[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 19 (Thursday, February 1, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H377-H381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       WHY I OPPOSED THE TAX BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to say that I was saddened to have 
to oppose the tax bill that the House of Representatives passed last 
evening. I could not, in good conscience, vote for a deal that so 
lopsidedly benefits big corporations while failing to ensure a 
substantial tax cut to middle and working-class families.
  I believe this deal is deeply inequitable, and at a time when we have 
seen the greatest rise in inequality when big corporations made super 
profits at the expense of the consumer, it is a mockery of whom 
representative government works for.
  This bill delivers massive tax cuts for the biggest corporations 
while denying middle-class families the economic security they had 
under the expanded monthly child tax credit that was passed in 2021.
  Let me be unequivocal. This is a reversal of the largest middle class 
tax cut in the history of the United States. This bill provides 
billions of dollars in tax relief for the wealthy and pennies for the 
poor. This expanded and improved child tax credit which we passed in 
2021 returns $8 for every dollar spent.
  How?
  Because the child tax credit helps children learn more, earn more, 
and grow up healthier, which is why I find it upsetting and appalling 
that we would condition a limited extension of this life-altering 
program with a vast giveaway to billionaires and corporations who are 
already well practiced in paying no taxes.
  DISH Network, FedEx, Salesforce, T-Mobile, and dozens of others--and 
I will later give you the list of the others, Mr. Speaker--these 
corporations and dozens of others paid no Federal income tax from 2018 
to 2020 under the Trump tax law.
  At a time when big corporations are richer than ever, the idea that 
we must evenly split the pot with working and

[[Page H378]]

middle-class families is absurd, but there is no even split in this 
bill. It is $5 for the corporations and $1 to our children.
  Understand, Mr. Speaker, people are calling this an expansion of the 
child tax credit. It is no expansion of the child tax credit. It is a 
step backward. That needs to be understood.
  When groceries and other costs like childcare have skyrocketed 
driving record corporate profits of $3 trillion in 2023, it was 
families bearing the brunt of inflation and high interest rates.
  The expanded monthly child tax credit is an antidote to child 
poverty, it is an antidote to inflation, and it is a successful tool 
that lifted millions and millions of children out of poverty virtually 
overnight. One-half of children in the United States were lifted out of 
poverty--4 million.
  Today, families live paycheck to paycheck. Their wages have not kept 
up with rising costs, the economy is not working for them, and to our 
great shame, it is children who will suffer the most.
  This bill fails to sufficiently improve the child tax credit. It 
leaves millions of middle-class families without a tax cut like they 
received in 2021. It keeps millions of children in preventable poverty 
because of a policy choice. This bill strips working-class families of 
the true economic security that was achieved with the expanded monthly 
child tax credit under the American Rescue Plan.
  I understand that no bill that can become law, especially in a 
divided government like we have today, is going to be perfect or have 
everything that we want.
  I am grateful for the hard work of Representatives Neal and Pelosi, 
Senators Bennet, Braun, Booker, and Wyden on the bill, and for the 
Members who spoke out and offered amendments to improve it, 
Representatives DelBene, Sanchez, and Moore--Congresswoman Moore is 
here today and will speak in short order--and Representative Sewell and 
Representative Doggett.
  An extension of the expanded monthly child tax credit is what our 
constituents need and deserve. It worked. It worked better than any 
other Federal program that we have seen. As I said, it lifted one-half 
of our children out of poverty and lowered the hunger rate in the 
United States by 26 percent.
  We lowered the child poverty rate, and today the rate has gone from 
5.2 percent to 12.4 percent, and, yes, working families, middle-class 
families, and vulnerable families have seen their wages decline as a 
result of pulling the rug out from under them with the expiration of 
the child tax credit.
  It is the one best thing we can do to improve economic well-being and 
secure the most vulnerable American families and to bring back the 
largest middle class tax cut in history. This was a lost opportunity. 
It leads the way to in 2025 making the Trump tax credits which 
benefited the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of the people in this 
country and the biggest corporations in this country, it leads the way 
to moving in that direction. It can't go there. We have to stop that, 
and we have to make sure that we will.
  I look forward to continuing that fight to have an expanded and an 
improved child tax credit that we delivered for all families in 2021.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), who 
will become the chair of the Education and Labor Committee come 2025.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her longtime commitment to 
the child tax credit. We know it works, and she has been the most 
dedicated advocate for the child tax credit that we have in the United 
States Congress today. I thank Rosa DeLauro.
  When congressional Democrats and President Biden enacted the American 
Rescue Plan in 2021 without a single Republican vote, we prioritized 
the economic well-being of working families with the expanded monthly 
child tax credit. The expanded child tax credit under the American 
Rescue Plan reached 61 million children and reduced child poverty by 
nearly one-half, lifting nearly 3 or 4 million children out of poverty.
  In contrast, this bill is expected to lift only 500,000 children out 
of poverty when it is fully phased in. So this is not an extension of 
the child tax credit that we passed in the American Rescue Plan. It is 
not as generous, it does not help the lowest income families, and 
unlike the ARP plan, there are no monthly checks. People do not pay 
their bills once a year. They pay them monthly. So the impact of this 
program will not nearly be as strong as the former child tax credit 
that we passed in the American Rescue Plan.
  So this deal fails to reinstate the economic gains made for working 
families, and it fails to come anywhere close to the reduction of child 
poverty achieved under the American Rescue Plan. While providing only 
$33 billion in benefits for children, this bill prioritizes $185 
million in tax cuts for corporations that were included in the 2017 
Trump tax scam.

