continue the trend of forcing our children to pay for our 
bills.
  Before I conclude, I want to mention an important improvement in the 
adoption tax credit which I raised as an amendment in the committee 
consideration of the bill and was eventually included in the conference 
report. Starting next year, the adoption tax credit will provide a 
guaranteed $10,000 tax credit for the adoption of special-needs 
children, who are classified as being more difficult to place for 
adoption because of certain factors including a physical, mental or 
emotional impairment.
  This means the parents adopting special-needs children are not 
required to itemize qualified adoption expenses which are limited to 
court costs and attorneys' fees. Since State foster care programs cover 
most of these legal expenses, many adoptive families of special-needs 
children have had few qualified adoption expenses.
  For this reason, only 15 percent of all special-needs adoptions 
received any benefit from the former adoption tax credit, despite the 
fact that these families may have other significant adoptive-related 
expenses, such as homes and vehicle modifications and out-of-pocket 
expenses.
  The new enhanced adoption tax credit addresses these problems by 
providing a $10,000 tax credit to families adopting special-needs 
children without any requirement that they itemize specific expenses.
  Mr. Speaker, there are roughly 122,000 special-needs children now 
waiting to be adopted out of our Nation's foster care system. These are 
the children waiting in line to be adopted, whereas other healthy 
babies and young children have prospective parents waiting in line for 
them. I am glad that the adoption tax credit now recognizes that 
reality by providing some additional assistance to families adopting 
special-needs children.
  By passing this legislation that is before us today, we make those 
provisions permanent. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), the former chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Human Resources.
  Mr. SHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time, and I would like to congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Camp).

[[Page H3094]]

In his former life as an attorney, he spent a lot of time placing kids 
out of foster care into loving homes, permanent homes.
  There is nothing more important I think than to do everything we can 
to encourage adoption in this country. One of the saddest things that 
we can possibly see is a child who is not loved, a child that does not 
have a home to go to or the security of its own room within that 
particular home; and I applaud the gentleman. I applaud the 
bipartisanship that we are getting on this bill.
  I do want to, however, correct one statement that my friend from 
Maryland made because otherwise he was very practical and very 
straightforward. The reason that this and the previous bill, Holocaust 
tax relief, the reason these two pieces of legislation as well as the 
entire tax bill that they were part of was sunsetted was because it was 
going over to the Senate on a budget reconciliation bill which required 
a straight up and down vote, and it was a question of the 
technicalities of the Byrd rule. The requirement was not put on 
permanent. It had nothing to do with the size of the entire bill.
  So I do want to clarify that particular issue, but it is a rare 
moment and all too rare in matters pertaining to taxes that this House 
finds itself in total agreement.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint).
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great joy to stand here today to 
celebrate the thousands of moms, dads, and children who have become 
bigger and stronger families because of adoption.
  I introduced the Hope for Children Act last year, along with my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the Hope Coalition, to ensure 
enactment of several important adoption provisions. The Hope for 
Children Act extended and doubled the adoption tax credit to $10,000 
for all adoptions. Additionally, the bill extended and doubled the tax 
exclusion allowed for employer-provided adoption benefits and included 
a $10,000 flat credit for special-needs adoption, which has been 
mentioned.
  The Hope for Children Act was included in the tax package signed into 
law by President Bush last year; but unfortunately, the Senate included 
a sunset provision in the new law to comply with the Senate procedural 
rules.
  Without this bill today, H.R. 4800, the new adoption law will expire 
after December 31, 2010, and thousands of adoptive parents will see 
their taxes raised overnight. Mr. Speaker, that cannot happen; and that 
is why we must pass the legislation today.
  One of the greatest titles in the world is that of parent, and one of 
the biggest blessings in life is to be called mom or dad. We hope this 
bill will help unite children with parents and build strong, stable 
families in our country. This bill will guarantee tax relief for future 
generations of adoptive parents. I urge all my colleagues to support 
this bill.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I just want to explain that there is no question, I just want to 
underscore the points that my colleagues have been making, that the 
adoption credit, the expansion of the adoption credit and now making it 
permanent is a bipartisan effort. We think it is extremely important to 
encourage families to adopt children, particularly special-needs 
children. So this legislation is one that we look forward to the 
permanent enactment.
  Going back though to the last year just one more time, I know my 
friend from Florida and I have talked about this frequently. There is 
no question that if the tax bill last year had not been $1.35 trillion 
but more affordable to the fiscal condition of this country, and I 
think we have now seen with the large deficits that are being projected 
that our concerns expressed last year have become real, there is no 
question that if we had a more modest bill that was before us last year 
we would have made those provisions permanent last year, and we would 
have had the support of the other body. We would not have to worry 
about extraordinary votes in the other body, that we could have made 
all these provisions permanent, and we would not have been here this 
year piece by piece looking at specific provisions trying to remove the 
10-year sunset.
  When we work together as Democrats and Republicans, we usually come 
up with good policy. Today we are on the adoption credit. I regret that 
we did not do that in the past so we would not have to go through this 
exercise on a tax-provision-by-tax-provision basis.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for support of this bill 
and this issue. We are both on the Committee on Ways and Means, and I 
know he has been working on this for some time, clearly with the 
special-needs adoption area; and this is a bipartisan effort.
  I would just finally urge support of this bill and say that all 
provisions in the tax bill in 2001 were sunset, and this is one area 
where I think that there is general agreement that should become 
permanent, and it was all sunset because of the Senate rules which 
would have required 60 votes otherwise. So, on that, I urge support of 
the bill.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to rise in 
support of H.R. 4800, a bill that would extend the $10,000 adoption tax 
credit and the $10,000 employer adoption assistance exclusion so that 
they are not subject to the sunset of the Economic Growth and Tax 
Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001.
  This bill is a significant step toward ensuring that every child has 
a loving family. I am proud to come to the floor in support of families 
who wish to bring another child into their lives.
  Like many of my colleagues, children's issues and legislation that 
increases adoption are very important to me. I am honored to represent 
a pro-adoption constituency. New York has traditionally adopted at one 
of the highest rates in the country. Unfortuantely, 134,000 children 
across the Naiton are still waiting for homes. All parents are familiar 
with the rising costs of raising children. Too many potential parents 
resist adopting because of this substantial economic burden. It is 
imperative that we take additional steps to relieve this financial 
weight on these families.
  Every Member of Congress is accustomed to lobbylists continually 
seeking tax benefits for specific special interests. Children in need 
of adoption have no high-priced lobbyists and no political action 
committees, so their voices often fail to be heard in today's 
Washington. I am pleased that this House will hear their voices today.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Culberson). The question is on the 
motion offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 4800.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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