Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004
Legislative Activity
Stay on top of the latest movement without scrolling through every action
Read the second time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 609.
July 6, 2004
View full timeline
Introduced in House
May 13, 2004
Referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
May 13, 2004
Rules Committee Resolution H. Res. 644 Reported to House. Rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4359. Previous question shall be considered as ordered without intervening motions except motion to recommit with or without instructions. A specified amendment is in order.
May 17, 2004 • 10:21 PM
Rule H. Res. 644 passed House.
May 20, 2004 • 2:57 PM
Considered under the provisions of rule H. Res. 644. (consideration: CR 5/21/2004 H3459-3475)
May 20, 2004 • 4:38 PM
Rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4359. Previous question shall be considered as ordered without intervening motions except motion to recommit with or without instructions. A specified amendment is in order.
May 20, 2004 • 4:38 PM
DEBATE - The House proceeded with one hour of debate on H.R. 4359.
May 20, 2004 • 4:39 PM
DEBATE - Pursuant to the provisions of H. Res. 644, the House proceeded with one hour of debate on the Levin amendment.
May 20, 2004 • 5:44 PM
Passed/agreed to in House: On passage Passed by recorded vote: 271 - 139 (Roll no. 209).(text: CR 5/21/2004 H3459)
May 20, 2004 • 7:17 PM
On passage Passed by recorded vote: 271 - 139 (Roll no. 209). (text: CR 5/21/2004 H3459)
May 20, 2004 • 7:17 PM
Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection.
May 20, 2004 • 7:17 PM
Received in the Senate.
May 21, 2004
Read the first time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under Read the First Time.
June 25, 2004
Read the second time. Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. 609.
July 6, 2004
Voting History
2 votes recorded • Roll call available
Floor Debate
22 membersWhat members said about H.R. 4359 on the floor
DC
SML
CBR
SHH
DP+17
Floor Debate
22 membersWhat members said about H.R. 4359 on the floor
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 644, I call up the bill (H.R. 4359) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the child tax credit, and ask for its immediate consideration. Mr.…
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 644, I call up the bill (H.R. 4359) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the child tax credit, and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of legislation to permanently extend the child tax credit to millions of hardworking American families. H.R. 4359, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004, will prevent 30 million American families from being hit with a tax increase next year. The bill before us today will make the $1,000 child credit permanent while enhancing the credit for low-income families, middle-income families, married couples and our military families. As the economy continues to grow, it is important that Congress stand in firm support of policies that strengthen families.
The current credit is a product of the 2001 tax law, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, which increased the tax credit to $600 per child through 2004, eventually raising it to $1,000 per child by 2010. This tax relief was accelerated in last year's Jobs and Growth tax relief bill which made the $1,000 credit available to families immediately for 2003 and 2004. Today's bill would make this level of relief permanent and enhances the credit by making it more available to lower-income, middle-income and military families.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to making the $1,000 credit permanent, H.R. 4359 also provides for several other tax benefits that Members on both sides of the aisle have sought. The bill increases the level of refundability to 15 percent of earned income above $10,750, a year earlier than provided under current law. Soldiers in combat areas and their families will receive additional support because the bill allows combat pay to be treated as earned income for the credit's refundability. Further, this bill would permanently prevent the child credit from being lost to the Alternative Minimum Tax.
Congress must not allow taxes to be increased on American families just as our economy gets going. This tax credit is good for the American family and good for the American soldier. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane), a distinguished member of the Committee on Ways and Means and chairman of the Trade Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Brown).
(Mr. BROWN of South Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Otter).
(Mr. OTTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), a distinguished member of the Committee on Ways and Means and chairman of the Subcommittee on Health.
(Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), the Subcommittee on Human Resources.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).
(Mr. CUNNINGHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, we have no further speakers at this time, and I reserve the balance of my time.
We have the right to close.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation makes the child tax credit permanent and enhances it. Without this credit, without action, this credit will decline by $300 or it will raise taxes on families next year if we do not take action.
The enhancements in this legislation increase the level of refundability to 15 percent of earned income at those income levels above $10,750 and it raises that 1 year earlier than under current law.
Our military families have enhanced benefits as a result of this legislation because combat pay is treated as earned income for refundability, and we permanently prevent the child credit from being lost to AMT.
Let me just say something about the Alternative Minimum Tax. A couple of weeks ago, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle offered an amendment to define the Alternative Minimum Tax to define middle-income taxpayers exactly the same way we have defined them in this legislation. So the enhancement of this credit for those middle-income families is important, but it is something that those on the other side proposed just 2 weeks ago.
Let me lastly say that this is really about strengthening families, and it is interesting to hear the argument on the other side for those who feel that if the government loses money, somehow that is a problem for families. What we say is, no, this money is earned by those families in America and across the country, and if we can do whatever we can to have them keep more of their hard-earned money, that ultimately means not only would their families be doing better, but our economy will do better, and if the economy does better, our government will do better.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, Members should oppose this substitute for three simple reasons:
First, just like the sponsors' substitute last week on permanence of the 10 percent bracket, this substitute is only temporary. It is not permanent tax relief. The substitute would cut the child credit in half after 2010, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Here is what that means. The benefits to the lowest income families would disappear. The benefits for our military personnel and their families would disappear. The AMT will gobble up the tax credits, which will drop to $500 per child in 2011 for families.
Second, the substitute does not eliminate the marriage penalty and the child credit, and it does not expand access to the credit for middle-income families. By contrast, our bill, H.R. 4359, will provide the full tax credit to married couples with up to $250,000 in income and for single parents with up to $125,000 in income.
The substitute's advocates are opposed to providing help to these families. And this is really a mystery, since the Democrats were willing to provide these same families with tax relief three separate times in the last 3 weeks. Two of their recent substitutes to other tax bills would have granted AMT relief both to married couples and people in the 10 percent bracket regardless of their income. The Rangel substitute on AMT relief exempted couples with up to $250,000 adjusted gross income, and single taxpayers with up to $125,000 in adjusted gross income from the AMT.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would submit my friends on the other side simply are not being consistent. They continue to change their definition of middle-class families to suit whatever needs they see at the time.
Finally, a tax increase is used to fund this bill, a 2.75 percent new tax on entrepreneurs. Seventy-five percent of the tax filers that this new tax will strike have business income. The Democrats' approach would raise taxes on small business owners and investors
and undermine the economic growth that tax relief has delivered.
This same tax-and-tax again approach has been rejected twice this May by substantial margins in this House and should be rejected again.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments and appreciate much of the work we have done together on the Subcommittee on Human Resources.
I would say, just a couple of weeks ago the other side of the aisle set their own definition of middle class when they offered an amendment on the floor to expand AMT to include ``more middle class families'' and exempt
them from the AMT, which is exactly the same levels we have tried to incorporate in this bill. We have changed this bill to include those families. We are working together to try to strengthen families in America and try to help families with the incredible costs and burdens of raising children today. So I think we can all agree it is those families that need help.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter), the sponsor of the base bill, H.R. 4359.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I certainly appreciate the gentleman's view of history. I would just point out that he forgot to mention that the previous administration signed the largest tax increase in history, which actually started to begin the economic decline that occurred at the end of the last administration.
