[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 115 (Wednesday, September 22, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7376-H7381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE ADOPTION TAX RELIEF GUARANTEE ACT
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 1057) to repeal the sunset of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief
Reconciliation Act of 2001 with respect to the expansion of the
adoption credit and adoption assistance programs.
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 1057
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as ``The Adoption Tax Relief
Guarantee Act''.
SEC. 2. REPEAL OF APPLICABILITY OF SUNSET OF THE ECONOMIC
GROWTH AND TAX RELIEF RECONCILIATION ACT OF
2001 WITH RESPECT TO ADOPTION CREDIT AND
ADOPTION ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS.
Section 901 of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief
Reconciliation Act of 2001 is amended by adding at the end
the following new subsection:
``(c) Exception.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to the
amendments made by section 202 (relating to expansion of
adoption credit and adoption assistance programs).''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Camp) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp).
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1057, a bill to make
permanent the adoption tax credit and assistance programs contained
within the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act, which we passed in 2001.
The importance of the Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act could not be
clearer: helping abandoned children find safe, loving, permanent homes.
Three years ago, we took a giant step forward. Our failure to act today
would be an equally giant step backward.
The adoption tax credits were originally limited to 10 years. No
child should have limits placed on their hopes, dreams, and
opportunities for the future, and no loving parent willing to take a
child in should be denied due to the financial burdens imposed by the
adoption process. By voting in favor of H.R. 1057, we will eliminate
the sunset and will make adoptions easier for all families for
generations to come.
Adoptions can be prohibitively expensive. Licensed private adoption
agencies charge fees ranging from $4,000 to $30,000. Independent
adoptions can cost anywhere from $8,000 to $30,000. If the adoption tax
credit is cut, the prior law level of $5,000, many families will not be
able to afford adoptions. Money may not be able to buy you love, but in
the case of adoptions, it may keep you from it.
There are over 565,000 children in publicly-funded foster care
waiting to be adopted. Even more are in the private system. Cutting the
adoption tax credit will make it more difficult to move children out of
foster care and into permanent homes. With H.R. 1057, we will
permanently put the health and safety of children first and give our
Nation's foster children a fighting chance. We cannot allow this credit
to lapse. Over half a million children are counting on us to finish the
job we started over a year ago.
Temporary is not an option for adoption, and it should not be for
this tax credit either. I urge my colleagues to support this vital
piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, there is broad bipartisan support for assisting adoptive
families in meeting their expenses. Helping families afford the cost of
adopting children in loving homes is clearly a worthy policy, and
targeted tax relief can help promote that goal. I, therefore, support
this effort to eliminate the sunset provision in the current adoption
tax credit, and I want to compliment my colleague, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Camp), for his work and leadership on this issue.
This extension is particularly worthwhile given the change in the
adoption tax credit that took effect last year. Let me just point that
out, Mr. Speaker, the adoption tax credit now provides a guaranteed
$10,000 tax credit for the adoption of special-needs children who are
classified as being more difficult to place for adoption because of
certain factors, including physical, mental or emotional impairment.
Prior to that change, it was very difficult for people adopting
special-needs children to qualify for the tax credit. In fact, less
than 15 percent did, because many of their expenses included in the
adoption credit were already paid for.
We know that people who adopt children with special needs incur
additional costs, including modifying their home to take care of the
physical impairments of the child and other types of expenses. Now that
we have modified the tax credit, those families can take advantage of
this $10,000 credit, and therefore, it is really helping deal with the
placement of special-needs children, one additional reason why it is
important for this tax credit program to continue without interruption,
one additional reason why this legislation should pass.
My only regret about this legislation is that there was no effort to
offset its cost. Relative to the other tax extensions, the cost of the
adoption tax credit is relatively modest. Let me point out, Mr.
Speaker, that the sunset provision is now in the year 2010. There are
many other tax provisions that have much sooner sunset dates that we
have not acted on yet and we need to deal with.
I support this change, and it has a modest cost, but I am sorry that
we did not take advantage of this opportunity to close some tax
loopholes, including those available to companies who ship jobs
overseas, that could have offset easily the cost of this bill so we do
not continue to add to the growing deficit.
