[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13538]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX CUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I believe it was Mark Twain who said that 
humans were the only species that had the capability of feeling 
embarrassment or needed to, and I think that we are going to see many 
of my friends across the aisle in the Republican Caucus who have 
sincere and legitimate embarrassment about what they did at about 1 
a.m. awhile back when they passed the tax cut that is so grievously 
unfair to 12 million children and 8 million families in this country.
  You have heard, Mr. Speaker, previous Members here address the fact 
that this child care tax credit was left out for these families earning 
$10,000 to $26,000 a year. I think in doing so, the Republican Caucus 
has given a new meaning, a new definition to the term women and 
children first. The ``women and children first'' principle used to mean 
that you take care of those who are least capable of caring for 
themselves first. But the Republican Caucus has given a new definition 
of that term. It means that you cut out and you give tax cuts to 
everyone else first and children last.
  Because what happened here is pretty obvious. It is pretty clear that 
the Republicans had a choice to make. They decided that they were only 
going to do a tax cut with a total cost to the Treasury of $350 
billion, and they had to make a decision at the last instant who to 
deprive of the tax cut. They had a clear choice to make. They could cut 
.1 percent, or 1/1000th of the amount of the tax cuts given to 
millionaires, or they could decide to deprive it and not give children 
the benefit and those families earning $10,000 to $26,000 a year. They 
decided to deprive the children of that benefit rather than the 
millionaires who were paying these taxes.
  They now are rightfully, sincerely, and I think greatly, embarrassed 
by this disclosure that has now come out from this middle-of-the-night 
tax cut that was passed. And why did that happen? Why did that happen? 
It is not because the Republicans are not good folks. It happened 
because this tax cut and its bottom line, its basic theory, was not an 
economic principle or an economic plan; but rather it was a knee-jerk 
fixation, an ideological predisposition to starve the government and to 
do a disproportionate tax cut that is not in keeping with the needs of 
working families.
  What I mean by that is if you were going to do a tax cut that had an 
economic theory behind it, you would give tax benefits to these working 
families that are going to turn that money around and get it right back 
into the U.S. economy. These are the first families that ought to get a 
tax cut, not the last. The reason they are the first families is that 
these are the folks that are going to get the money right back into 
circulation.
  But in the Republican plan it is the last group that gets tax relief. 
The reason is because this plan was based on an ideological fixation 
that they want to starve government rather than the economic theory of 
getting money back into the U.S. economy. That is why it is doomed to 
failure. That is why their last tax cut produced nothing. That is why 
we have had 2\1/2\ million new lost jobs after their last tax cut, and 
that is why this one is not going to be any better for the U.S. 
economy.
  Mr. Speaker, we need an economic plan to grow jobs, not an 
ideological fixation; and we need to help children first, not last.

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