                              {time}  1115

  It is overwhelmingly lopsided in favor of big corporations that are 
already paying historically low tax rates as a result of the Trump tax 
scam. What is even more egregious is that the bill makes the tax breaks 
for corporations and businesses retroactive and immediate, while not 
doing the same for working families. This doesn't make sense from 
either a budgetary or a public policy perspective, and is a bold 
display of misplaced priorities.
  It is notable that congressional Republicans sanctimoniously complain 
about the national debt and budget deficits.
  Earlier this month, Republicans on the House Budget Committee even 
passed the so-called Fiscal Commission Act because they were seemingly 
so concerned about the national debt and claim to want to do something 
about it, and yet, they consistently abandon all sense of fiscal 
responsibility when it comes to enacting corporate tax cuts.
  In fact, before the bill has even come to the floor, we just passed 
the tax cut last night costing about $200 billion that, when fully 
phased in over 10 years, will cost about $700 billion over the 10-year 
period.
  Mr. Speaker, ultimately, I voted ``no'' because this fiscally 
irresponsible tax deal is too lopsided in favor of corporations and 
special interests, while failing to provide equivalent support for 
working families.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Rosa DeLauro for her advocacy for the child tax 
credit and for families.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia because 
he is someone who has been an emphatic champion for education and for 
working people in this country, and as someone who is always at the 
forefront of what makes sense in terms of providing for the economic 
security of people in this country, and particularly in children.
  Mr. Speaker, he just hit the nail on the head that this is a question 
of just such gross inequity that is going to be foisted on our families 
and our children. The people who are standing up and talking about the 
expansion are just fooling themselves about what this bill is about. 
They need to take a look at who the beneficiaries are.
  Mr. Speaker, I, again, thank Congressman Scott for his work now and 
what he has done in the past and what he will continue to do in the 
future in this body. I thank him so much for being here.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, Congresswoman 
Gwen Moore, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee. She will talk 
about her amendment, which was defeated on a party-line vote, but she 
is someone who is never afraid to stand up and to speak out, and she 
did so last night on this floor in opposition to this lopsided tax 
deal.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. DeLauro for putting 
together this Special Order.
  Mr. Speaker, I felt really compelled to come to the floor because 1 
minute last night during the tax debate did not seem to be an adequate 
amount of time to explain why I adamantly opposed the tax bill in its 
current iteration.
  Mr. Speaker, what I have been told is that a half a loaf is just 
better than no loaf at all; that this tax bill was a compromise, and 
that somehow as a legislative body and as legislators, we ought to be 
used to compromising, but I just didn't want to capitulate.
  I didn't mind compromising, but I didn't want to capitulate. It 
wasn't

