[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14115-14116]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            ERASED CHILD TAX CREDITS HURT MILITARY FAMILIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Blackburn). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WATSON. Madam Speaker, it is shameful enough that the Republican 
leadership in Congress has chosen to gamble our children's future on a 
risky and unsustainable tax scheme such as the one signed into law just 
a few weeks ago; but what is even more shameful is that Republicans 
sold out the very men and women who recently fought for our country in 
Iraq by cutting many of them out of the tax cut. That is right, only 
hours before Congress was set to vote on President Bush's big tax 
giveaway, Republicans cut out provisions to expand the child tax credit 
for working families in order to give the President's wealthy friends a 
bigger tax cut.
  The child tax credit provisions Republicans erased would have 
benefited millions of working families, including many families of 
American soldiers, sailors, and airmen just as they returned from war.
  Just this weekend we had POW Shoshana Johnson in the Los Angeles 
area. During the time she was a prisoner of war, her family who lives 
in my district held a vigil. They tied those beautiful pink ribbons 
around the trees in the neighborhood so no one would forget that 
Americans were held hostage and were captives in Iraq.
  So it is outrageous, and my outrage grows when I hear members of the 
Republican leadership suggesting that we

[[Page 14116]]

are formulating a new welfare program. I am talking about and referring 
to working families. I am referring to those who have served their 
country in a land so far away many cannot even find on a map, in a land 
that did not have any concrete connection to 9-11, in a land that was 
headed up by a dictator who was not friendly with Osama bin Laden and 
we supposedly were going to have terrorism. But still, our troops went 
over under the command of the Commander in Chief, and they did an 
exemplary job.
  This is the reason why we have set up an institute in Los Angeles 
that will work with the school district and will work with the 
community and it is an institute named after Shoshana Johnson, called 
the Institute for Heroism, Endurance and Patriotism. She had a 
daughter. Should she have been killed, as was rumored, that daughter 
would be in the care of someone else or maybe a part of the welfare 
system. I do not know, but she has a strong family. So in the name of 
the POWs, in the name of our veterans, we must vote to restore the 
deleted provisions that have helped millions of Americans and their 
children and our people who are still in Iraq and they have families 
back home.
  Believe me, their incomes currently make them eligible for Federal 
programs. We must be sure that they too can take advantage of the child 
tax credit because, indeed, they are working people. We owe it to them. 
They deserve it.

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