The current budget deficit is $422 billion in this fiscal year, and
it is projected to grow to over $1.6 trillion over the next 5 years.
This amount will be added to a current overall of $7.3 trillion. It
should, therefore, be no surprise that we are about to raise our
government debt limit for the third time in just the last 3 years. At
some point, we are going to have to own up to the fact that we are
simply passing on our obligations to our children rather than living
within our means.
Mr. Speaker, I hope we will find a way to pay for this and other tax
extenders through commonsense changes in the tax code. In the meantime,
I support this extension of the adoption tax credit, and I urge my
colleagues to support this legislation but to continue to work for more
responsible fiscal policies.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and
I appreciate the gentleman's comments in support of the bill. I would
like to say that we have confirmed with the
[[Page H7377]]
Committee on the Budget that this legislation does fall within the
parameters of the House-passed budget.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the author of this bill who has been
a real leader on adoption issues in this House.
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. Speaker, first, let me express my sincere
appreciation to the House leadership and, particularly, the chairman of
the Committee on Ways and Means for bringing this important legislation
to the floor. I would like to thank my colleague, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Camp) for his leadership on the adoption issue over many
years, as well as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and all of
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for supporting this
legislation.
One of the greatest titles in the world is parent, and one of the
biggest blessings in the world is to have parents to call mom and dad.
So it gives me great joy to stand here along with all my colleagues
today to celebrate the thousands of moms and dads and children who have
become bigger, stronger families through adoption.
Last Congress, we passed several important adoption provisions. We
doubled the adoption tax credit to $10,000 for all adoptions. We
indexed that credit to inflation. We increased the earnings limit, and
we exempted the beneficiaries from the alternative minimum tax. We
included, as has already been mentioned, a $10,000 flat credit for
special-needs adoptions. Additionally, we extended and doubled the tax
deduction for employer-provided adoption benefits.
Unfortunately, the Senate's sunset provisions will make all these
benefits disappear December 31, 2010. Sadly, it will soon start to
affect couples who want to begin the adoption process and cannot afford
all the adoption costs related to it.
H.R. 1057, the legislation before us today, will help couples by
ensuring that they know that the adoption tax credit and the financial
relief provided by this tax credit will be there for them when they
find that beloved child. This bill will guarantee tax relief for
adoptive parents and will help unite children with loving parents who
can build strong and stable families in our country.
There may be some unwanted pregnancies, Mr. Speaker, but the
thousands of couples that are waiting to adopt children prove that
there are no unwanted children, and I urge my colleagues to support
this legislation.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), a member of the Committee on
Ways and Means.
(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the remarks by the gentleman from South
Carolina are quite interesting. He has brought out a bill today that
all here wholeheartedly support, through tax incentives, making
adoptions less costly. Now, that is certainly a good idea.
But it is hard to understand his thinking, because he has introduced
legislation here to convert our whole tax regime to one that relies
solely on consumption taxes, a sales tax.
Now, I do not know why he is supporting this. I guess he wants to
keep making it more complicated so his other bill will pass, but that
proposal would be a boon to the wealthy elite. It would remove the tax
incentives that would make home purchases, college and health care more
affordable. His proposal would tax all purchases on goods and services
in our economy, including food, health care and home rents. In fact,
the Joint Committee on Taxation did an analysis of a similar proposal
and indicated that in order for a sales tax proposal to be revenue
neutral over 10 years, the estimated national sales tax rate would be
between 36 and 57 percent. That is a 36 and 57 percent sales tax.
Some of us have a State sales tax of 8 or 9 cents, and we think that
is awful. But the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) is
proposing that. In other words, the price of a blood transfusion,
prescription drugs and a pair of sneakers would increase by 37 to 57
percent. Now, does that sound fair? Oh, and by the way, of course there
would be no adoption tax credit under that regime. So if you adopt a
child, well, tough luck.