[[Page H379]]

just that we passed this tax bill that supposedly was an improvement 
for the child tax credit, but we passed $600 billion of tax breaks for 
businesses, which is the job of the Ways and Means Committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I don't know what Members of this body have against poor 
children. Are we in some sort of Dickensian reality here, like in a 
novel by Charles Dickens, where 5-year-olds have to go to work to take 
care of themselves?
  Part of what is flawed about the so-called improvement in the child 
tax credit is that it relegates children's well-being and their ability 
to get a supplemental income based on their parent's income.
  If you are married and you are a stay-at-home mom and your husband 
makes $399,000 a year, I am happy that we provide you the full credit 
because, even at that income level, we ought to recognize the 
tremendous expense that it is to raise children. We ought to consider 
the benefits of providing shelter and good food and good nutrition for 
children, but why is it that those children in that home are more 
deserving of a supplement than a child who lives in a household where a 
parent makes less than $22,000 a year?
  Why?
  Why is it that this body perceives that the lowest income children 
living in those households, that their parents need to put in a greater 
work effort?
  Well, I asked the Joint Committee on Taxation to do a little 
arithmetic for me, so that I could sort of understand the thinking 
behind what my colleagues were saying. They said people need to work. 
Children need to see their parents going to work before they just get 
this welfare money and this free money.
  Well, under current law, if a single mom gets out there and gets 
herself a minimum wage job, doing her part, she is only required under 
our welfare policy to work 20 hours a week, but if she gets out there 
and finds herself two minimum wage jobs paying 7.25 an hour and she 
goes and does Uber or Instacart after she finishes her two part-time 
jobs, then and only then will she be eligible for the tax credit.
  I don't know who takes care of her kids while she is working more 
than 40 hours per week in order to qualify for the child tax credit. I 
mean, that is just criminal.
  As my colleagues have pointed out, in this same package, we have 
corporations that are getting stuff like research expensing. I think 
R&D is a legitimate tax break, but there is research expensing that can 
hardly be called ``research.''
  We also provide billions of dollars for bonus depreciation, which is 
really quite wasteful in our economy for companies to be able to buy 
new equipment year after year after year because they can expense it 
and write it off. And while they are able to write off their business 
expenses, we are writing off millions of children whose parents don't 
have tax liability.

  So companies can have no tax liability, pay no taxes, and get $600 
billion and parents, who have no tax liability, get nothing.
  Will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin 
for the purpose of a colloquy.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. As a refundable tax credit, there are about 
61 million children who are able to benefit from this provision, and 
yet I see through all of the talking points and literature and analyses 
of this proposal, that we are just supposed to be happy with this half 
loaf because now 16 million kids and 400,000 more are going to benefit 
from this proposal.
  Is this correct?
  Ms. DeLAURO. First of all, the point that you have made and that 
Congressman Scott made, these tax breaks for the richest corporations, 
they are immediate. They are immediate.
  The child tax credit, this has to be phased in over a 3-year period 
of time, and it is a lower number than they had with the original 
expanded monthly child tax credit, which was $3,000 for kids between 6 
and 17, $3,600 for kids who are under 6.
  It is a lower credit, and then they phase it in in terms of 
refundability, and the most vulnerable kids are excluded altogether. It 
is astounding the inequity of all of that.
  Now, what we did with the child tax credit, which was in the American 
Rescue Plan, the monthly credit reached 61 million children.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Sixty-one million children?
  Ms. DeLAURO. Yes. There was about 4 million kids lifted out of 
poverty, almost half the kids in the U.S. lifted out of poverty.
  Now, what we are talking about in this tax deal is 400,000 kids they 
talk about being lifted out of poverty versus 4 million. Plus, the 60 
million that is made reference to is some piece of it at some portion 
in some time during this phase-in, et cetera, will be the beneficiary 
of a much lower tax credit. In addition to that, what people are saying 
is that we have expanded the child tax credit.
  Folks out there are going to believe that they are going to be 
getting what they got in 2021, and it is misinformation. It is just 
about trying to put a veneer on what has been done here in giving the 
biggest corporations, as Congressman Scott pointed out in this 3-year 
period, $185 billion versus $33 billion for the child tax credit.
  Give me the facts, and that is what we try to do. That is what we 
have tried to do in the last weeks since this proposal came out is give 
people the information, the accurate information about what is here. 
They are hiding it. They are hiding it. And you know what, as I said, 
it is an unbelievable missed opportunity.
  I have to say this: I was told when we first went forward on the 
child tax credit, I wanted it to be permanent. They said we can't do 
it. We can't afford permanence. I said 5 years. Can't do it. Can't 
afford it, 5 years. I said 3 years. Can't afford it. I said 1 year, and 
then they asked me would you support 1 year of expanded monthly child 
tax credit, and I said yes.
  As I mentioned earlier, the most successful Federal program that we 
have seen coming down the pike that met its mission in lifting kids out 
of poverty and providing families with economic security, helping them 
to deal with the cost-of-living effort.
  I was also told at that time: Rosa, we do it for a year, it is not 
going to go away. It is not going to go away. It went away. And the 
first opportunity that we had to restore the child tax credit, we 
failed.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. We pushed more kids into poverty.
  Ms. DeLAURO. That is right. The kids have gone back into poverty, and 
it is preventable, as you pointed out. This is preventable poverty. We 
know the answer and we have refused to take that answer and move 
forward on it. That is what happened here last night
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin 
for the purpose of a colloquy.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. As you mentioned, I had a proposal, a 
compromise.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Your amendment. Go for it.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. It was a compromise. It was not what I 
wanted. I wanted a fully refundable tax credit, but I was looking at 
our current work requirements for this tax credit and I said to 
myself--even though a work requirement really defies the whole purpose 
of a child supplement--if we were to compromise and had a work 
requirement, why would someone, who through no-fault of their own, 
finds themselves working for $7.25 an hour; they are subject to rules 
under our welfare reform protocols, under our TANF legislation, to work 
20 hours a week when they have young children.

