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




               HOUSE LEADERSHIP NEEDS TO GET THE MESSAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, 3 weeks ago, when the 
Republicans in the House and the Senate were getting together to decide 
the final version of the tax bill, under the direction of Vice 
President Cheney, they made a very bad decision. They made a decision 
that families with children who earn between $10,000 and $26,000, a 
year who currently get a portion of the child tax credit, would not get 
the increase that this bill provides for families with children, a $400 
increase for many, many Americans per child that they will get checks 
this July. For whatever reasons, and we think we know why, because they 
used that money to provide additional tax cuts to the wealthiest people 
in this country; had they given this tax cut to these families between 
$10,000 and $26,000 a year, to those 12 million children, people like 
Mr. Cheney, instead of getting $93,000, would have gotten $88,000. But 
they chose instead to take $93,000 and these children did not get the 
tax credit.
  This tax credit is terribly important to these families. What the 
Republicans fail to understand is that many of these families are 
people who the Republicans accused of being on welfare, they have 
accused them of not participating, but these families get up and go to 
work every day and they work in difficult jobs, and they work in jobs 
that not a lot of people want to have. And at the end of the year, they 
end up basically poor. So one of the things this government did a 
number years ago was create the child tax credit. And a number of 
things we did in the last administration was to make it refundable so 
that we can make sure that those people would continue to have an 
incentive to stay in the work force.
  Now, if the Republicans do not like the child tax credit, one of the 
things they could do is they could increase the minimum wage. They 
could make it easier for these families to earn more money. They would 
get less tax credit. But the Republicans do not want to increase the 
minimum wage. They do not want to provide those children health care. 
They do not want to provide them a tax credit, and yet, somehow, these 
people, they are not deserving of this effort.
  It was a horrible decision they made. But now we see as that decision 
has come to light, as the bright light of public awareness is focused 
on that, last week we saw the Senate, when they realized how upset the 
country was, how unfair people felt this was, the sense of economic 
injustice that reigned in the country, that these people would not be 
taken care of in a tax bill that is going to spend $350 billion, they 
could not take care of these people for $3 billion. The Senate, on a 
bipartisan basis, voted overwhelmingly to correct this injustice. They 
passed a bill in the last days of last week to send over to the House 
to correct this and to give these individuals the tax credit that they 
should have for their children, for these families who are working very 
hard, and even to extend it to some individuals in higher incomes.
  But yet, what do we see the reaction of the Republican leadership in 
the House of Representatives, is that they are not going to do this 
bill. They want to hold these children, they want to hold these 
families hostage for some other tax cut that they can give to people 
who may be far less deserving than these children and these families. 
But they want to hold it hostage so that they can unite it with 
something they were talking about last week in terms of a $100 billion 
bill or more.
  These children and these families are entitled to get those checks in 
July just like every other family in America. It is important to our 
economy, it is important to the recovery of our economy, and it is 
important to the wherewithal of these families as they struggle to hold 
themselves together at low wages.
  So the Republicans in the House and their leader, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader who has said he does not want to 
do this, that he was not going to take the bill, they must relent. They 
must relent for the benefit of these families and for the benefit of 
our economy.
  Today, the President of the United States said he likes the Senate 
bill. He wants to work to see it passed. The President of the United 
States got the message. The Senate got the message. The Senate 
Republicans got the message, the Senate Democrats pushed for it, and 
were successful. And now what do we see? That it is the House 
Republicans that somehow cannot get the message that this is a matter 
of fairness, it is a matter of equity; that these people have played by 
the rules and they ought to be treated like every other American family 
with children. The time has come for the majority leader, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. DeLay), to step aside and let this bill be passed this 
week so these families can get their checks in July to help them with 
this economy.

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