Very good to talk about it here today. I am sure he would like to
take this home for the campaign. But when you put in bills that make no
sense, all those people who have lost their textile jobs in South
Carolina due to international trade and qualify for health tax credits,
well, they would be out of luck, too. And the gentleman from South
Carolina is going to expect to sell this proposal to the baby boomers
in this country who are about to go on a fixed income? Let us take the
best case, a 36 percent sales tax. How is he going to sell that and get
elected to the United States Senate?
The Health Insurance Association of the United States states that one
of the consequences of a flat tax bill is likely to be a rapid increase
in the number of people without private health insurance coverage.
{time} 1630
One economist estimated that there would be 8 million more people
without health benefits if a flat tax proposal was enacted. James
Poterba, an economist at MIT, estimated that eliminating the current
tax law benefits for purchasing homes could result in a 17 percent
decline in the value of the U.S. housing market.
What about payroll taxes? A flat tax proposal may eliminate the
deduction that employers pay for their payroll taxes, amounting to a
massive tax increase on businesses of all sizes.
The American public may seem naive to some people running for the
other body; but they know what this would mean, which is why the
President, the President of the United States, who says he wants to
tear the tax structure out by its roots, would not even admit that he
supports the gentleman from South Carolina's (Mr. DeMint) proposals.
If you are out here to help families and you want people to adopt
children, this bill is flawed. Too much of the money goes to people on
the top end like every other proposal that we have brought out here by
this administration and this Republican majority. But if you want to
make that kind of proposal, then do not put in these silly bills for a
sales tax for this country because the people are going to wonder if
you are serious about anything. Nobody who is serious about helping
people adopt children is going to think that a sales tax on tennis
shoes and diapers and all the things that go with kids makes any sense
whatsoever.
We will all vote for this, but I think the people should know what
the proposer actually has in mind.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), a distinguished member of the
Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, first let me thank the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Camp) as a leader in the Committee on Ways and Means
on encouraging adoption and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
DeMint), who has been a leader on this issue for many years since I
have been a Member of Congress and have come to know him.
I am an adoptive father. My wife and I have two little baby boys, a
5-year-old son, a redhead, named Will; a 2-year-old named Sean. Whoever
said that at my age having young kids keeps one young is absolutely
wrong. They make us old fast. But they are an absolute joy to us. And
it is only in Washington, unfortunately, that we have such a serious
subject about trying to help families build their families with an
adopted child, that we have an election-year smear campaign brought to
the Chamber against one of our colleagues who is running for an office
in South Carolina. I guess in Washington these days it is sort of the
order of business that one takes the serious issue of children and
adoption, who are looking for a home, and then they run these horrible
attacks from here from this Chamber. As an adoptive father, I think it
is sad and really disgusting.
Let me make this point on this bill, which is really the subject of
today, which is adoptions build families. It provides love and hope
where really none exists, both for the child and for the parent as
well. It is just a joy. And we are so proud of birth moms and dads who
choose that option.
This bill is so important because adoptions are so expensive. I do
not
[[Page H7378]]
know how families afford them anymore. If they use an agency, it is
easy to begin with a $25,000 fee. If they have a private adoption, like
we did, our first one was very expensive because the adoption was a
little more complicated. One can easily spend $10,000 without blinking
an eye. And that puts it out of reach for a lot of middle-income
families in America.
And these adoptions are expensive for a reason. One, legal expenses.
Over the years at the State level and the Federal level, we have tried
to make sure adoptions stick. Both for the birth parents who are giving
that child up and for the parents like myself who are adopting them,
our legal costs are high, higher these days because these are stronger
foundations and more secure adoptions, and that is good. But also we
use a lot of those moneys for medical expenses through the agencies,
working with the mom on prenatal care, making sure she is getting the
checkups for the baby, making sure that child has a chance to have a
healthy start in life. So the medical expenses are high. As a result of
both of those, adoptions can be so expensive.
And, again, without this tax credit, here each and every year we are
going to prevent some loving families from occurring. We are going to
keep children in foster care who really ought to be in a loving home at
night with parents reading to them and providing them with a future.
This adoption tax credit is just critical. It ought not to be something
that is temporary but permanent that families in our country can count
on and encourage.
With that I urge support and appreciate the leadership again of the
gentlemen from Michigan and from South Carolina.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), a member of the Committee on
Ways and Means.
