[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 66 (Tuesday, May 6, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H3645]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS SET TO PASS THE PRESIDENT'S ECONOMIC PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Issa). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment as I begin my 
remarks and talk about an issue that is so important. I first begin by 
commending President Bush for his strong leadership on the economy. 
While so much of our Nation's attention, in fact attention around the 
globe, has been focused on President Bush's successful leadership as 
well as the successful efforts of our American men and women to 
liberate the oppressed people of Iraq from the brutality of Saddam 
Hussein, President Bush and House Republicans have been working to get 
this economy moving again. It is so important that we focus attention 
today on the economy. Today we are going to have action in the House 
Committee on Ways and Means to create jobs and give Americans the 
opportunity to go back to work.
  Let me tell you why it is important to the people of Illinois. In 
Illinois we have 6.6 percent unemployment. Unfortunately in the 
district that I represent, an agricultural-industrial district in the 
south suburbs of Chicago, our unemployment is actually higher. Grundy 
County, the county that is my home county, has almost 12 percent 
unemployment; LaSalle has 9.8 percent unemployment; Will County has 7.9 
percent unemployment; Bureau, 8.7; Kankakee, 8.5 percent. Clearly we 
need to get the economy moving again because it affects folks back 
home. The philosophy of what we are going to pursue today is following 
the direction the President laid out for us earlier as we work to get 
this economy moving again, creating jobs, giving those who are 
unemployed the opportunity to get a good-paying job and go back to 
work. Our strategy is to put extra money in the pocketbooks of workers 
so they can meet their families' needs and raise their take-home pay by 
cutting their individual taxes. We want to give business the incentive 
to invest in the creation of jobs.
  Economists have analyzed the plan that is before us today and they 
project that the plan that we will be debating and passing out of the 
Committee on Ways and Means and hopefully out of the House this week 
with bipartisan support will create 1 million jobs over the next 16 
months. Two-thirds of this package benefits individual taxpayers. In 
fact, if you pay Federal income taxes, you benefit. We double the child 
tax credit, from $600 to $1,000. That benefits 1.1 million families 
with children in Illinois. We eliminate effective immediately the 
marriage tax penalty. We make effective immediately the Bush individual 
rate reductions and expand the lowest tax bracket for low-income 
Americans so more low-income Americans will have their taxes lowered in 
that new 10 percent tax bracket created for low-income Americans. I 
note that we also provide additional alternative minimum tax relief, 
one of the consequences of a bad policy we are still living with from 
the 1980s. The bottom line is two-thirds of this package benefits 
average taxpayers, putting extra money in the pocketbooks of workers 
for their families' needs.
  We also jump-start the economy by providing incentives for business 
to invest, providing for what some people call bonus depreciation, that 
others like myself call accelerated depreciation, but allowing business 
to deduct at least 50 percent or more this year of the cost of buying a 
company car, an office computer, telecommunications or machine tool 
equipment, or if they are making their office or business more secure, 
investing in security and equipment, they would be able to recover the 
cost of that much more quickly. When you think about it, when you 
encourage a business to buy a company car, there is an autoworker in 
Chicago or the south suburbs whose job is created. We also allow 
companies losing money this year to go back and recover some revenue 
and capital from previous years so they have capital to invest in the 
creation of jobs.
  And due to the President's leadership, we work to provide assistance 
and relief for those who invest for their retirement. Today, 84 million 
taxpayers are stockholders. That is over half of American households. 
Many are senior citizens who have saved for their retirement. Today 
they are taxed twice on their dividends from their stock holdings. That 
is not right. It is not fair. I realize my Democratic friends think 
that is okay because they want to keep the money here in Washington and 
they think they can spend it better than these stockholders can. The 
President says we should eliminate that double taxation. We make a big 
step with the proposal before us today by equalizing the tax treatment 
between capital gains and stock dividends. Those in the 10 and 15 
percent bracket will only pay a 5 percent tax rate. Those in the higher 
brackets will pay 15. This is a good plan. It puts extra money in the 
pocketbooks of consumers as well as encourages businesses to invest.
  I want to draw attention to one issue which I have been so involved 
in, which is a key part of the plan that is going to be debated and 
passed out of the Committee on Ways and Means today, and that is the 
issue of the marriage tax penalty. There are 42 million married working 
couples, like Jose and Magdalena Castillo of Joliet, Illinois, two 
laborers, and, of course, their children Eduardo and Carolina. They 
live in Joliet, Illinois. They work hard for their living. They benefit 
from this plan today. When we worked 2 years ago to pass legislation to 
eliminate the marriage tax penalty because of the rules in the other 
body, we had to phase it in. Today we are going to pass legislation to 
make marriage tax penalty relief effective this year. It is wrong to 
tax marriage. We benefit the Castillo family by eliminating the 
marriage tax penalty this year. When you think about it, that is $1,400 
they can spend in Joliet, Illinois.

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