[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 92 (Tuesday, June 25, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H4006-H4008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1740
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON SPOUSAL IRA
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules
and pass the bill (H.R. 2289) to rename section 219(c) of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 2289
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON SPOUSAL IRA.
The heading of subsection (c) of section 219 of the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is
[[Page H4007]]
amended by striking ``Special Rules for Certain Married
Individuals'' and inserting ``Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal
IRA''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
General Leave
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill
under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Today we are considering legislation to rename the Spousal IRA the
``Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA,'' and I want to thank my colleagues
from both sides of the aisle for cosponsoring this bill.
Mr. Speaker, a fellow Texan, an extraordinary woman and the first
Texas female United States Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison established
during her time in the Senate a long and distinguished record of
service to the great people of Texas and to Americans across our
Nation. A fitting example of the Senator's service is her successful
effort to help families save for retirement.
Back in 1993, Senator Hutchison first led the effort to change an
unfair tax rule that limited the ability of homemakers to fully
contribute to their own personal retirement accounts known as IRAs. At
that time, homemakers could only put aside $250 in an IRA as opposed to
$2,000, the maximum allowed for the working spouse. In response,
Senator Hutchison introduced legislation allowing homemakers to fully
contribute to their own accounts.
In 1996, Congress passed legislation that included the Senator's
proposal to do just that. As a result, homemakers are no longer
penalized for undertaking the important work of raising a family when
it comes to saving for retirement. As the Senator said back in 1996:
There is no question in my mind that the work done inside
the home is as much a part of the American family, if not
more important to the American family, than the work done
outside the home.
I can't think of a better way to recognize the now former Senator's
efforts to make it easier for families to achieve retirement security
than by renaming the Spousal IRA the ``Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal
IRA.''
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve
the balance of my time.
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague from Dallas, Texas
(Mr. Johnson) for his leadership on this matter.
This spring in another part of Texas in San Antonio, with the
committed leadership of Katy Flato, we had our first-ever Bexar County
edition of the Texas Book Festival. Among the many authors who were
celebrated there, an active presence to make this book festival a
success, was our United States Senator and New York Times best-selling
author, Kay Bailey Hutchison, who presented her new book, ``Unflinching
Courage: Pioneering Women Who Shaped Texas.''
In this book, she takes a look at other women who have made Texas and
this Nation what it is today. She tells some incredible stories from
Jane Long, who's often called the Mother of Texas, and her delivery of
her own baby on a beach, to the tale of Margaret Houston, the wife of
the hero of Texas, Sam Houston, who reportedly had an operation to
remove a tumor, bit on a silver coin, survived and had six more
children.
Senator Hutchison was a pioneer in her own right. She graduated, as
my colleague said, from the University of Texas School of Law in 1967
when the number of women in the graduating class was in single digits.
As the first Republican woman to be elected to the Texas House of
Representatives, she served there and in the Texas Constitutional
Convention where I had an opportunity to get to know her as another
member of that convention, as well as her husband, Ray Hutchison, who
served with distinction in the House of Representatives. She is to date
our only woman to have represented Texas in the United States Senate.
We're grateful for her long service, her willingness to work with
Members of both parties, and in San Antonio we're particularly
grateful, as well, for her service as it relates to the San Antonio
River and the expansion of the River Walk.
When she first came to the Senate in 1993, she began working on
legislation to help women take charge of their own futures, and one
part of that is the Spousal IRA. The bill was the product of her own
personal experience. When she married Ray, she learned that she could
no longer contribute $2,000 to her retirement annually, but was limited
to $250.
Early on, she approached Senator Barbara Mikulski about becoming the
Democratic lead sponsor on the Spousal IRA bill. Together, Senator
Hutchison, working in a bipartisan manner with Senator Mikulski, got
the legislation approved as a part of the Small Business Job Protection
Act of 1996.
The Spousal IRA that became law is an important tax benefit for stay-
at-home spouses. It allows the stay-at-home spouse to make a full IRA
contribution to the stay-at-home spouse's own IRA, even if a husband or
wife has made a full contribution to the working spouse's IRA.
At a time when too many people are not saving enough to provide a
secure requirement, this measure helps many contribute to ensure that
they have a full retirement. Under the rules in place before, that
limitation would have been a very nominal $250. Under Senator
Hutchison's legislation, the contribution can now go up to $5,500, a
big contribution, each year.
So I think it's very appropriate that we honor Senator Hutchison here
with the naming that is proposed.
I reserve the balance of my time at this point.
{time} 1750
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady), a member of the Ways and Means
Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Health.
Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Chairman Johnson, thank you for your
leadership on this issue and, Mr. Doggett, for your eloquent support.
When American families are fortunate enough to have children, they
often face an important decision: Can they afford to have one parent
stay at home to care for the children or is it financially necessary
that both parents continue to work outside the home? If they choose to
have one parent stay home, it is often a great financial sacrifice that
affects not only their day-to-day living but their retirement security
as well.
I believe the government should support their decision by encouraging
them to save for their retirement by using the Spousal IRA tax
provision which became law in 1996. This provision brings a measure of
equality to the Code and allows parents to contribute to IRA retirement
accounts whether they work outside the home or not.
While the Spousal IRA provision was included in the Contract for
America and the Contract with the American Family, it only exists today
because of our dear friend and former Texas Senator, Kay Bailey
Hutchison.