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
I want to begin by offering the comment that on any tax measure
brought to the floor of this House, I believe it is entirely
appropriate to discuss the larger budget framework facing this country,
the out-of-control deficit, the record level of deficit leading to
records of levels of debt leading to the impending vote on debt limit.
These are all very serious financial matters before the country and
brought obviously germane to any discussion of tax cuts, even the one
before us.
But I want to speak in favor of this bill. I would have preferred
that an offset be included, offsetting the cost of this bill. But,
nonetheless, this is a very measured, targeted, and important piece of
social policy; and it strikes me right where I live.
On February 3, 1994, I was a freshman Member of this body. My workday
ended with a drive to National Airport where my daughter came off the
plane from Korea, my daughter, Kathryn, adopted daughter Kathryn; and
it was the greatest day of my life, until May 29, 1996, when in another
trip after another day out to National Airport brought me face to face
for the first time with my baby boy, Scott.
These children have enriched my life more than anything else possibly
could and beyond my wildest imagination. Each day with them is a pure
joy. I now know, and am learning later than most, what a complete and
fabulous adventure parenthood can be and how deeply satisfying it is to
the very fundamental purpose of life.
I speak that from a parent's perspective. But I also care so deeply
about the perspective of little children, little children who need
homes, need families to love them. I especially am concerned about
children in circumstances where placement has been difficult: special
needs children, slightly older children, children that would pose for
families considering adoption higher costs than an infant adoption.
Because I think this experience is so profound and fundamental to
life experience, the business of having children who need homes,
connected with parents who will love them and raise them as their own,
I certainly do not want financial barriers getting in the way.
In the course of activity of recent years, we have moved in place an
adoption tax credit, $5,000. We have now moved to double it. And with
this action today, we would move to make it permanent. I think that is
precisely what we need to do. We must not bar families from this
experience because of their inability to front the significant up-front
costs now ranging from $8,000 to $30,000 per adoption.
And my belief is that one would have to look long and hard to find an
adoption agency for placement less than $15,000. So these are very
significant costs. This tax credit will not cover all of them in the
great majority of cases, but it will make a difference. This will make
a critical difference in allowing families to participate in the
miracle of adoption that otherwise would not be available.
I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp), who in
particular over the years has led this Congress and earlier Congresses
in breaking down barriers that have kept kids in indeterminate status,
in foster care arrangements with no certainty, no stability. He has,
with earlier legislation, made it possible, I believe, to significantly
change the national priority and move toward children's interests
first, children interests, that being part of a permanent family.
The financial piece of this follows along with this legislation. I
think it dovetails very nicely with the gentleman's earlier work.
So I ask that we put aside partisanship on the question of the bill
before us. We certainly have much to discuss about the budget, as I
mentioned at the outset; but this is important social legislation, the
business of building families through the miracle of adoption, linking
parents or would-be parents desiring to play out that role in a little
one's life with children who need and want more than anything families
to love them and raise them. This is good social policy. This is
something we can agree on. Let us help it along with this tax credit,
and I urge its adoption.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South
Carolina (Mr. DeMint).
Mr. DeMINT. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of additional comments, and I
want to thank the gentleman from North Dakota for his perspective.
And just for those of my colleagues who have budget concerns, as has
already been mentioned, this bill fits into the budget. It is also the
best investment this country could make, building strong families; and
just the reduction in foster care alone more than offset this tax bill.
If I could say a word about the colleague who interrupted our
celebration with some political comments about my sales tax, I would
assure all my colleagues, so there will not be any concern, that I have
never in this body supported anything that increased taxes or costs on
the American people and do not intend to and would never support the
type of legislation that was just described here. So I do not want
there to be concern on the other side, because I cut taxes; I do not
raise them.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Linder).
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for
yielding me this time.
I was watching some of the coverage on TV of the debate and saw some
of the worst demagoguery I have ever seen in my life. And we will hear
it again and again.