I would just say, Mr. Speaker, that what we are trying to do here in terms of helping middle-class families is exactly the same definition that my friends on the other side used 2 weeks ago in their attempts to change the AMT to make that more beneficial.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just say that my friend's view of this whole economy and budget process is very different, because while his party was in control, the budget was not balanced for two generations. It took our party to gain the majority to actually bring some fiscal sanity to the process.
I would just say that what we are debating here today, though, is whether we are going to extend the child tax credit permanently and whether we are going to do that in a way to help more low-income families, more middle-class families and more military families. The base bill does that.
The substitute regrettably raises taxes on small businesses and entrepreneurs. That is exactly the wrong thing to do as we begin to see job creation come again; 1.2 million jobs since October of last year have been created as a result of the tax relief that we have passed.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say that I urge Members to reject the substitute because it does not make the child tax credit permanent, it ends in 2010, and we need to make that tax relief permanent.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), chairman of the full Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the Rangel substitute for three reasons: the Rangel substitute does not make the $1,000 tax credit permanent. The Rangel substitute will cut the $1,000 child tax credit in 2011 in half,
according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The result: millions of low-income families and military families will face a hefty tax increase. In addition, more than 1 million more taxpayers would fall victim to the Alternative Minimum Tax.
The second reason to reject the Rangel substitute is that it does not include tax relief for middle-class families in the way of the child tax credit. In the Democrat substitute to the AMT bill, it was the Democrats who defined middle-class families as single parents earning $125,000 a year and married couples earning $250,000 a year. This substitute would deny the full credit to families in those ranges. As a result, this substitute does not give the full tax credit to families defined by my friends on the other side as middle class.
Thirdly, the Rangel substitute raises taxes on small businesses and entrepreneurs. The Democrat alternative creates a new tax that will hit approximately 200,000 individual tax returns. Seventy-five percent of those have business income, the same small business community that we have been working so hard to bring back. The House has rejected similar tax increases twice in the last 3 weeks.
I urge my colleagues to believe in parents, believe in families, believe in children, reject the Rangel substitute, and vote for H.R. 4359.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is important we understand what the issue is here today and where there is a difference. It is not a question of extending the…
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it is important we understand what the issue is here today and where there is a difference. It is not a question of extending the child credit; we favor its extension. It is not a question of accelerating the 15 percent refundability; Democrats support it and urged it before. It is not a question relating to military families; we Democrats have been urging that before and support it now.
So what is the issue here? It is interesting that my colleague from Michigan does not discuss either of the two
major issues. Somehow by using the term ``families,'' there is the notion that major issues can be avoided, that major issues can be skirted, that major issues can somehow be covered up by the use of the term ``families.'' We are not going to let that happen. Whoever is listening must learn the difference here.
Part of it relates, and now I am talking about the differences between the substitute and this bill, to low-income working families. The substitute would provide more benefits because for working families the threshold was indexed. We want to de-index it. That will help 2.5 million working families. We also want to increase the benefit for every family by indexing the credit.
I also now want to point out two additional major differences. This is not only an extension, this is a new tax break. This is not only an extension of this credit, this is a new tax cut. And for whom? It is a tax cut not really only for families earning $110,000 because they receive some of the benefits of the present system. For example, it goes up to $120,000, $130,000, et cetera. For a family of two with $135,000, they get 375 bucks for each child.
So this really goes beyond the present system, one that provides some relief for families up to $150,000 and in some cases beyond, depending on the number of children. Now, what this is, is a new tax break that goes beyond the $150,000, beyond $200,000, beyond $250,000, beyond in some cases $300,000. This is not a tax break mainly for middle-income families. It is a tax break for Members of Congress who have kids 17 and under. Do we need that tax break? I do not think so. I do not think so.
Under the tax legislation that was passed before, the very wealthy families have already received an ample tax break. And if the first chart would be brought forth, I want to refer to it. This is for family household incomes 200 to $500,000: $7,430, this has been the average tax cut in earlier years. And what this bill would do would be to add 2,000 bucks to it. That is what this bill does. Do not call it just an extension. That is point one.
So when I hear, as I heard earlier today, this is for families to buy diapers, to buy toys, to buy a swing, no. I am in favor of providing, and so are Democrats, the extension for families who clearly need it. I am not in favor of a new tax break for families who clearly do not need it, 250,000 bucks a year.
Stand up and say that you are providing a tax break for them. Stand up and say you are providing a tax break for the Members of Congress with kids 17 and under. What this is, is an example of imbalance of priorities and, indeed, of perspective. And to make it worse, you do not pay for it.
I ask that the second chart be brought forth. And I want everybody to understand what the Republican majority is doing here. This tax cut, the way they have tailored it, the estimate is it is going to cost about $228 billion. Of that, close to $70 billion is because of your new tax break. My gosh, you do not even pay for the child credit that makes really good sense. Okay. Should you not at least pay for a tax break for families making 250 and 300,000 bucks a year? That is not just fiscal irresponsibility; that is fiscal madness.
So that is why I rise today and urge support for the substitute and urge that people vote with some perspective, with some sense of priorities, and vote against the Republican majority bill.
It is not going to pass the Senate. I do not even know how you make it in order in the Senate. If this bill had come out of the Committee on Ways and Means, as I understand the rules, there had to be a waiver by rules in order for us to consider it today because it does not come within any budget.
So what we are doing today is in a sense going through the motions, and I am in favor of making clear to low- and increasing numbers of low-income families the need for a child credit. I am in favor of making clear an extension of the child credit for middle-income families in this country. It does not make any sense to dig a deeper fiscal hole for families making 200, 250, $300,000 a year.
I close with this and everybody take notice: what you are doing by giving a tax break to a relatively small number of families, not all of whom but many of whom are earning 175,000, 200,000, $200,000 a year, what you are doing is, in essence, putting a tax on all of the families of America, if not next year, in the future, because they are going to have to pay for the interest on this deep, deep deficit. And you are just adding to it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to point out to the gentleman from Illinois that over 2 million children in Illinois will receive more of a benefit from the Democratic substitute than from the Republican bill and only the very wealthiest 4 percent of the families in Illinois will receive any of the new tax cut that goes beyond the extension of the present system.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), an active member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Mr. Speaker, I do not want anyone to be misled by the gentleman from Nevada. The $250,000 figure related to the Alternative Minimum Tax, not to the child credit. The AMT was never intended to apply, except to the very wealthy, and we want to make sure it does not. They have not stepped up to the plate on it.
Also, I want to point out that 400,000 children in Nevada will benefit more from the Democratic substitute than the Republican bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the active and distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina that about 800,000 children in South Carolina will benefit more from the Democratic alternative than the Republican bill, and that less than 3 percent of the families in the gentleman's State would benefit from the additional $70 billion in tax cuts in the Republican bill.
Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege and pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
(Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished whip.
Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
I just want to say to the gentleman, this is not about tax relief for people who need money to buy hamburgers or books. You add $60 billion, $8 billion, $70 billion to the debt, in large part for families making $200,000, $250,000.
Mr. Speaker, how much time is left?
Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman ready to close?
Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of the time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa), our very distinguished colleague.
(Mr. HINOJOSA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) and myself, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), a very distinguished colleague and member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
Do not keep repeating a big fib. The AMT was not supposed to cover except a small minority of the taxpayers. We did not define a certain amount as middle class. It is not in that legislation.
Do not repeat it. It is not true. This is a child credit. You are adding on to an extension $70 billion in large part, substantial part, for very high-income families beyond $250,000. This is not the AMT; this is the child credit. Get off your big fib.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
Look, the 10 percent applied across the board, and so much of it went to families other than the very wealthy. So much of this proposal of yours goes to families that are very wealthy. That is the difference.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), one of the cosponsors of the substitute.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
I want to say respectfully to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), what the majority's bill does, adding a new tax cut, gives a tax cut to Members in the gentleman's position, not to families who are struggling to find money to buy books or buy hamburgers; and to dig a deeper hole for that reason is a mistake.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.
I have no idea what the gentleman was referring to. No idea.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
The issue is not extension of the child credit. We favor it. Nor taking into account the needs of military families. We are very much for it.
There is a difference and a big difference. Why should we create a new tax program here? Why? Why for families making $300,000, $250,000? Are they the families in need? And is it right to do so when we add $70 billion to the deficit? The answer, I say to my chairman, pay for it. Pay for it.
You say it is not permanent and yet you say you are going to grow out of the deficit. Okay. If you are right, our proposal is permanent. If you are wrong, as you have been before, in some years we will take another look. Do not raise, I hope again in your remarks, even though when you have a message, you keep after it even if it is wrong, the AMT illustration. It is simply not correct. We do not use the term ``middle class'' in our AMT proposal. What we say is the AMT should be used for the same purpose as it was intended, for very wealthy families, and we are consistent because we say do not add a new child credit, a new tax break for very wealthy families when you are digging another $70 billion in the hole.
That is not fiscally responsible, as I said before. It is fiscal insanity. Do not raise children when your kids and my grandkids, if not my children, would pay for your irresponsibility, adding $70 billion to the already huge pile of debt. It is red enough. Do not add to it.
I urge that we vote for this responsible substitute and that we vote ``no'' against a very irresponsible, unneeded, additional tax credit that is in their proposal.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.
Mr. Speaker, how historic it would be if we could get back to the idea that tax bills would come out of the tax-writing committee. Every bill that has been coming to the floor has been without the…
Mr. Speaker, how historic it would be if we could get back to the idea that tax bills would come out of the tax-writing committee. Every bill that has been coming to the floor has been without the benefit of Republicans and Democrats having an opportunity to evaluate the legislation, to improve on the legislation. At least at a time when our Nation has this polarized war on our hands, would that we could say in the tax-writing committee, we are working together to improve the economy and that we also support our troops, we support Social Security, we support Medicare.
But this is not the case.
There is no basic difference in the thrust of the Republican bill and the Democratic bill. They just would like to make certain that the benefits would go up to people making $329,000. There is no basic difference. They would drive us into debt some $228 billion, because they do not attempt to pay for it.
There is no basic difference, because we are just more concerned with those in the lower income, while they have this fetish, this desire, that no matter how much it costs, they have to make these special appeals to those that have so much.
It would have been that if we were working together, then we could find some equitable solution.
Somewhere on the Republican side, somewhere there is somebody that believes that we should not go deeper into debt. I do not know who it is, I have not met anybody, but there has to be someone that believes that, with the $500 billion in the tax bills we have had.
It would seem to me that the basic principle should include two things: One, this is a time of war. We are spending $4 billion a month because the President has been ordained to bring peace and democracy to this part of the world. He does not know, and neither does Secretary Rumsfeld know, how many months it is going to take in order to pay this cost, not just in human resources, but in dollars.
We have spent over $150 billion, and we are going deeper and deeper in debt. As has been pointed out, we have to pay the interest on that debt. We do not know what it is, besides prescription drugs, that we are going to have to give up. How many schools do we have to give up? How many Social Security payments do we have to give up?
Do we have any obligation at all to legislate today with some consideration for our kids and our grandkids? I do not think so. You have a Committee on the Budget, I guess, because you want to have one. But what impact does it have on the trillions of dollars that we have gone into debt because we want to show the world that we have a fetish in order to give the tax credits and the tax benefits to the top percentage of those people who have such high incomes.
How embarrassed you should be to be able to tell one of your friends and constituents, have I got a surprise for you. I got on the floor of the House and I said, If you make $329,000 a year, net, and you have four kids, I was thinking about you. I was thinking about you on Memorial Day. I was thinking about you when they were looking for more troops to send to Iraq. I was thinking about you and wondering how could I get you to be patriotic enough to know that you can make a sacrifice? But how did it turn out? I am giving you $4,000 to let you know that as Republicans, we care.
You may get some Democrats to support you because they do not want to be against any child credit. But if they only knew how much their children and their grandchildren would be paying for this credit in a nonpolitical year, we would not be doing it, and no responsible Republican would be doing something like this.
This is election year politicking so you can say you voted for the child credit. Your credibility is so shot on the Republican side, they will not believe it anyway. But having said that, God forbid if they should ask one of your candidates, ``and how do you intend to pay for it?'' And paying for it is just not on the Republican agenda. Borrowing is.
So I hope that people will see their way clear to do not just the right thing by working Americans, to give them a break, especially those that have kids, but do the right thing for the country. Do the right thing for the future. Do the right thing for our kids.
How selfish it is for us to be spending everything, reducing taxes, and knowing one day someone may ask us, granddad, what were you doing when they increased the taxes on me so much? Were you one of those people in the Congress that was a part of this?
I, for one, would be able to say ``no.'' I stood up against them. They have had
the majority temporarily, but, God willing, all of this will change and we can get back to some norm. It is nothing I am looking forward to, being in the majority, because we will have the responsibility to be responsible, and when we give tax breaks and social services and education and homes and make Social Security secure and come up with a decent prescription drug bill, we would say, ``And we have to find the money to pay for it.''
That is the only difference between Republicans and Democrats: We pay for what we want to do.
Mr. Speaker, this substitute, for those who are listening, gives an opportunity for people to do the right thing for working families that deserve some type of tax break for their young kids, that deserve a deduction. Again, the basic difference is do we want to burden the children of the future with the price that we pay for this. We say no.
Can we not think about doing things and providing this type of relief and paying for it? There has to be in this Tax Code that weighs 25 pounds some loopholes that my colleagues can find for the wealthy that you are prepared to say, this is a time of war, this is a time of sacrifice, we just cannot take care of everybody at the same time. Let us start off with those people that work every day. Those families, the kids from the families that are working, that are volunteering, that are in the National Guard, that are in the Reserve, these are the families that really need the help.
When we start getting up there to $300,000 a year, these are not the families from the communities that produce our warriors. It is not me that says that; it is the DOD that says it. The statistics say it. The low- and the middle class are the warriors that are fighting in Iraq. These are the families that deserve the support.
We welcome the fact that our colleagues saw their way clear to make adjustments so that combat pay would not exclude these families from some type of relief. But every time you bring a tax bill, do not drive us deeper and deeper in debt. We support the concept; we just support a better economic basis for the future.
