[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 23]
[House]
[Page 31686]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  0915
                         TARDINESS IN CONGRESS

  (Mr. AKIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that can be a problem here 
in Congress is tardiness or lateness. And we've certainly seen some 
examples of that. One of the examples is the alternative minimum tax. 
It's something that every year just keeps reaching down and taxing more 
and more Americans. And so through the last years, Republicans passed 
patches to push that alternative minimum tax back. Unfortunately, this 
year, we're late. We don't have that done. The IRS has got to have that 
done by tomorrow, or else they're going to take a whole long time to 
change tax forms, and 50 million Americans will have their tax returns 
and the money that's owed them by the government late because we're 
just not on time with getting the AMT patch fixed.
  It's also true with the veterans bill. We passed a bill, Republicans 
and Democrats agreed to it, put more money into the veterans, take care 
of post-traumatic stress and all kinds of other things that are 
expenses that the veterans face. The trouble is that bill's been 
sitting around. We're late again. Let's get a move on.

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