It is true that the gentleman from South Carolina is a cosponsor of a
bill for a sales tax. So are 54 of his friends in this House. And it is
true that the sales tax would be at 23 percent of what we spend. But
the fact of the matter is we are currently giving up 22 percent of what
we spend to the current system.
A study that we have from the head of economics at Harvard argues
that 22 percent of what we are currently spending at retail represents
the embedded cost of the current system. One is paying every tax bill
and compliance cost of every company that touched that house or that
appliance or even that loaf of bread.
If we are to get rid of the income tax and the payroll tax and all
tax on income, competition would drive that out of the system. And if
we replace it with a 23 percent tax, we would have a 1 percent higher
standard of living, but they would keep their whole check and the
average income earner would have a 56 percent increase in take-home
pay.
[[Page H7379]]
We have heard before the study out of the Joint Committee on Taxation
that said it had to be at 50 percent or 60 percent. That is true,
because they made some assumptions that the bill would not pass as
written; and when they made those assumptions and took taxes off
certain things, it raised the cost.
But just think about this for a moment. We have a negative savings
rate in this country, which is to say we spend more than we earn. And
if the tax needed to be 56 percent on what we spend, then surely we
would have to argue that it has to be more than that on what we earn.
And I do not hear anybody saying that we have an average income tax at
56 percent.
We are going to be forced to make some tough decisions in the very
near future, and we are going to come to a system that gets the tax
component out of the price system so that we are more competitive in
the world economy. And the only bill that does that is the one that
gets rid of all tax on income and the payroll tax. We spend 6 to 7
billion man-hours just filling out IRS paperwork. We spend at least
that much time calculating the tax implications of a business decision.
We lose 18 percent of our economy to making decisions based on the tax
consequences instead of the economics. It is costing us somewhere
between 300 and $500 billion a year just to comply with this
complicated code.
What it is doing is it is forcing jobs overseas. If we became the
only Nation in the world that sold goods and services into a global
economy with no tax component in the price system, we would not only be
voraciously competitive, but every foreign corporation would build its
next plant in this country so that they could sell into a global
economy with no tax component in the price system.
We have a coming crisis in Social Security and Medicare. Larry
Kotlakof, an economist from Boston University, says that the shortfall,
the 75-year unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare, is $51
trillion.
{time} 1645
The total household debt in America is less than $44 trillion. That
system cannot survive by having employees pay for retirees. If we move
it to a portion of the 23 cents of the sales tax, we would double the
revenues to those categories in 15 years by doubling the size of the
economy in 15 years.
Lastly, we have somewhere between $5 trillion and $6 trillion sitting
in offshore accounts to protect them from the IRS because it is too
expensive to repatriate money. A company would rather borrow at 6
percent than repatriate at 33 percent that. That money would all be in
our shores if we were to become the world's largest tax haven, and we
would be creating jobs with it.
To demagogue an idea without reading the 132 pages is what this House
does an awful lot of. But if someone would take the time to read it and
understand that we are already paying this tax, that we totally untax
the poor by getting rid of the 22 percent embedded cost and by giving
every household a check to totally untax them up to the poverty line,
if they would begin to understand that this is actually a tax on
accumulated wealth, relieving the tax for low-income people, maybe we
could have an honest debate about this and maybe we could speak some
truth on the floor of the House. It is way too much to expect, but let
us give it a shot.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, this discussion is becoming a little bit
more interesting than we thought.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).
Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, again I support the underlying proposition before us,
but there are remarks made about a national sales tax that I simply
have to respond to, representing a rural area like I do.
The principal industry in North Dakota is agriculture. Agriculture is
based upon family farming. The economics behind a family farm are
pretty interesting. Every year, these families essentially stake about
everything they have got on making equipment payments, making land
purchases, buying the inputs to get the crop in, the seed, the
fertilizer, the gas to run the tractor.
You are not going to find for a family-sized small business, I do not
think, an undertaking beyond family farming where there is so much
money that goes out the door and into the ground with the hope that you
are going to have a crop come around harvest time and have something to
make up those costs with.
Why go into that is because, just think of it for a minute, suddenly
you are going to add about a 23 cent per dollar hit on a national sales
tax. You could not come up with a worse scheme if you imagined to knock
family farmers out of business all across this country. I believe it
would absolutely be a catastrophe to family farmers and to rural
America.