It is so selfish for us to do what we want to do politically this year and leave the burden on the generations thereafter that follow us. As Americans, as Members of Congress, the things that we have to do in terms of national security are not always just guns and planes and the military. It is a sound economic policy so that the future of our great country will not be left in the hands of foreign investors, but in the hands of economists that work with us as Members of Congress to do the responsible thing.
So the reason that we have this substitute is so that we do not deviate from the good intentions of some of our Republican friends, but that we do have a sound economic policy.
Now, my colleagues can talk all they want about the Alternative Minimum Tax. We are not going to attack you on that. You do not have the courage to stand up and talk about the $800 billion it would take to fix it. You are not going to fix it. We tried to give temporary relief. This is designed to create some type of relief for those in the higher income that we say must pay some type of tax. But what you have done is driven the tax burden on these middle-income people, and we tried to give relief.
Let us try not to avoid the fiscal irresponsibility on this bill. Do not talk about the Alternative Minimum Tax. We beg you to bring a bill out to talk about that. Talk about this bill and who gets the relief. And I hope some of the people on the other side of the aisle might say, what does this do to the deficit. Let that be the key question: What is the difference between the bills: Which one is paid for, which one is not paid for, which drives us into the deficit and which one says that we break even because we have closed up loopholes?
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) for the opportunity to speak and the way he has managed this bill today. It causes us in the House and on the Committee on Ways and Means to wish we could do some of these debates in committee rather than wait for the Committee on Rules to give us a bill that we have to debate on the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished majority leader for the purposes of informing us of the schedule for the week to come. On the last issue, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act to…
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished majority leader for the purposes of informing us of the schedule for the week to come.
On the last issue, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act to which the gentleman referred, and he indicates that it will expand the number of families eligible for the credit, we had discussed this last week. Am I correct in presuming that that means that those under $26,000 will be covered as well as those over $26,000. As was the case with the Senate amendment that came over to the House?
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if it does we will be pleased, and I presume the Senate would be ready to approve that, assuming that it is paid for.
Under the procedures of these bills, in terms of the OSHA legislation and the paperwork reduction, can the gentleman tell us under what procedures they will be considered, and will substitute amendments be allowed?
I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
I am sorry. Declined or inclined?
I thank the gentleman. I was not quite sure whether it was an ``in'' or a ``de.''
The articulation I missed. That was the problem.
With respect to the budget, do we expect to see a budget next week? It is not on the list, and I know we have been waiting with bated breath for many weeks now for the budget, as has the leader. Can the leader comment on the status of the budget?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information. Clearly, all of us know that the pay-as-you-go provision has been apparently the stumbling block in the reaching of an agreement between the two Houses. There was, as I understand it, our expectation was that there would be a freestanding bill coming to the floor on the pay-go issue. Can the leader tell us whether that is still contemplated or whether we might see that at any time in the near future?
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.
If one assumes that perhaps we do not adopt a budget resolution, would it still be the intent of the majority to bring forth an enforcement bill, the one that has been considered in committee, or is it a condition for that bill coming to the floor that the budget pass?
I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information. I share his view on that issue that whether or not we have a budget or not, the enforcement bill ought to come to the floor.
Can I ask him another question about that particular bill? Would the gentleman know or be inclined to assure us that we would have an alternative? As he knows, the dispute on the pay-as-you-go is whether it affects taxes as well as spending. We believe that is a very substantive issue that ought to be considered and voted upon by all the Members. Would the majority leader be inclined to ensure that that alternative will be in order for us to offer at the time, if it is not included in the bill that is reported out of committee, at the time it is considered on the floor?
Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader for that representation.
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, we passed some weeks ago the transportation reauthorization bill. I think both sides feel that is a critical piece of legislation. We have noted that there seems to be some disagreement between the White House and the House and the Senate on this piece of legislation, but we are very concerned that it has not moved forward. We believe that this is, as the gentleman knows, the single most important piece of jobs legislation that we have under consideration by this Congress. And I am wondering if he can give us some thought as to when that bill may come to the floor and under what form it will come to the floor. We would very much like to see it on the floor, and we think, frankly, that given the votes on the bill as it passed the House, with well over 300 voting for it and with a very substantial vote in the other body, that clearly we have the votes to pass a bill, whether it is at 275, 318, or, frankly, the gentleman from Alaska's (Mr. Young) 375.
But I would like to have some information because we think this is, and I know the gentleman does as well, a very critical piece of legislation which is now 6 months, 7 months, 8 months, I guess, past the date that we hoped to pass it on and we are in 60-day extensions, which we have a very distinguished Governor on the floor. I do not know whether I am in order by saying this, but I am going to say it anyway. I want to acknowledge the presence of our former colleague, Governor Ehrlich, on the floor, but I know he is very concerned about it because he and I have worked on a lot of transportation issues in our State, and I am sure that as soon as we finish the colloquy, he would like to talk to the gentleman about this bill.
I yield to the gentleman on his response to where the bill is.
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the leader's observation. It is my understanding that the Senate, certainly on the minority side, will agree to go to conference as soon as we are given a number as to what we are going to conference. My understanding is, however, that the gentleman's side of the aisle cannot agree with the White House on what that number ought to be. So in fairness, there seems to be a disagreement on the number that the President will sign, and, I think accurately, that is the reason for the hold-up because I think, frankly, the Senate could agree to the 318 and I would hope we can agree to the 318. I would be for a higher number personally, but I would hope that we could agree to that. The problem is, I understand, the executive does not.
But I would suggest to the leader, with all due respect, that this body can and should act independently and send the legislation that it deems to be appropriate and if the executive disagrees, he has the option of vetoing that bill and sending it back to the House. As one of the Senators on the gentleman's side of the aisle observed, that is the way the process is supposed to work. And I would think, because we share the view that this is very important, we believe it is a jobs bill, that we could pass a bill relatively easily with overwhelming votes and certainly votes significant enough to show the President that at least two-thirds of the Members of this body and the other body believe it is an appropriate bill to pass forthwith.
Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, quoting the majority leader of last week, I do not see it that way. Clearly, as the gentleman has just pointed out, there is not agreement. I think we could get agreement if we could allow the minority to have some
sense that they knew the parameters of where we were going, and I think that is all the minority is asking for. I think that is a fair request. But in any event, I think we ought to move this bill, and the gentleman's side is in charge and we would hope that would happen.
Reclaiming my time, I want the leader to know how happy I am to hear that that is the purpose of conferences and that nobody would want to reach outside deals outside of the configuration of a conference. He will recall, I think, we had months of discussion about the prescription drug conference to which no Democrats on this side were invited. That is the concern. Mr. Daschle was not invited. Mr. Reid was not invited. Other Members were not invited. There were a couple of people who participated. But that is our concern. We could go back and forth.
Reclaiming my time just for a minute for accuracy's sake, all of them wanted a Medicare prescription bill. They wanted a different kind of bill. That is what he says conference is trying to iron out. That is my point. I think he makes it.
As was yours almost, as I recall.
