Date: 2003-07-18
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. this motion instructs the House conferees to adopt the child tax credit bill that was passed by the Senate more than a month ago. a bill that the President said he is eager to have on his desk and to sign. This motion before the House is identical to the motion passed by this House June 12. a motion offered by the gentlewoman from Connecticut at the time. It is 36 days later. more than a month. Yet we have seen no action. The time has come for the House Republicans to stop playing politics with the child tax credit. The people who are going to suffer are the 12 million children from 6.5 million lowincome working families. families who earn an annual income of between $10.500 and $26.600 a year. families out there working very hard day in and day out to make ends meet. What happened? How did they get cut out? Let us just go back a little over a month just to review a little history here. During the recent conference on the tax bill. that was the tax bill passed out of this House. $350 billionplus. a package that disproportionately benefits the very wealthiest in our country. during the HouseSenate conference on that tax bill. a provision was removed. It was a provision that was originally offered by a Democratic Senator in the United States Senate. It *was a provision for basic fairness and basic decency. Indeed. it was one of the only provisions in that tax cut bill that benefits lowincome. working families. While that bill accelerated tax cuts that had been previously passed by this Congress. while that bill accelerated the cut in the tax rates for the very wealthiest Americans. and while we accelerated the child tax credit for millions of other Americans. the Republican conferees on the House and the Senate side decided to remove that one provision in the bill that helped those lowincome working families. that provided a child tax credit to those families with under $26.000 in income. It was a shameful moment. But at least the Senate recognized the problem and Democrats and Republicans on the Senate side passed a bill very quickly to fix that particular problem. to make sure that we restored the child tax credit for those lowincome Americans who had been taken out of the bill. The President. who originally through the Vice President. DICK CHENEY. had agreed with the plan to remove that provision that helped lowincome families with a child tax credit. reversed position as well and the President said. I want to sign that tax bill. the child tax credit fix that was passed by the Senate. And then the bill came over to this body. We actually had. as I said. a motion to instruct conferees 36 days ago where we told the House conferees. let us go with the Senate bill. Yet the House leadership has prevented that from happening. Next Friday. as the Democratic whip indicated. next Friday. July 25. many Americans are going to go to their mailboxes. and they are going to find a tax rebate check there. Because of the nature of this bill. the wealthiest in our country are going to find some very big checks. In fact. the wealthiest 1 percent will receive on average $100.000 in tax cuts. Many other Americans will receive much smaller checks. But there is one group of Americans that is going to go to their mailboxes and find nothing at all and that is the lowincome working families who were cut out of the bill and for whom the Republican leadership in the House refuses to provide relief right now. families whom we know are struggling each day as hard as every American. There is also another group that was left out. It was a group of Americans who have been fighting for our country overseas. 200.000 men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat operations and in other combat around the world. The House bill left them out. the Senate bill provided a fix. and yet this House Republican leadership will not allow us to provide that fix now. The House bill contains bad news for the children of those 200.000 men and women. It leaves in place current law and under current law many families will have tax increases because combat pay for their services is not counted for the purposes of the child tax credit.- So under current law. an E5 or an E6 sergeant with 6 years of service and two children is paid $29.000 a year. If he did not serve in combat. both of his children would be entitled to the full $1.000 child tax credit. But if he goes to combat for 6 months. his credit would be dropped to approximately $450 under the House bill. The Senate bill. which the President says he wants to sign. is designed to fix it. Let us get on with it. Let me just quote from the former White House press secretary. Arl Fleischer. back in the week of June 12. Mr. Fleischer said he. the President. "wants to sign that legislatioh. hopes that the Congress will get it to him quickly. He believes what the Senate has done is the right thing to do. a good thing to do. and he wants to sign it." Let us get on with the business. Let us make sure that we treat those families. those hardworking families fairly. There is no reason at a time when the very wealthiest in our country are getting huge tax breaks that we should not provide the child tax credit for those lowincome working Americans. It is the right thing to do. It is the decent thing to do. Let us adopt this resolution. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.