  I had the Joint Committee on Taxation do an analysis and if a woman 
with two kids worked 20 hours a week, did everything that was expected 
of her, she still would not qualify for this tax credit.
  And if she wanted to get a fully refundable tax credit, she would 
have to neglect her children in order to do it. She would have to work 
more than 40 hours, Mr. Speaker, in order to qualify.
  That is slavery, you all. I mean, why are we continuing to cling to 
these old models of financing our economy and deciding that women, who 
by definition are typically single parents struggling to raise their 
kids, must work more than 40 hours in order to receive a benefit from 
their government?
  Why is that?
  What do they have against these poor children?

[[Page H380]]

  

  Ms. DeLAURO. You ask a very relevant question. We have seen 
Congressman Casar, Congressman Scott, yourself, we have seen it on this 
floor, the denigration of working families in this country. It is that 
they don't work. When we talked about the child tax credit, they said: 
Well, they are not going to go to work, that they are going to spend 
the money on drugs.
  And when we got the data of what happened in that 1 year, we found 
that women used the money for childcare so that they could go to work; 
that the money was used to buy food, to pay rent, to buy school 
supplies, to pay for healthcare, for a mortgage payment
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. For childcare.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Childcare was one of the biggest issues, because then it 
allowed people to go to work.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. And it incentivized them to work.
  Ms. DeLAURO. That is right. It is because they wanted to denigrate 
working folks. They say these corporations and these folks are the 
richest one-tenth of 1 percent who cut coupons, that is the work. They 
exercise their fingers with scissors and cut coupons, or the 
corporations who deal with stock buybacks, that is okay. They are not 
held accountable, but by God, we are going to put it to people who are 
trying to make ends meet, trying to deal with the cost of living and 
inflation today. And that child tax credit helps them do that and we 
pulled the rug out from under them.
  Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, my only proposal was to have a 
more generous phase-in.
  If you are going to require people to work, why not allow them to 
have 40 percent of the credit after the first $2,500 of income. That 
way, someone who was working and trying to meet all of the program 
requirements, a TANF recipient, could go to work and feel some 
dignity--as they claim that you get--some dignity going to work, making 
work pay.
  They go and do their 20 hours, and they are able to have time to deal 
with their children and help them with their homework.

