[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 4, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4959-H4960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TAX CUT HURTS LOW INCOME CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, when the President and 
the Republican party made a decision that they would not extend the 
financial benefits of the increase in the child tax credit to all 
families, they essentially made a decision that they would leave out 
millions of young children who live in families who earn between 
$10,000 and $26,000 a year.
  What they said was somehow those families and those children were not 
worth as much as the rest of children and families in this country. 
Thirty years ago we made a decision to have a child tax credit to help 
families with the cost of raising their children, to ease the burdens 
of raising their children, educating them, providing health care, and 
it was extended to all Americans with children.
  Over time we have increased that child tax credit, and this year a 
decision was made that we would increase that child tax credit by $400 
for each child, and those checks would go out this summer. But, 
tragically, in a back room, in the late night, in negotiating the bill 
under the leadership of Vice President Cheney, the Republicans made a 
decision that low income working families would not get that child tax 
credit for their children. They will not get that $400 per child 
increase this summer.
  Erin Doyel of Vallejo, California in the district in which I 
represent and her daughter, Adrienne, will not get that tax cut. Erin 
is going to work every day and earning $12,675 as a financial 
administrative assistant. Erin is doing everything that this Federal 
Government told her to do: To get off of welfare, to take 
responsibility for her child and to get a job. And she has been doing 
it and she is doing it well.
  But as we can see here, Erin and her daughter Adrienne, Erin is 
asking the question, What about my kid? Why is not my kid worth the 
same tax credit as the other children? Because I only make $12,000 a 
year?
  She needs this help for her family. She needs this benefit for her 
family so that she can provide the education, she can provide the 
wherewithal to hold her family together. She knows how much she needs 
it. She says they made a big mistake when they left her daughter out of 
the tax cut. She needs this money to help her pay the rent, to pay for 
her car, to pay for her job expenses.
  That is what she would do with that money. She would immediately put 
it

[[Page H4960]]

back into the economy. That is why that tax credit was given to help 
those families with those expenses in a difficult environment.
  Some people say that this was a mistake by the Republicans, but the 
fact is we know now as the facts have come out it was no mistake. The 
Senate, in fact, put this tax credit in for Erin and her daughter, 
Adrienne. But the Republicans in the House decided they were not going 
to accept it. They wanted to use the money that that tax credit would 
cost to give a greater tax cut to those people making over a million 
dollars. If they had given a $400 tax credit to Erin and her daughter, 
Adrienne, and to other similarly situated families and children, those 
millionaires would have only gotten a tax cut this year of $88,000 as 
opposed to $93,000.
  So the Republicans in the House made a choice that they were going to 
deny Erin and Adrienne the tax credit. They were going to give it to 
the millionaires.
  Now, we understand that the Senate is going to change this. The 
Senate has come to its senses. The Senate now understands what they 
have done to Erin and her daughter, Adrienne, and the impact that they 
are having on her ability to hold their family together. But we are 
also told that the majority leader, the Republican majority leader, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) has said he is not going to do that. 
He is not going to pass that tax cut to Erin and her daughter, 
Adrienne. He is not going to do it. Republicans in the Senate who 
sponsored it originally, who voted for it, who participated have said 
we wanted to do this. It is a matter of equity. It is a matter of 
fairness. It is a matter of justice to these families who are working 
hard, as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) stated, playing by 
the rules, doing what we asked them, that they should be able to share 
in this tax cut like other families with children. But the Republicans 
in the House say no.
  They say no to 12 million children and families earning between 
$10,000 and $26,000 a year. However you measure it, it is not very much 
money to survive in American society today. These are people who work 
hard. They do not get paid terribly well, but they get up every day and 
they go to work and they do many of the jobs that many other Americans 
would prefer not to do. And that is why we created the tax credit. To 
help them. And somehow, somehow along the way to finalizing that tax 
bill, somehow the Republicans in the House became mean spirited. 
Somehow they lost their sense of humanity and somehow they lost their 
direction in terms of economic justice and decency for all families and 
all children in America.
  It is a sad and tragic day when a party loses its direction and 
becomes that cynical about decent people like Erin and her daughter, 
Adrienne.

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