The hope is that we will, in fact, move this piece of legislation and that there will be a bipartisan attempt made to move this legislation which is critical to our country, and a bipartisan agreement would be reached, as the leader points out, with the minority, giving them confidence that they will play a full role in the conference. I am hopeful that that happens.
I thank the gentleman for his observations.
Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 644 and ask for its immediate consideration. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes…
Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 644 and ask for its immediate consideration.
Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 644 provides for 1 hour of debate in the House equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means.
It also provides for consideration of the amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in the Committee on Rules report accompanying the resolution, if offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) or his designee, which shall be considered as read and shall be separately debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent.
Finally, the resolution waives all points of order against the amendment printed in the report and provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
Mr. Speaker, in 2001, Congress passed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, which put $1 trillion back into the pockets of the American people and led to the strong economic recovery we are witnessing today. Without that package, the beating that our economy took as a result of September 11 would have been even more disastrous.
This relief plan expanded the child tax credit initially enacted as part of the Tax Relief Act of 1997, increasing it from $400 to $1,000 over 10 years. The jobs and growth package of 2003 accelerated the credit to $1,000 in 2003 and 2004.
Today's bill, sponsored by my friend, the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter), addresses the $1,000 tax credit, which is set to snap back to $700 in 2005 if we do not act today. In addition, the bill makes the child tax credit permanent and raises the eligibility limits on those who can claim the credit to include more middle-income parents.
Finally, the bill accelerates the refundability of the child tax credit this year to make it available to more of the Americans who need it, low-income families.
Mr. Speaker, tax relief stimulates economic growth. In 1997, unemployment was at 4.9 percent, and the Republican-led Congress passed the Balanced Budget Act. Unemployment fell to 4.5 percent in 1998, 4.2 percent in 1999, and a rock bottom 4 percent in the year 2000.
In 2001, we passed the Taxpayer Relief Act, putting nearly $1 trillion back into the hands of American families. And given the economic history I will continue with shortly, I am convinced that we would have seen unemployment rates fall even farther. But then September 11 hit, one of the most tragic days in American history. A horrendous loss of life through a murderous act of terrorism; an act that cost our economy trillions.
Unemployment jumped to 5.8 percent in 2002 as millions of Americans lost jobs connected to tourism, services, construction, and the list goes on and on and on. But we knew what to do. We knew how to respond. We knew that simply increasing spending would not lead to long-term viability and sustained recovery. Instead, we had to find a way to put money into the hands of consumers and businesses so they could make smart economic decisions that would begin to rebuild our economy.
So we enacted tax relief. We passed the Jobs and Growth Act to spur spending by American businesses. And after unemployment hit 6 percent in 2003, we saw the positive effects of these cumulative tax cuts begin to take effect. Beginning last November, unemployment steadily began to decrease. So we passed more tax cuts to speed up the process. And you know what happened? Unemployment continued to fall, all the way to 5.6 percent.
Now, some people say that is not good enough. During the so-called tech boom, unemployment was as low as 4 percent. Well, you know what? I agree with them, we must do better. We should always strive to do better. One person unemployed is one too many. And today's bill will do exactly that. It will put $200 billion directly into the hands of American families, families who also happen to be consumers. And every dollar they spend, whether on a package of diapers, a tank of gas, or a car payment, they will be supporting America's jobs.
At the end of the day, that is what this debate is all about, American jobs. It is all about the cumulative effect of a Republican revolution that started in 1994 and led to strong and steady growth in spite of the horrors of September 11.
Beginning 3 weeks ago, we continued our commitment to strengthening the economy by preventing job-destroying tax hikes, passing permanent extensions of the new 10 percent tax bracket, wiping out the punitive marriage penalty, and relieving many families of the burdensome and unfair Alternative Minimum Tax.
Now we have before us the Child Tax Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004. Once again, this bill will make permanent the $1,000 child tax credit, preventing an unfair and unreasonable tax increase of $600 on 30 million taxpayers with 49 million children. After 2010, this bill will prevent a tax hike of $1,100 on 34 million taxpayers with 59 million children.
Finally, the bill helps our soldiers serving in combat by allowing nontaxable combat pay to be taken into account when calculating the refundable portion of the child tax credit. Currently, such pay is excluded from the calculation when calculating eligibility for the credit, thereby depriving thousands of our soldiers of a portion of the credit.
When we accelerated the child tax credit in 2003, 25 million families received checks totaling $14 billion. That is right, $14 billion was given back to consumers to pump into the economy. Imagine what a typical family can do with that kind of money, and $400 is what each typical family would get, a family with one child.
This bill is an opportunity for parents to spend money on their children, whether it is for a vacation, for an education, for diapers, for groceries, for a swingset. Whatever they want, they will have the money, and they can make the decisions. And it will also make our workforce more competitive because we will have that many more jobs.
Mr. Speaker, do we support tax relief for families, tax relief that will enable us to save for our children's education, finance a new house, pay for other activities that will continue to strengthen the economy? I do. I think the answer is a clear yes.
A ``yes'' vote on this rule and the underlying bill is a vote in favor of American families and a vote to spur more economic growth, so I urge a ``yes'' vote on this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), my good friend from the Committee on Rules.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito), a champion of this cause.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson).
Show 8 more
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make all the Members aware that the House has completed voting for the day and the week. Regarding…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to make all the Members aware that the House has completed voting for the day and the week.
Regarding next week's schedule, the House will convene on Monday at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures under suspension of the rules. A final list of those bills will be sent to Members' offices by the end of this week. Any votes called on these measures will be rolled until 6:30 p.m.
For Tuesday and the balance of the week, we may consider additional legislation under suspension of the rules. We also plan to consider several bills that would amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970: H.R. 2728, the Small Business Day in Court Act; H.R. 2729, the Review Commission Efficiency Act; H.R. 2730, the Independent Review of OSHA Citations Act; and H.R. 2731, the Small Employer Access to Justice Act. In addition, we expect to consider H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act; and H.R. 4200, the National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2005.
Finally, I would like to make all Members aware that we plan to consider H.R. 4359, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act, which would make the full $1,000 per child credit permanent and expand the number of families eligible for the credit.
I will be happy to answer any questions the gentleman may have.
I really hesitate to comment on what the content of the bill will be as we bring it to the floor next week. My understanding, as I have been advised, is the child tax credit that was to be given in 2006 will be accelerated to 2005, so that should cover the gentleman's concerns.
Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding.
The chairman of the Committee on Rules has just made announcements for the four OSHA bills, the regulatory accounting bill, and I believe the DOD authorization bill. So on these I believe the Committee on Rules is inclined to make multiple amendments in order for those bills.
Inclined.
Mr. Speaker, will the House be in order? The gentleman cannot hear.
Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman has been waiting with bated breath, and I know he checks every day to see the status of the budget, and I appreciate his concern for getting this budget to the floor. I wish I had more news than I did last week. There continues to be discussions between the two bodies, and I hope and expect to have a conference report ready for the House to consider sometime next week.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. Yes, we do have a bill that was marked up in the Committee on the Budget that we are looking forward to considering in
the near future. There has been a lot of discussion about that bill. The process by which we would consider it has been widely discussed. However, I believe that the chairman of the Committee on the Budget would prefer to wait until the budget resolution conference report has been completed and passed before we consider that bill. So it is very difficult for me to give the gentleman any sort of time frame, but as soon as the budget is passed, I think we can anticipate within a matter of weeks the Budget Enforcement Act coming to the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I just speak for this gentleman that I would like to see a Budget Enforcement Act come to this floor. I think it is vitally needed for fiscal discipline in this Congress, and I would anticipate, whether the budget passes or not, that we would see a budget enforcement bill come to the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding to me.
I think it is way too early in the process on this particular bill to be talking about even process or amendments or substitutes or even trying to speculate what the Committee on Rules would do. We do not even know what form the bill would come out of the Committee on Rules at this particular time. There is a lot of work that is being done on the bill. But I can assure the gentleman that we would give his side of the aisle every consideration for amendments and/or substitutes to this very important bill.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding to me. And I am looking forward to talking to the Governor of Maryland, a former very distinguished member of this body, Bob Ehrlich. He is a very close friend of ours, and we are very glad to see him, but he also knows the rules of the House, that one cannot lobby on the floor House, because he served here.
As to the highway bill, the gentleman is very correct. This is a very important jobs bill. It is very important to all of us here in the House. It is very important to us because it is not just the most important jobs piece of legislation, it is a vital part of our economic agenda, along with tax relief and our 21st century careers initiative and competitiveness packages and all the other things that we are trying to do, energy bills. So we really want to see this bill, and we want to see it enacted into law. We are having a little trouble with the other body. The other body has repeatedly asked to go to conference. Unfortunately, there is a group over there that will not let them go to conference, and we are having a difficult time in the other body going to conference. We can always go to conference here, but we would like to see the Senate go to conference first so that we can get the process moving.
His understanding may be a little late because as of almost over a week now, both the Republicans in the House and the Republicans in the Senate have given up trying to come up with a number agreed to by the President and have decided to go to conference. The minority on the Senate side has been informed of that fact. We are ready to go to conference to work out whatever the number may be within conference, to work out all the other disagreements between the two bodies, and they are ready to go to conference. I do not want to speak for the other body, but it is the minority that is refusing to allow the majority over there to go to conference.
If the gentleman would yield, we can move this bill and move to conference as quickly as we want to. Unfortunately, in the other body, the minority wants certain concessions before they even go to conference. The reason for conference is everybody getting in a room between the two bodies and work out their differences, not make side deals or those kinds of deals outside the conference before they allow their body to go to conference. So when the minority decides to go to conference over in the Senate, we will go to conference and we will have a highway bill.
Mr. Speaker, on that point I would just say this is a different issue. Both Democrats and Republicans want this highway bill, and in the case of the Medicare bill that the gentleman describes, the names that he listed, none of those names wanted the Medicare bill.
They wanted a bill that was impossible to pass, and there was no use in wasting our time.
Ours passed.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to respond to the gentleman from California, if I may. I very rarely agree with anything he says. I do agree with one thing he…
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to respond to the gentleman from California, if I may. I very rarely agree with anything he says.
I do agree with one thing he said and that is, the American people are not stupid. I would just like to say to him that the American people can add and they can subtract. The unpaid-for tax cuts, many of them for the wealthiest people of this country, that his party has championed during this last month have added $1.2 trillion to the Federal debt that is already nearly $7.2 trillion. That is an addition of $4,000 to each American's share of the Federal debt. Each citizen's share of the debt would be now, with all these tax cuts that they have passed that are not paid for, $28,479.
Most of us on this side of the aisle have absolutely no problem with the marriage penalty tax relief provisions and most of the child tax credits that are being discussed here today. What we do have a problem with is passing the bill on to our kids and our grandkids. That is fiscally irresponsible.
They should listen to one of the great leaders of their own party, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who said that the Republican Party used to be the party of fiscal responsibility. It used to be the party that would want to pay as you go. That is no longer the case. This is the most fiscally irresponsible Congress in the history of our country.
And so to the gentleman who spoke earlier, I would say my problem is not so much that we should not provide tax relief to middle-income families; my problem is that you are not paying for it and you are passing the bill on to my kids and my grandkids, and that is not right.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
announcement by the speaker pro tempore
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to answer the gentleman's question. He asked, what did we give the American people when the Democrats had the White House and the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. We gave the American people one of the largest surpluses in the history of this country.
What have they given the American people now that they control the White House, House and the Senate? They have given the American people the largest deficit in the history of this country.
There is a clear difference.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I just would remind the gentleman again that yesterday he and a majority, almost every single member of the Republican Party, voted for a budget to increase the national debt to over $8 trillion. That is not something I think anyone can be proud of.
Mr. Speaker, I include for printing in the Congressional Record an editorial that appeared in the Washington Post, entitled ``Leave No Rich Child Behind'' that refers to the bill we are talking about here today.
[From the Washington Post, May 19, 2004]
Leave No Rich Child Behind
The House Representatives plans to take up a bill this week
that would provide new tax breaks to families earning as much
as $309,000, while doing next to nothing for those at the low
end of the income scale. The bill, which could come up as
early as today, is the most egregious part of a House tax-
cutting spree that altogether would add more than $500
billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to
estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax
Policy Center.
The House would not only make permanent the $1,000-per-
child tax credit enacted as part of the 2001 tax cut but
would dramatically increase the income limits for
eligibility. Currently, married families with incomes of up
to $110,000 receive the full credit; the bill would more than
double the income ceiling, to $250,000. Under existing law,
families with two children and incomes up to $149,000 receive
a partial tax credit; the bill would make that partial credit
available to families with two children and income of between
$250,000 and $289,000; families with three children would be
entitled to the partial credit up to an income of $309,000.
This is unnecessary, misguided and irresponsible. Families
at that income level have already enjoyed significant
benefits from the recent tax cuts; they don't need an extra
subsidy to help support their children. While tax cut
proponents argue that lowering marginal tax rates or cutting
dividend and capital gains taxes helps promote economic
growth, there is no such claim to be made for the child tax
credit. And the increase in the income ceiling would cost $69
billion through 2014, $87 billion if you count increased
interest payments on the extra debt.
House Republicans have the gall to propose all this--and
many House Democrats don't seem to have the spine to oppose
it--while providing almost no extra help for the poorest
families. Currently, low-income families who earn more than
$10,750 are eligible for a small refundable tax credit.
(These are families that pay payroll taxes but don't earn
enough to be subject to paying income taxes, so they get a
check back from the government.) For example, a married
family with two children and an income of $12,000 gets $125
per child. The House bill would speed up by one year a
planned increase in the size of this credit, giving low-
income families a one-time average benefit of $150 per child.
This remedies--belatedly--last year's mean-spirited omission
of these families from the accelerated increase in the child
tax credit enjoyed by higher-income taxpayers. The cost of
this meager improvement: $1.8 billion.
