[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 4, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4962-H4963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REPUBLICAN TAX RELIEF BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, we all could bring a picture, as some of 
my colleagues have done, of a family who has contacted them and told 
them a story. Mine today was from a woman, a grandmother, who told me 
``I can't understand the unfairness of this bill. Why should my son and 
his wife and two children not be eligible for any kind of tax relief?''
  Her son works at a job where he gets $11 an hour. If you multiply 
that out times 40 hours a week, times 52 weeks a year, no vacation, you 
are going to wind up around $22,000. And one of the interesting things 
is the answer that comes from deep in the heart of Texas, and that is 
``there are a lot of other things that are more important than that,'' 
giving tax breaks to this family. ``To me, it is a little difficult to 
give tax relief to people that do not pay income tax.''
  Now, those are the words of our distinguished majority leader on the 
other side, which really reveals where he is coming from. He says, if 
you do not pay income taxes. Now, every single one, including my family 
and the family that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) 
had up here and the family the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky) had up here all pay payroll taxes. They pay for Social 
Security and they pay for Medicare. They pay 7 percent of their 
paycheck for that, which means that my family that makes $22,000 pays 
$1,400 in taxes into the Medicare account and into the Social Security 
account.
  The Republicans say we are going to take that money out of the Social 
Security account and that money out of the Medicare account and give it 
to the rich people, and we are not going to give one thin dime to 
somebody who is working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a 
year. Not one thin dime. But we are going to give his payroll taxes to 
the rich. That is the only way we could be $400 billion in debt this 
year is to keep borrowing from every account possible, including 
Medicare and Social Security.
  Now, I want to take it a little bit further here. We have got more 
important things to do, the majority leader said. Well, what were the 
more important things we have to do? Today, we did not have a vote 
until 4:30. Oh, it is only, I suppose, a happenstance that that is when 
people got off the green from the Kemper Open golf course. That was 
what was more important than working on that issue.
  Or, if you want to look at what we have done on the calendar this 
week, what have we done? Well, we congratulated Sammy Sosa for hitting 
500 home runs. We renamed a post office in North Carolina. We dealt 
with some Indian water rights in the southwest. We did a land exchange 
in the Grand Teton National Park. We named a courthouse

[[Page H4963]]

in Indiana for Birch Bayh, a former Senator. Then we got to the heavy 
stuff. The heavy stuff. That is when we went after the first amendment 
again for the tenth time in the last 6 years. We voted on flag burning. 
Oh, but we have to do that again. We have done it every year since 
1994, but we had to do it again because we did not have any time.
  Actually, what we had to do was fill up the time so we would not have 
any time to deal with a tax credit for the working class in this 
country, the people who work and do not have any of the perks. They do 
not have anything. They have to get up every morning and go to these 
jobs where they make $7, $8, $9, or $10 an hour.
  Oh, the other thing we did today. We did not have any time today 
because we had to spend, after we got back from the golf course, we had 
to have a big debate on partial-birth abortion. We have done that I do 
not know how many times, and it probably is going to get through and 
get to the Supreme Court and be declared unconstitutional, but we had 
to do that today.
  We could not give $400 to a working class family. We are giving $350 
billion but we could not find $3.5 billion to give that $400. Yes, we 
are very busy, Mr. Majority Leader. I hope you shot a good game today.

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