[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 3, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4793-H4794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REGARDING THE LATEST TAX CUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the President's 
spokespeople, the Republicans in Congress and the Republican National 
Committee, appear to be having some trouble with the truth, that is, 
because they have suggested that everyone who pays taxes would benefit 
from the recent tax cut. They have said that those who pay the taxes 
will get the tax cut, that those who earn the least will benefit the 
most.
  It is simply not true. It is simply not true, because they made a 
decision to leave millions of families, with millions of children, out 
of the child tax credit, a tax credit that we give families to raise 
children. But they simply decided that those families earning between 
$10,000 and $26,000 a year would not be eligible for the child tax 
credit. Somehow I guess these families have additional money to raise 
their children that people over $26,000 a year do not have so they get 
to do this. They made a fundamental decision about unfairness, about 
inequity, about greed; and they decided that they would rather give 
this money to 200,000 millionaires so they could get a tax cut of 
$93,000 a year because if they gave this tax cut to those families who 
are going to work every day trying to support their children on low 
wages, that they would have to give those millionaires only $88,000 a 
year. So those families, those working American families between 
$10,000 and $26,000 a year, got nothing in terms of the increase in the 
child tax credit. The rest of the families in America will get a $400 
check this summer. These families will get nothing. Yet the President, 
the Republicans in Congress, in the House and the Senate, want to 
suggest that this was an accident and they are going to cure it.
  It was no accident. It was never in their bill, in either version of 
their bill. They simply made the decision that they did not think these 
people were worthy of the child tax credit, a tax credit that passed 
this Congress on a bipartisan basis because we thought the government 
ought to do something to help these families with the cost of raising 
their children; so that those moms who wanted to stay home, maybe this 
would allow them to stay home, or those fathers who wanted to stay 
home, maybe this would allow them to stay home; or it would defer the 
cost of child care or health care or whatever it takes as we raise our 
children in this country. But the Republicans have now decided for 
millions of American families, they are not going to be treated the 
same.
  Of course we find out as we look at this tax bill for almost 50 
million Americans, they will not be treated the same because they are 
not going to get much of a benefit. They just simply decided that they 
were going to declare class warfare on low-income working people in 
this country. There is no other result.
  But now they want to lie about it. Now they want to pretend like they 
were not part of it. Now they want to pretend like they are going to 
fix it. No, the Bush-Cheney class in America just declared warfare on 
working families. But that is only the beginning, because it is the 
Bush-Cheney class in America that has denied those same families an 
increase in the minimum wage because many of these families work at the 
minimum wage. The minimum wage today is worth $4.75 in real wages. They 
will not increase it. They will not give those families the child tax 
credit. This week later on the floor they are going to try to take away 
their overtime pay, and they are passing regulations so fewer and fewer 
Americans are eligible for overtime, a pay that many Americans use to 
hold their families together because that increase in pay for overtime 
makes a difference in their yearly salary in the support of their 
families. And, of course, for many of these same children who will not 
get the child tax credit, they are taking away their health care at the 
State level.
  When is it that the Bush administration decided that they were going 
to declare war on America's working families, especially low-income 
working families? One of my colleagues was here talking about how they 
fixed the marriage penalty, that they got rid of the marriage penalty. 
Well, if two people who are earning 10 or $12,000 a year get married, 
as single people, they would get a $2,500 credit because they are both 
low-income working people. If they get married, they lose $1,000 of 
their credit. They have almost a 50 percent tax assessed on them 
because they get married.
  Why is this happening to these people who are struggling to get up 
and go to work every day? Every day they go to work in hard, difficult 
jobs, jobs that many Americans would prefer not to do. And at the end 
of the year they end

[[Page H4794]]

up poor. They end up struggling to take care of their children. They 
end up struggling to educate them. They end up struggling to provide 
them health care. They end up struggling to provide them with decent 
housing. And this government, this administration, the Bush 
administration, has decided to cut them out of the tax bill.
  And they want to talk about fairness in America? They want to talk 
about justice in America? They want to talk about freedom in America? I 
do not think so, Mr. and Mrs. America, because they made a conscious 
decision.

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