Years ago, she recognized the unfairness of the Tax Code to those
moms and dads who chose to stay home with their children, even if it
meant missing out on the usual tax incentives enjoyed by those with
outside jobs who were putting money away in a traditional IRA as a nest
egg. Well, stay-at-home parents didn't have that IRA option, so Senator
Hutchison went to work to balance the scales a little for those
parents.
I remember Senator Hutchison for years tirelessly crisscrossing the
State of Texas and lobbying her colleagues in the House and the Senate
for a spousal IRA because it was the right thing to do for our families
and families across the country. She never stopped raising awareness of
this inequity and never gave up. I think all of us would agree that
``never giving up'' is a Kay Bailey Hutchison hallmark.
She also turned her incredible energy to getting it passed in
Congress. She
[[Page H4008]]
was finally and justifiably successful in 1996, working across the
aisle with leaders like Dick Armey and the chairman of the Ways and
Means Committee, Bill Archer; but also signed by and supported by
President Clinton.
Since that time, millions of American children have benefited from
their stay-at-home parents, and their parents have benefited from
Senator Hutchison's magnificent work to bring some retirement fairness
to these wonderful families.
Therefore, I join with my colleagues to urge them to vote in support
of renaming the Spousal IRA section of the Tax Code the Kay Bailey
Hutchison Spousal IRA. It is an honor much reserved for the one person
most responsible for its existence.
Mr. DOGGETT. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the Energy and Commerce
Committee.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is a
pleasure to join my friends from Texas on the floor today to honor
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and the work that she did with creating
the Spousal IRA.
Look, back in the 1990s, I was just a regular guy practicing medicine
back home in Texas. What did I know about this stuff? Well, not much.
But what I did know was that for the 15 years that I had been in
private practice, my wife and I had shared our contribution to our IRAs
every year. That meant each of us was able to deposit $1,100 every year
into the IRA account.
Well, I've got to tell you, it's pretty frustrating to try to save
for retirement when every year your contribution is limited to that
rather austere amount. So it was a very big day, and I remember that
day when we actually both were able to make the full contribution to
our IRA accounts, and it was because of the hard work done by Senator
Hutchison.
She never forgot her constituents back in Texas. She never forgot
women--yes, women in the workforce, but also those women who were
exercising their option to spend all of their energies raising their
children and raising their families. It was a great day for Texas, for
Texas constituents when that tax bill was passed, and we are very
grateful to Senator Hutchison for her leadership. It is appropriate
that we honor her tonight with the naming of the Spousal IRA in her
honor.
Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, to close briefly, last fall Senator Cornyn
hosted a memorable bipartisan dinner honoring Senator Hutchison
appropriately in the LBJ Room here in the Capitol, where all of us who
are gathered here today, and a number of our colleagues, joined in
honoring Senator Hutchison. At about the same time, Senator Mikulski
introduced a resolution in the Senate to accomplish the same objection
as this resolution. I hope the Senate will act promptly to approve this
legislation. It has strong bipartisan support because this is an
important measure to ensure more retirement security provided by a
Texas leader of which those of us of both parties can take pride.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Doggett,
for his words.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill in honor of
Senator Hutchison's commonsense effort to make it easier for families
to save for retirement.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of renaming the
``Spousal IRA'' so that it carries the name of its champion--my friend
and fellow Texan--Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
This bill was a product of Senator Hutchison's personal experience
before joining the Senate. After putting aside money for her retirement
as a single working woman, Senator Hutchison found that she could only
put aside $250 in an IRA once she married her husband.
When Senator Hutchison was elected to the Senate in 1993, she led the
effort to change this discriminatory part of our tax code, and worked
to pass the ``Spousal IRA''.
Senator Hutchison has said that, over the course of her 19 years in
the U.S. Senate, this law is the accomplishment she is most proud of. I
think it is therefore fitting that we should amend the tax code so that
women in America know that they're benefitting from the Kay Bailey
Hutchison Spousal IRA.
Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to support H.R.
2289, introduced by Representative Sam Johnson (R-TX).
This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to rename the section
heading of provisions relating to the individual retirement accounts
(IRAs) of married individuals as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal IRA.
Senator Hutchison, from Texas, along with Senator Mikulski, co-
authored the now 15-year-old law that allows homemakers to make the
same deductible contributions to their IRA as salaried workers. The
Spousal IRA was one of Senator Hutchison's proudest achievements while
in Congress.
I thank Senator Hutchison for her years of service to the U.S.
Senate. I believe this is a fitting tribute for her championing of this
issue. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2289 to honor Senator
Hutchison.
Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, its a pleasure to recognize my colleague and
friend, former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, for her efforts to help
women. Her many contributions include her success in changing federal
law to help women save for retirement. Her efforts expanded the
availability of Individual Retirement Accounts for women, regardless of
their family or work status, to set aside money for retirement.
Senator Hutchison's success in changing the tax code to help stay-at-
home spouses underscores the family values that are critical to our
nation. Americans should not be limited by federal law when they work
at home to raise children and help their families.
Senator Hutchison deserves recognition for her support of American
families. I was a cosponsor of H.R. 2289, to rename section 219(c) of
the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as the Kay Bailey Hutchison Spousal
IRA. I applaud Senator Hutchison and thank her for the exceptional work
she has done on behalf of the State of Texas.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 2289.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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