[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE BUSH ECONOMIC PICTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we have much serious business to attend 
to on Capitol Hill these days. Many of us on our side of the aisle are 
deeply concerned about the Bush economic picture, how sad it is for 
most of America, including my State, which has struggled with very high 
unemployment for most of the Bush administration. The administration 
has fallen 1.8 million jobs short of the promises that were made to the 
Americans and to this Congress to justify the first two massive tax 
cuts from the Bush administration. There are significant issues to deal 
with the national government's fiscal health, the guarantees of an 
extra trillion dollars that was going to be available when the tax cuts 
were brought forward that the President repeated here in Washington, 
D.C., and out in the hustings.
  Now the administration wants to spend another trillion dollars in the 
face of hemorrhaging red ink to make these tax cuts that benefit a tiny 
number of Americans, those who need help the least, make their tax cuts 
permanent. This is something we could debate here in Washington, D.C.
  There appears to be no concern for the millions of Americans who are 
being caught in the payment of the millionaires tax, the alternative 
minimum tax, that was inspired because there were a handful of people 
who were earning $1 million or more in today's dollars that escaped 
taxation altogether. Congress in its wisdom passed the alternative 
minimum tax. Now it has turned into a voracious revenue machine for the 
Federal Government that is taxing 2.4 million American families, and 
that number is due to quadruple to over 12 million families in just a 
year; and if nothing is done, it is going to put the tax bite, extra 
taxes, on 41 million American families who will be subjected to the 
millionaires tax. But the Bush administration is more concerned about 
making permanent tax cuts for those who need it the least, as opposed 
to dealing with the alternative minimum tax. We do not hear any 
outrage. That is something we should debate on this floor.
  Or remember the lockbox where the two candidates for President, was 
it just 2000, Al Gore and then Governor Bush, were going to lock up the 
Social Security trust fund to make sure it was available for future 
generations? Now under the fiscal policies of this administration and 
his allies in Congress, we are borrowing every cent of the Medicare 
prescription drug benefit from the Medicare trust fund. That is 
something that is worth debating.
  The tax cut that is being pressed would fund the Social Security 
deficit three times over and avoid a disaster as the baby boom 
generation approaches retirement.
  This administration has refused to join us in the battle against the 
Republican leadership to extend unemployment benefits for workers who 
have had them expire. That is worth debating.
  Or the loss of manufacturing jobs across this country. It is 
fascinating to hear the administration's one concrete proposal to 
increase the number of manufacturing jobs that I have heard in the last 
3 years, and that is to reclassify the people who work at McDonald's, 
providing the service at those restaurants, that they are somehow going 
to be manufacturing jobs. They are going to change the definition. That 
is worth debating too.
  But what is it that the administration wants to talk about? Not the 
false choices in Iraq that have put us in a disastrous situation on the 
ground and putting young men and women in harm's way, not the deeply 
flawed policy where we are not following through in Afghanistan. They 
want to talk about gay marriage.
  I would strongly recommend that instead of pursuing something that 
was brought to us by Republican judges in Massachusetts, we let the 
States alone debate the real issues and not deal with a Federal 
constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

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