Underlying the principle further is the whole notion that we should
tax wages, not wealth. The gentleman talks about leaving the payroll
tax intact. But for someone living comfortably on trust fund income,
zero tax on those earnings; and then a tax, of course, on consumption,
like everyone else would have.
What is at stake here is an effort to make incredibly regressive
changes to the Tax Code so that the moderate-income families, the
middle-income families in this country, suddenly assume a significantly
new burden in terms of additional taxes away from the most affluent
few.
You would think the changes already made, that have been documented
to be so regressive in character, would already have been enough to
satisfy this appetite. But there seems to be no limit to what they want
to do in terms of increasing burden on the middle- and moderate-income
families, while giving a pass to the most-affluent few. When it comes
to a particular industry, one I know well, agriculture, this would be a
death knell for family farming all across the country.
This national sales tax proposition is very bad business. Let us not
let this concept take root, even in a discussion this afternoon on the
adoption tax credit. This national sales tax is bad, bad business.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Linder).
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I guess it is too much for people to read the 132-page
bill. We get rid of the payroll tax, we do not leave it in place, and
there is simply no tax on farmers. It is only on personal consumption,
and the Farm Bureau is very close to endorsing the entire idea.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia is correct, we
never have enough time to discuss taxes out here. We usually run bills
through here with no time at all to think about anything.
The fact is, if you really want to understand what this country is
doing, there is a wonderful book called ``After the Empire'' by a guy
named Emanuel Todd. He is the guy that predicted when the Soviet Union
would come down. He is the only one who predicted it before it
happened.
He is now talking about the chaos that this administration and this
Republican majority have put this country in. You are borrowing enough
money for the Defense Department. That is what you are borrowing. You
are only taking in enough revenue to handle everything but defense, and
you are borrowing all over the world, from the Chinese and the Japanese
and the Europeans.
If some day they say to us, United States, we are tired of funding
your Defense Department so you can come over here and hammer us or mess
up things in the Middle East or run around the world anywhere you want
and start a war, because you have got a President now who says we can
start a war any time we want any place we want. The world is afraid
economically of the United States.
This is a war of economics. It is not a war on terror, it is a war on
economics. One of the reasons why we got into this whole business in
the Middle East is because the rest of the world is thinking about
leaving the dollar as
[[Page H7380]]
the currency that stabilizes the world and going to the Euro. They were
doing it in Iran. Saddam Hussein was talking about doing it in Iraq. If
they had done that to the oil economics of this world, we would have
had a major catastrophe. So one of the side benefits of this little
exercise over in Iraq was that we did not get oil denominated in Euros.
You people simply will not look at what you are doing. You cannot
fight a war and have 700 bases all over the world and run a deficit of
$450 billion every year for the whole future that you can see.
This little bill here today is a minor issue; we know that. But it
gives us an opportunity to point out that your economics are upside
down.
You talk great things about, we are going to reform the tax system.
We had a chairman on the Committee on Ways and Means for the 10 years
he was here, who said he was going to reform the tax system, was going
to tear it out by its roots, but he never brought a bill to the
committee.
So it really is all talk, because you know it is nonsense. You want
the American people to believe it. You want the American people to
believe that we can get rid of that awful, terrible income tax and we
will have this nice, easy sales tax that somebody else will pay. But
when you look at it and how it actually works, it does not work, and
that is why you will not do it.
You have no courage. You own both Houses, both the Senate and the
House, and you have never brought that bill out here to be discussed.
Why not? Because you know it is nonsense. You know it is nonsense. That
is why you have to run these bills through in the middle of the night
with 1 hour's debate or 2.
So, let us be honest here about taxes. This little one will pass, but
do not give us this sales tax or what you are going to rip out by the
roots.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). The Chair reminds Members that
remarks should be made to the Chair and not to others in the second
person.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, as I said in the beginning, I support this bill. It is
good policy, the adoption tax credit. It should be made permanent. This
bill will make it permanent. It helps families who need help in
adopting children, particularly those with special needs.
