[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 3, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H4847]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             REPUBLICAN TAX CUT LEAVES POOR FAMILIES BEHIND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I received the following 
e-mail from one of my constituents. It says:
  ``Dear Janice Schakowsky, our government should stand for basic 
fairness and justice. That's why I do not understand why families 
earning between $10,000 and $26,000 per year would be excluded from 
receiving the $400 per child tax refund that wealthier families will 
receive this summer just so millionaires can get bigger tax cuts. As a 
constituent, I ask you to please amend President Bush's unfair tax cut 
plan to include these poor families and their 12 million kids. To leave 
the tax cut as it is brings too much shame upon this great Nation. 
Sincerely.''
  My constituent is correct. This is a shameful moment in our great 
Nation, and we should not rest until we undo the tremendous wrong 
committed by the Republican leadership and the Bush administration. 
This is no time for business as usual. This is a time to reverse the 
damage done by the disgusting choices made by our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle. There are those who may tell us that the 
decision to leave 12 million children in low-income working families on 
the cutting room floor was just a mistake, but that would be a lie. As 
The Washington Post editorialized yesterday, ``Stiffing these children 
was not a last-minute oversight or the unfortunate result of an 
unreasonably tight $350 billion ceiling.'' In fact, this was a 
deliberate, mean-spirited action committed in the name of protecting 
special interests instead of our Nation's children. In fact, a House 
Republican Ways and Means Committee spokesperson confessed that, 
``Well, adjustments had to be made.''
  Let us be clear about what happened. Behind closed doors, Republican 
leaders got together with the administration and decided who was going 
to be thrown overboard and who would be brought to shore. There were no 
Democratic Members in that room. There were certainly no children or 
working families in the room. And the decision was made to throw 
children and working families, including military families, overboard 
and to save the dividend tax cuts for millionaires while restoring the 
ability of corporations to unpatriotically stash their profits in 
Bermuda. Compassion for millionaires and corporate traders, contempt 
for low-income children and their parents.
  As Warren Buffett has said, ``If this is class warfare, then my class 
is winning.'' There are other winners besides Warren Buffett. Not 
surprisingly, the Bush Cabinet members who worked so hard to sell this 
tax cut, job-killing bill are also winners. According to a report just 
completed by the Committee on Government Reform minority staff, Vice 
President Dick Cheney, the President's key tax negotiator, will reap 
$116,002 a year from the dividend/capital gains provisions in this 
bill. John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, will get over $332,000 a 
year. Donald Rumsfeld, who gave Vice President Cheney's former company, 
Halliburton, a multimillion-dollar sweetheart contract, wins big, too, 
as much as $604,000 a year. No wonder they all worked so hard to sell 
such a defective product.
  We know who the winners are; and now we know at least some of the 
losers, 12 million children and working families. In my State of 
Illinois, nearly one in four children, 674,000 children in 378,000 
families, were tossed aside so that Cabinet secretaries, billionaires, 
and corporations like Enron could be protected. We were not given time 
to read the Republican tax cut, job-killing bill before the vote; and I 
do not blame my colleagues for trying to push their bill through before 
we and the American public could learn what it included. I would be 
ashamed, too, if I decided to give Cabinet members, wealthy Members of 
Congress, and rich campaign contributors life jackets rather than women 
and children. And no wonder the Members on my side of the aisle were 
not given an opportunity to offer even one single amendment. What if we 
had learned the truth and tried to correct it?
  Now we have learned the truth, and it is time to right an incredible 
wrong. Bob Herbert labeled this as a ``quintessential example of what 
the Bush administration and its legislative cronies are about. The fat 
cats will get their tax cuts. But in the new American plutocracy, there 
won't even be crumbs left over for the working folks at the bottom of 
the pyramid to scramble after.''
  Now the actions of the Bush administration and Republican tax 
decision-makers are out in the open. And now it is our responsibility 
to act by passing the Rangel-DeLauro bill. Children and working 
families should be our first priority, not tossed out, given crumbs or 
thrown overboard. We must make the commitment to act this month.

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