[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13811-13812]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TAX CUT HELPS WORKING AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting use of words that are 
employed to describe this event, this process, this phenomenon we call 
a tax cut, and those who are helped and those who are hurt. And we sit 
here tonight and we listen to people describe the perils of those who 
do not receive a ``tax cut.''
  Tax cut. Now, let us analyze those two words. A tax. Something people

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pay. A cut. A reduction in that amount. In the case that was just 
brought to us and the case that, in fact, has been characterized over 
and over and over again as the people who do not, who will not be 
getting this tax cut, who are purposefully left out of this tax cut 
because we are so hardhearted on our side, we are so mean and hateful 
to people who make a little bit of money, very poor people, so that we 
decided, I know what. Let us make their life even more miserable. We 
will not give them their tax cut.
  Mr. Speaker, it has nothing to do with this process of a tax cut. 
Because, of course, the people that we are talking about here, the 
people that are suggested are not participating in this, do not pay 
taxes; therefore, we cannot cut the taxes they pay. And they do not get 
a refund of those taxes because, in fact, they do not come to the 
government in the first place.
  So now if you want to simply move money from one source to another, 
if you want to redistribute the wealth, which is, of course, part of 
our great tax scheme and something the Democrats have been so cozy with 
for so long, something they feel strongly about, something they can 
endorse wholeheartedly, moving money from people who pay taxes to those 
who do not, that is a different plan. That is okay. We do it all the 
time. It is called welfare. And that is, of course, an acceptable thing 
in this Nation. It is just not part of a tax cut plan.
  The reality is that this is a problem we face with more than just 
this issue. The whole concept of what we are doing for working 
Americans, what we are doing with a tax cut proposal that is designed 
to increase the number of jobs out there. I certainly support this 
concept. I certainly supported the job stimulus package that was passed 
here in the House, and I hope that it works. It is designed to do just 
that. If we leave more money in the hands of the people out there to 
invest, to, in fact, create jobs, that is good, I am happy. Then people 
like the ones that we were talking about here earlier and that had been 
brought to our attention who are in the lower income levels of society, 
those people will benefit also and that is the whole purpose of a 
stimulus package. It is to increase the economic benefit to all 
Americans, to all working Americans. That is the whole idea.
  Now, let us look at another aspect of this that I never ever see in 
terms of this being discussed, in terms of what really could help 
American jobholders or those people who are job seekers, the millions 
of Americans who are today unemployed or underemployed, the people who 
are making minimum wage, the people who are desperately looking to 
better their lives and are wondering about, in fact, what the 
government can do to help.
  Well, I agree that one of the things we can do to help is, in fact, 
propose and, in fact, pass a tax cut like we have done. But there is 
something else that we can do and then I would encourage all of my 
friends on the other side of the aisle to help us do. And that is to do 
something about the massive number of people who are in this country 
illegally and working illegally, people who are here, low-wage, low-
skilled workers who have come into the United States.
  There are something like 13 million, maybe more than that, who are 
here today employed and they are actually illegally employed. They are 
employed by people who know that they are here illegally but it does 
not matter. They take their jobs, the jobs that could be going to other 
Americans, and, in fact, we allow that to occur. We encourage that.

                              {time}  2200

  We have all kinds of loopholes in our immigration, not just in the 
borders that exist, not just in the fact that we have porous borders 
through which these people come, take the jobs that American citizens 
would take if they had the opportunity, and in fact, even those jobs, 
American citizens who are working, many of them are working for very 
low wages. As has been talked about tonight over and over again, that 
is true, but the reality is that those wages are kept low by the 
massive number of people who are coming into this country illegally, 
with low skills and, therefore, get paid low wages, and just the 
numbers here depress the wage base.
  I would like to have people support our efforts to try and secure the 
borders and stop all the loopholes in our immigration law. That would 
help working Americans.

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