[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14112-14113]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 HOUSE REPUBLICANS SHOULD FOLLOW SENATE LEAD AND PASS CHILD TAX CREDIT 
                    LEGISLATION FOR WORKING FAMILIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I am coming to the House floor this 
evening to urge the Republican leadership to follow the Senate's lead 
and immediately approve the legislation that will provide a child tax 
credit to 12 million children, the children Republicans left out of 
their tax bill last month.
  Included amongst these 12 million children are the children of U.S. 
military families. A report out last week showed nearly 1 in 5 children 
of active duty U.S. military families will not benefit from the 
increased tax credit because their parents earn too little to qualify.
  Now, last week, Madam Speaker, Senate Republicans worked with 
Democrats to expand the child tax

[[Page 14113]]

credit to the 12 million children they initially left out. And talk 
about a tale of two Chambers. While Senate Republicans were negotiating 
with Democrats to craft the bipartisan compromise, Republican leaders 
here in the House showed nothing but ambivalence towards the terribly 
unfair treatment of these working families. Madam Speaker, this House 
should follow the Senate's lead and immediately approve legislation 
extending the child tax credit to working families.
  I hope that my Republican colleagues will follow the lead of their 
colleagues in the Senate and not their own leadership here in the 
House. Just last week, the House majority leader, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay), and many of us have mentioned it, said he would not 
bring up a legislative remedy to this injustice, and he justified this 
inaction by saying, ``There are a lot of other things that are more 
important than that.'' Well, I do not agree with him, and I have to say 
I hope that Republicans in the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay's) own 
party recognize the injustice.
  Last week, conservative syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington said 
in the Los Angeles Times: ``A magnetic compass always points north; a 
moral compass should always point out that heaping billions on the rich 
while ensuring that 1 out of 6 American children do not get a penny is 
dead wrong.'' Conservative Arianna Huffington continued: ``But that's 
exactly what congressional Republicans did in pushing through tax cut 
legislation last month, and that's what President Bush signed off on.''
  When hearing about the provision being pulled from the bill and the 
impact it would have on 1 in every 5 active duty military families, 
Republican Senator John McCain said, ``My God, what kind of message are 
we sending when we leave out low-income families, exactly those who are 
in that category of the enlisted men and women who are fighting for us 
today in Iraq? It is beyond belief.''
  It truly is.
  White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer probably explained it best 
when he said: ``Does tax relief go to people who pay income taxes, or 
does it go above and beyond the forgiving of all income taxes, and you 
actually get a check from the government for more than you ever owed in 
income taxes?'' That is what the House majority leader, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is saying. He basically is backing up 
Fleischer's claims and he says, ``To me, it is a little difficult to 
give tax relief to people who do not pay income tax.''
  Well, it is simply not true. These people do pay taxes. What the 
President's secretary and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) forget 
is that these workers pay Federal taxes. Madam Speaker, 7.65 percent of 
their earnings go to pay for Social Security and Medicare. These 
hardworking parents also pay State and local taxes as well.
  But beyond the issue of whether they pay or not, and they do, it is 
just the issue of simple fairness. How can the Republicans say it is 
fair to give a millionaire a tax break of more than $90,000 while 
giving nothing to millions of working families? I do not understand how 
they even could conceive of such a thing.
  Now, after realizing that the Republicans had left this provision out 
of their final tax bill, several of my Democratic colleagues introduced 
a bill early this week that would repair the damage from this 
irresponsible tax package. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) has 
introduced legislation with many Democratic sponsors that would provide 
greater tax relief to the families of 19 million children, and the 
legislation is fully paid for, so it would not add to the record 
deficits created by the President and the Republicans in Congress.
  Last week we Democrats in the House said we would not allow business 
to continue as usual around here until Republicans agreed to address 
the Rangel legislation. We did some procedural motions and we will 
continue to do that this week until the Republican House leadership 
stands up and says that they are going to pass this legislation.
  I just do not understand where they are coming from. I do not 
understand how they can be so crass and so really unfeeling about these 
low-income working families. Obviously everybody else here agrees: The 
President now today, the Democrats, and the Republicans in the other 
House. The only thing that is holding us up here on this is the House 
Republican leadership. They have to stop this attack on low- and 
middle-class families. They have to stop this attack, bring it to an 
end, pass this legislation. Let us bring it up and pass it immediately.

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