[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 69 (Friday, May 9, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H3958-H3959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE EFFECTS OF PASSING H.R. 2, JOBS AND GROWTH TAX ACT OF 2003

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today we passed a bill out of here in an 
hour that spent $550 billion worth of taxes. The fact that the House of 
Representatives, which is the body charged by the Constitution with the 
responsibility of originating all tax policy in this country, that we 
can deal with a bill of that size with 1 hour's debate is an absolute 
travesty. The Founders of this country never considered that a bill of 
that magnitude with those kinds of long-range effects would be 
considered on the back of galloping horses as we run to the airport to 
catch planes all over the country.
  The theory of this bill is that if we give back taxes, somehow we 
will give it to people who will then invest it, creating jobs that will 
lead to employment in this country. We will hear over and over and over 
again we are going to create a million jobs, and all this kind of 
stuff. But the fact is that the Department of Commerce says that today 
our industries in this country are operating at 75 percent capacity. 
That means that they can make 25 percent more of whatever it is they 
make whether it is shirts or tables or furniture or automobiles. They 
have already the capacity to produce more goods.
  What is not happening is that there are people there who have money 
to purchase those things. So the concept that we are going to give more 
to the people running the factory and that some factory owner is so 
stupid that he has already put out all of whatever he can make and 
thinks he can sell that he would now make more, he would get more 
machinery and open up a new building and make more automobiles or more 
whatever, it simply does not pass the commonsense test. If someone runs 
a bakery and they make 10 loaves of bread and their ovens will allow 
them to make 20 loaves of bread, but they only sell seven loaves of 
bread, why would they make 20 loaves of bread? Why would they hire 
another baker, buy more flour and more yeast and make more bread? So 
this theory that suddenly if we give more money to the people at the 
top will magically create jobs is absolutely nonsense. What is needed, 
obviously, is for the people at the bottom who buy things to have more 
money.
  The bill we just passed out of here in an hour gave 80 percent of the 
benefit to people making more than $75,000 a year. Now, $75,000 a year 
is a pretty good income. One can do quite a bit with $75,000 a year. 
But do all the people above it need more? Do they need to take 80 
percent of the benefit and 20 percent goes to the people below? If one 
is a millionaire under that bill, they will get $105,000 tax refund, 
$105,000. What will these people on the bottom get? $325.
  Most people buy what they can afford, and if they have a small 
income, they sometimes cannot afford things so they do not buy them. 
When they have got a big income, they can do whatever they want. But 
this bill says these people over here with all the money, we are going 
to give them more, and these people over here, we are going to give 
them $325.
  There are many ways we could have written this bill. I had a proposal 
to give a payroll tax holiday. There were other proposals that were out 
here. But the point is that we needed a bill that was fair, that gave 
the money to the people at the bottom. I was prepared to give a $1,400 
amount to everybody in

[[Page H3959]]

the whole society because everybody pays the payroll tax. Everybody 
pays Social Security. Everybody pays Medicare, and if we gave that back 
to people on the first $20,000 of their income, the people on the 
bottom would get about $1,500 in refund. They could spend it to buy an 
extra shirt, to take their family to dinner, to do many of the things 
that would keep the small businesses open that are now closing because 
nobody can come and buy dinner for their family. They have to stay at 
home and live within a tight budget. But the leadership of this House 
for some reason did not want us to deal with that. They would not let 
us deal with unemployment. None of the people at the bottom got 
anything. That is a sad day for this House.

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