For families earning less than $10,750, however, the House
bill would do nothing. Thus, a family with a parent working
full-time at the minimum wage ($10,300) would get no benefit
from the bill. A better-off but still low-income family with
two children would get a one-time $300 average tax break
($150 per child). By contrast, two-child families with
earnings between $150,000 and $250,000 get $22,000 in extra
tax breaks over the next 10 years ($1,000 per child per
year). This is bad social policy, bad tax policy, and bad
fiscal policy. You'd think they'd be embarrassed, but they're
not.
Let me close, Mr. Speaker, by saying I hope that my colleagues will look seriously at the Rangel substitute. We provide a child tax credit, but we pay for it. I think that is the fiscally responsible thing to do.
We are now experiencing record deficits. We are going into debt. We are passing on to our kids an incredible bill. We need to be more responsible in this House. I would urge my colleagues to support the Democratic substitute.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I assume there is some relevancy to this particular debate on this particular measure offered by the gentleman from Washington. But I think we really ought to put this entire debate in…
Mr. Speaker, I assume there is some relevancy to this particular debate on this particular measure offered by the gentleman from Washington.
But I think we really ought to put this entire debate in perspective. In 1993, with a Democrat President and a Democratically controlled Congress, the largest tax increase in the history of the United States was put in place. There was an opportunity at that time to make adjustments on the Alternative Minimum Tax which would not place us in the position that we are in today. That measure passed this House with all Democratic votes and no Republican votes. That was in the first full year of President Clinton's presidency.
The next year was an off-year election for the House of Representatives and one-third of the United States Senate. The American people, for the first time in 40 years, decided that empty promises and failure to deliver and continuing to assume that by requiring Americans to send a dollar to Washington with bureaucratic waste, fraud and abuse subtracted and the 86 cents, the 82 cents, the 76 cents that was sent back to them on programs that they promised to help them was a failed policy. That produced the first Congress of a Republican majority in 40 years.
Ten years later, Republicans are still in the majority. I do not see any better example of the fundamental choices in which the American people chose our way of dealing with issues versus theirs.
Somehow requiring people to pay taxes when they have children at home, for which the amount we are debating does not even offset inflation over the last decade, of increasing the child deduction, somehow allowing them to keep $1,000 per child so that perhaps a school choice would be different, perhaps an educational or enlightenment trip would be different, so that that child in terms of the $20,000 that is going to be available to someone, have you checked college tuition nowadays? The concept of putting money away for future education can be assisted by this $1,000.
And the real problem to my friends on the other side is to see a dollar of tax revenue lost because they did not get it, they did not get their fingers on it, and they did not create a program in the hopes that someone would vote for them because they were going to give them the money.
What I see is an opportunity for a family to allow that child to be enriched over their lifetime, that, in, fact they do go to college. Anybody knows, and graphs show today, a college education is worth about $4 million over the earning life of that individual. And do you know what you do when you make that much money? You surely know listening to their arguments, because if people make a little bit of money, they pay a lot of taxes.
One of the things Republicans have done in this Tax Code is to drop more people off the tax rolls than they have ever done in the history of the time that they have controlled the House of Representatives.
Now, there is a problem when people do not pay income taxes, because they do not get the benefits of the structure of the income tax, for example, the child tax credit. So they then come to the well and say people who do not pay income taxes should get the benefits, notwithstanding the fact they do not pay income taxes, of the people who pay income taxes. That is an unfair system.
And all we are saying is let us give the American family a little security and assurance. What we do in our proposal is make it $1,000 and make it permanent. What they do is dangle out the opportunity that there may be $1,000. If someone in the executive branch certifies that what this constitutionally independent body can do is okay to do, they turn over fundamental legislative decisions to the executive branch. Does the executive branch certify that we can do it? Yes or no?
That is how desperate these people are, to come up with an angle which allows them to say this is what we are going to offer, with the ability, in fact, to jerk it away and never allow the American family to get the $1,000 child tax credit.
So the choice is pretty simple. Certainty, appropriateness, and the investment where we think that investment does the most good, to the family for them to decide. That is the proposal before us.
The substitute says let us promise something that is not guaranteed, that someone in an entirely different constitutional structure will tell you whether or not you can do it. I think that is why finally in 1994 the American people said we have had enough, we want to go a different way.
And to my friend from Texas talking about a balanced budget under the Clinton administration, to make sure history is accurate, 6 of those 8 years Republicans were in the majority in the House and the Senate. That is how we came out of the deficit. Everybody knows the world's circumstances that we were in. We will get out of the deficit again how? By not hoping that keeping taxpayers poor and government rich will solve the problem, but by making sure that we invest in the future in the American way, let those people spend their own money in ways they think bring the best return. And guess what, jobs are created, productivity is up, more taxes come in, i.e., we have revenue coming in.
The real question of whether or not we are able to grow out of this deficit is whether or not we control spending. Not giving people their own money back to spend, that is not the problem. It is new programs, larger programs, spending, that is the greatest concern.
A pretty fundamental battle here today. Invest in individuals that made America great, provide more fodder for government spending so that these folks can say I gave them something. We want the mother and father to tell the child they gave them something, not the government.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to have breakfast with a young man from Nevada this week. He held up his hand and he said, ``I have a…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to have breakfast with a young man from Nevada this week. He held up his hand and he said, ``I have a baby that was born 2 months premature, and I can hold that baby in my hand just like this.'' And as we talked about his child, who now is well and thriving and feeling wonderful, we talked about the tax credit. This was at breakfast just across the street. He was amazed and appalled and shocked that he would be seeing a $300 tax increase next year because he has a child.
Mr. Speaker, there are 47 million kids across the country not unlike my friend's little baby that he held in his hand a few months ago, 500,000 foster kids, 370,000 children in Nevada alone, who stand to have a tax increase next year if we do not take action today.
Nevada is one of the fastest growing States in the country, close to 5 or 6,000 new residents a month moving into our community. We need 2\1/2\ new schools a month because we have about 20,000 new children that could benefit from this tax credit.
We know that the economy is turning around; and because of the strength of the economy, because of the tax credits that we have given in this Congress, right now nationwide there are 1.1 million new jobs since 2003. Unemployment is down to 5.6 percent across the country. Nevada's unemployment rate is 4.4 percent. It is working. Personal income is up. Homeownership is the highest it has ever been, and this is because of these tax credits; and it is because families, working families, have an opportunity to reinvest in their community.
I have been in office a short time as a Member of Congress, but I served in the Nevada legislature as many of the Members have served in legislature, and I will be honest with them, I am perplexed. One of the criticisms I am hearing about this bill to help families is that we have raised the threshold. I am perplexed because I know that politics is the art of bringing groups together and building bridges. The $250,000 threshold was a Democrat proposal just 10 days ago.
I am perplexed that all of a sudden it has become a criticism. We have crossed the aisle and are using their proposal. I encourage the $250,000, and I thank the Democrats for their proposal. Families need permanence in the language.
We also support the Democrat's proposal in helping those families that need help the most by increasing the refundability to 15 percent. I thank my colleagues from across the aisle.
Criticism number three was about not helping military families. Again, I thank my colleagues across the aisle for their language and support of those folks with the combat pay.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having this opportunity to ask our colleagues to support this bill. The economy is getting stronger, men and women are getting back to work, hard-working families are receiving these credits so they can choose what to do with the funds and not the Federal Government.