But I want to point out that this bill removes the sunset that would
take effect in the year 2010. So if this bill were not to be enacted
into law this year, I want people to understand that we are not
endangering the ability of families to take advantage of the tax
credit. There is no urgency as far as the expiration of the tax credit
itself is concerned.
I do want to correct statements that I think were made by two of my
colleagues, because I think they were misleading when it was said that
the passage of this tax credit is consistent with the budget. We have
not passed a budget. We have not reconciled the difference between the
House and the other body.
Now, I know my colleagues will say, well, we passed one here and we
are consistent with what we did. But there is no budget that puts us on
a glide path towards responsible budgeting.
That is my concern, Mr. Speaker, and that is one of the reasons I
raised the issue. The deficit this year is $422 billion. I do not
believe any one of my colleagues is happy with that result.
What will this bill do? It will add a little bit more to the deficit.
It will add a little bit more to the red ink of our Nation. I find that
regrettable. I think we need to institute budget discipline. We need to
offset our expenditures, whether they are in the Tax Code or in the
operating budget, so that we do not add to the red ink of the Nation.
Unfortunately, this bill will not do that. And it would be easy for
us to agree in a bipartisan manner to the necessary offsets so this
bill does not add further to the deficit.
That is the offer that I make on behalf of this side of the aisle.
Yes, we support this legislation. Yes, we will work with you to make
sure it gets to the President for his signature. But work with us so we
do not continue to add red ink and debt to our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, let met just get back to the basics about what this bill
is about. In 2001, this Congress passed tax relief which included an
increased and enhanced adoption tax credit. This new law will expire.
The sunset was included in the law simply to comply with Senate
procedural rules. This legislation would repeal that sunset so that the
adoption tax credit provisions remain permanent.
If this legislation, H.R. 1057, is not enacted, then the adoption tax
credit would be cut from a maximum of $10,000 to zero. Families who
adopt special needs children would no longer receive the flat credit.
Instead, it would be a much more limited credit.
Also, certain families may be pushed into higher tax brackets. Fewer
families will be eligible for the credit altogether. This is important,
because not only can adoptions be very, very expensive; as I mentioned
earlier, it would mean that many families could not afford adoptions.
I have a letter here that I will include for the record, a statement
of administration policy strongly supporting this legislation,
recognizing that adoption is a tremendously wonderful way to build
families and to provide loving homes for children in need.
This tax relief will help provide the financial relief families need.
The home studies and some of the medical checks that are necessary as a
result of an adoption can be very, very expensive, and this will help
families as they take that very important step.
So the administration supports this legislation and is urging that we
have quick action in Congress to reduce the financial burdens that
families have when they undertake adoptions by making this important
part of the tax relief that we passed in 2001 permanent.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this resolution and submit the letter
I previously mentioned.
Executive Office of the President, Office of Management
and Budget,
Washington, DC, September 22, 2004.
Statement of Administration Policy
H.R. 1057--Adoption Tax Relief guarantee act (rep. demint (r) south
carolina and 203 cosponsors)
The Administration strongly supports H.R. 1057, which would
permanently extend the expanded tax relief for adoption
enacted in 2001. Adoption is a wonderful way to build a
family and to provide a loving, permanent home to a child in
need. Making the tax relief for adoptions permanent will
provide financial relief to families taking this important
step.
The President has called on Congress to make provisions of
the 2001 and 2003 tax relief acts permanent to prevent tax
increases from hitting America's families, small businesses,
investors, farmers, and seniors. Tax relief has greatly
helped the economy weather the storms of recent years and
fueled the economic recovery underway today. Making tax
relief permanent will lay the foundation for sustained
economic growth and job creation over the long term and
enable taxpayers to better plan for their future.
The Administration is pleased that the House is acting now
to make tax relief for adoption permanent. The Administration
urges quick action in Congress to reduce the financial burden
of families undertaking adoption by making this important
part of the President's tax relief plan permanent.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the bill, H.R. 1057.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
{time} 1700
GENERAL LEAVE
Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the subject of H.R. 1057, the bill
just considered.
[[Page H7381]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
____________________