[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11117]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        BENEFITS OF TAX CUT BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, this bill is a job killer. It ensures the 
continuation of the Bush recession.
  Now, some will benefit from this. In fact, those who earn over $1 
million a year will average more than $93,000. That is almost enough to 
be a Bush Pioneer, if you give $100,000 to the Bush campaign.
  What has happened here in this debate is that the minor economic 
benefits of this proposal have been talked about extensively, but the 
offsetting and much larger economic detriments have not been discussed 
as extensively. Because my colleagues on the Democratic side are so 
incensed at how unfair this bill is, we have not had enough time to 
talk about what a job killer it is.
  What does this bill do? Yes, it does put some wealthy individuals in 
a position where they can buy the new $350,000 Mercedes. It is an 
expensive car. It is a new car. It is the latest toy. And that is where 
a big chunk, along with similar consumption items, foreign consumption 
items, where a significant part of this tax bill's result is going.
  It is true that some of it will be invested by the wealthy. Some of 
it will stimulate domestic demand. So there is some positives of the 
$550 billion. It is hard to find $550 billion that does not have some 
positives.
  But what about the negative? 100 percent of the cost of this bill, 
and as the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) explained, that 
is over $1 trillion, gets sucked out of our capital markets. What does 
this mean? It means that the over 2.5 million Americans who have 
already lost their job in the Bush recession will not find new jobs, 
because when small businesses in my district go to borrow money, the 
banker will say no, money is not available. We lent it instead to the 
U.S. Treasury, who has an excellent record of paying it back.
  How are small businesses supposed to get the capital they need to 
expand? They are not going to be able to get it from our capital 
markets, because $1 trillion is going to be sucked out to pay for this 
deficit.
  It is not typical for me to come to this floor and criticize one of 
my California colleagues and how they run their office, but I say to 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), you must give your staff a 
raise, because they have come up with a more regressive tax proposal 
than the Bush administration. They have done more for the Pioneers.
  Look at this. This is amazingly regressive, with virtually nothing 
going to half of Americans, and $93,000 going to the very wealthy. How 
do they achieve that? Let us look at the next chart. They come up with 
an interesting approach.
  The tax provisions that help middle-class families cease to have any 
effect in 2007, whereas the provisions that are responsible for the 
millionaires getting $93,000 each each year continue for quite some 
time. In fact, this bill does not have a single provision that helps 
middle-class families that continues in effect past 2007.
  So, let us summarize this bill:
  Benefits in 2008 for future years that help middle-class families, 
zero.
  Benefits to 50 percent of all Americans from the dividend provisions 
in this bill, 1 percent.
  Benefits to the top 1 percent coming from the dividend provisions and 
capital gains provisions of this bill, over 50 percent.
  Having a staff that can put together a bill that is more regressive 
than the White House was able to put together, priceless.
  Yes, RepubliCard. Some things, campaign contributions just cannot 
buy. For everything else, there is RepubliCard. RepubliCard. The 
country club will accept nothing less.
  Also, finally, do not forget to apply for the Deficit Express Card, 
now with a $12 trillion credit limit, because we will indeed have a $12 
trillion national debt with the budget adopted by the majority party. 
Deficit Express Card, don't leave the House without it.

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