                              {time}  1130

  They get the earned income tax credit. They are playing by the rules, 
and all we do is just move the goal post further and further away. 
Under this bill you cannot work your way out of poverty, and we are 
going to make sure you stay there.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments. 
You hit all of the points on this. Look, you just said it, children and 
families with zero to $2,500 in earnings get nothing--get nothing. 
Corporations who have avoided any kind of a tax liability get 
everything that they ask for, and the business community and the 
corporations put the red lines down, and when we had our red lines, 
they got blurred, and we walked backward, and we gave them everything 
they wanted. We made it retroactive. We said go for it, take it--laying 
the groundwork for next year. We said we are going to skimp on this 
child tax credit and make sure that it doesn't reach all of those who 
need to be reached in order for us to turn poverty around in this 
country, which we proved that we could do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Casar), who 
stood up yesterday on this floor and voted ``no'' on this tax deal last 
night. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his interest, for his 
progressive nature on this stuff, and for all of the issues that face 
working and middle-class families in this country and make this a more 
equitable society.
  Mr. CASAR. Mr. Speaker, I opposed the tax bill last night. To me it 
was pretty simple, because whether I am in Austin, Texas, or San 
Antonio, Texas, whether I am in a group of seniors or with young 
people, in front of more liberal constituents or conservative ones, one 
of the most common questions I get asked is: Why is it that I and 
everyday Americans pay such a higher effective tax rate than some of 
the biggest corporations in this country?
  How is it that FedEx and T-Mobile would pay none, zero, in Federal 
income tax at all?
  And the answer is: Look no further than the bill that we voted to 
pass last night, which provided tens of billions, if not hundreds of 
billions, in giveaways in corporate tax breaks.
  Importantly, as folks have noted, packaged into the bill is a watered 
down partial return of the child tax credit, which thankfully, will 
help thousands of families. But for every dollar going to kids in the 
bill, $5 goes to corporations.
  So in short, instead of helping thousands of kids, we could have 
helped millions of kids. We have the money to pull kids out of poverty, 
to ensure that people in this country are housed, fed, and educated. 
The money is there. In this case, the money was sitting right there in 
this bill--just in the wrong people's pockets.
  We have to be willing to move the money from corporate pockets over 
to kids and families. We could provide working-class and middle-class 
tax cuts. We just have to be willing to fight and negotiate harder to 
end the giveaways to billionaires.
  Mr. Speaker, just like the ranking member, I am open to compromise, 
but instead of a deal where corporations get $5 for every $1 that kids 
get, what about a compromise where kids get $5 for every dollar that 
corporations get?
  I oppose this bill because we can do so much better. It is such a 
missed opportunity. We have to be willing to say no to deals that are 
so lopsided that workers get crumbs while corporate executives get a 
full steak dinner.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has made such very good 
points. It is a missed opportunity. That is the regret in all of this.
  Again, I was told that you get it for a year, it is not going to go 
away. Well, not only did it go away, but it came back as a much watered 
down proposal. What is equally troubling is the number of people who 
are out there saying that this is an expansion. It really is 
doublespeak to the American people. It isn't an expansion. It is moving 
backward.
  The notion that half a loaf is better than none, something is better 
than nothing; we cannot afford that kind of a philosophy going forward. 
That is not our job. Our job is to advocate for the American people, 
for those working families, those middle-class families, those 
vulnerable families, for children. That is what we should do here. We 
have that obligation.
  When corporate profits have skyrocketed $3 trillion in 2023, how do 
we in good conscience say, amen, you get millions and millions of 
dollars in tax breaks? Your goal is to get to $600 billion. We cannot 
draw that line in the sand and say no.
  I believe in research and development--we all do--but the inequity 
that is built into this tax package is stunning. To use the words of my 
colleague from Wisconsin, it is a capitulation of saying amen, it is 
okay, and that we will fight another day. No, we had a moment to fight, 
and we missed that moment.

  We are not stopping. We are not stopping.
  I heard a lot of people last night say that: well, we will get to it 
next year, and we will get the child tax credit to where it was. You 
know, it was not just a mental note. I made a list of the folks who 
talked about getting us to where we need to be. Time flies. We are 
going to hold people to their words here.
  We heard that it is not ever going to be permanent. Well, we are 
going to hold you to that, as well. If we are going to make anything 
permanent, it has to be the child tax credit. It is the antidote to 
inflation. It allowed families to be able to achieve economic security 
that they had not seen in a generation because their wages haven't gone 
up in generations.
  That is what is on the minds of people today, how they are going to 
economically survive. We had that opportunity to give them that help.
  I don't put aside helping 400,000 kids, but we could have helped many 
millions of kids in what we call preventable poverty.
  We don't understand what our values are, who we are, why we are 
privileged to serve in this institution. We can look at public policy 
in a way that makes a difference for people.
  The great Joseph Stiglitz, who is a Nobel laureate in economics, said 
that inequality is not because of globalization or modernization, but 
it is the public policy choices that we make.

[[Page H381]]

  Last night, this body made a public policy choice to continue the 
inequality and inequitable advantage that corporations have over their 
lives, their families' lives, their kids' lives.
  That is not the direction we are going in. We will continue the fight 
that we have started here. This now goes to the United States Senate, 
and let's just see how we can influence the process there. We will 
continue until there is a permanent child tax credit.
  What is important that has come out of this debate in the last 
several days is that we have raised the decibel level on a child tax 
credit, its success, and its future and its future as permanent for 
this country. We are going to keep it on that front burner, and we are 
not going to let it go.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Scott of Virginia, Congresswoman 
Gwen Moore, and Congressman Casar for being here this afternoon, and, 
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________