We have reinvigorated the entrepreneurial spirit across the country. We need to continue with these tax credits, so hard-working families can reinvest the money and take care of their families.
Mr. Speaker, we have talked at length about where the threshold should be. Just a few days ago, May 5, 2004, my colleague from California voted in favor of an amendment that said that we will eliminate all liability for individual minimum tax for taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes at less than $250,000 and above those levels we phase in over $40,000.
It seems to me very hypocritical that just a few days ago our colleagues from across the aisle felt that $290,000 should establish the threshold. And if I can read again from that amendment, it said, in general, the Alternative Minimum Tax to the taxpayer shall be zero, zero, if the adjusted gross income of the taxpayer, as determined by this bill, is $290,000.
Mr. Speaker, it seems hypocritical we can use numbers, play with numbers. The important thing is to get people back to work and get people to be able to invest their own hard-earned tax dollars. The economy is improving because of the policy of returning to families their hard-earned dollars.
I again would urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment and support the original bill as proposed.
Mr. Speaker, while we are speaking of those children who need help the most, I would like to talk about those children without parents, those foster kids that are impacted by the bill. The substitute, as proposed, will be a tax increase on kids who depend upon the kindness of strangers. The amendment, as written, will be a tax increase on those children. It will punish children who do not have parents.
I suggest to my colleagues that we reject this amendment, that we speak for those kids who need help the most, those without parents, and reject this amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to just take a moment and say thank you to the staff for their hard work on the bill as originally written. I appreciate their efforts and time.
Mr. Speaker, how many times have we heard tax breaks for the rich in this body? Maybe their liberal Democratic base can believe it, but the American people are not stupid. They said the marriage…
Mr. Speaker, how many times have we heard tax breaks for the rich in this body? Maybe their liberal Democratic base can believe it, but the American people are not stupid.
They said the marriage penalty was a tax break for the rich. There should be a reward for people that get married, not a disincentive. Yet my colleagues said, oh, it's a tax break for the rich.
Tax breaks for the family and the children, that is for the rich. Most Americans have children in this community and those that do not, adopt, like myself; and it is not just a tax break for the rich. But any tax relief for a working family, to my liberal colleagues on the other side, is a tax break for the rich. The American people are not stupid, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I invite Members to look up www.dsausa.org. This is their Web page. It stands for Democrat Socialists of America, DSA. Look what their 12-point agenda is. They talk about how they work with and they laud the Progressive Caucus, 58 Members of the House in the Progressive Caucus along with the Democrat Socialists of America. Their own Web page lists 12 points.
They want government control of health care; they sure tried to do that. They want government control of education; they have sure tried to do that. They want unions over small business. That is where they get their campaign money. They have sure done that.
They want the highest taxes possible. That is why any tax relief is for the rich only, because they want the justification to raise yours and my taxes, any working family.
And they want to cut defense by 50 percent; they have sure tried that.
Mr. Speaker, a man once called Abraham Lincoln two-faced. He said, do you think if I had two faces I would use this one. My colleagues on the other side say it is only tax breaks for the rich, but they have never seen a tax increase that they do not like. Also, if you look at the 13 appropriations committees, and I serve on the Committee on Appropriations, there is not a single one except for Defense that they do not want to increase, and increase the debt.
We just had a budget that limits spending. Most of my colleagues on that side of the aisle voted against it because they want to increase spending. They want to increase the debt. Yet they say, oh, don't vote for a tax break for the rich because it gives money to working families for children.
Yes, Abraham Lincoln was right. There are two faces on some people.
Mr. Speaker, I am reminded, my colleague on the other side talked about middle income. I listened to the gentleman from Missouri that ran for President over and over and over again in the 1990s, 1991, 1992, 1993, talk about the middle class.
First of all, we should never use that term. There is no such thing as a middle class in this country. There are middle income, there is low income. But they play the race card, they play the social card every chance they get. Time after time they said, oh, we want tax relief for the middle income.
In 1993, when they had the White House, the House and the Senate, what did they do? They raised the highest tax on the middle income in the history of this country. They increased the tax on Social Security. They took every dime out of the Social Security trust fund. They cut the veterans' COLAs, the military COLAs. They gave us the highest gas tax possible. And they increased the tax on the middle income.
When we took the majority in 1994, we reversed those and they said, oh, look, the economy. After we reversed that tax, not a single Democrat economic structure or tax passed in this House or the other body and they said, ``Well, look. Look at the fine economy we had under President Clinton.''
Not one of President Clinton's measures ever passed in this House or was signed. So if that is the case, if we reversed that and none of their policies went forward since we have had the majority, then how can they be responsible for the good economy?
But, no, they will use every chance they can to say we want middle- class tax cuts, middle-class tax cuts. But when it comes time to do it, they will increase it every time because it increases their power to spend on big government.
Mr. Speaker, that is the whole idea. When the gentleman claims that they gave a surplus, we took away their Social Security tax increase. We restored veterans' pay. We restored military pay. We put their gas tax into a highway trust fund so we could build more. We took away the middle-class tax and we had our budgets to balance the budget. We had 9/11 and it has gone up, but their policies did not create that surplus. We did away with that tax and it was our policies that increased it, not decreased it.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government's financial house is in disarray. In 2001, the Federal Government had historic surpluses in the trillions of dollars. In 2004, those surpluses are gone, replaced by huge deficits.
Last night, by a very small margin, the House of Representatives passed a budget with a deficit of $367 billion. Let me repeat that: a deficit of $367 billion. The hole we are in keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
Today, we are considering a measure to make permanent child tax credits. The question is not whether hard-working parents should have tax credits for each of their children. We all agree that they should. The question is whether we are going to do it in a responsible way. Are we going to target tax relief to the middle-class families who need it most, or are we going to give yet another tax break to people who do not need it? Are we going to add to the mounting Federal debt, or are we going to do the right thing and pay for these tax breaks?
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, once again the Republicans have chosen to extend tax cuts for the wealthy without paying for them.
As the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) pointed out earlier today, the Republican leadership is giving tax breaks to Members of Congress on the same day that they are freezing education funding for military children and freezing the most important military housing improvement program in American history. It is outrageous. The priorities are all messed up.
The Republican scheme would charge the entire $228 billion cost to the country's maxed-out credit card to be paid for by the very children the Republicans claim they want to help. By contrast, the Democratic alternative pays for the entire cost of the child tax credits and is targeted to the people who need it most.
Mr. Speaker, more should be done to help the children and families who are struggling to get by. H.R. 4359 does not focus the help where it is needed most. The lowest-income families, earning less than $10,750, are not helped by this bill at all. In fact, about 70 percent of the tax credits in this bill go to tax filers in the top 20 percent of income earners.
This means that a family with a parent working full time for minimum wage, and that is $10,300 a year, would get absolutely nothing from this bill. But two-child families earning up to $250,000 would get an extra $20,000 in tax breaks over the next 10 years.
Advocates for children and fiscal responsibility alike have expressed their outrage that H.R. 4359 gives the majority of the benefit to wealthier families and adds $228 billion to the national debt that children will have to pay for. The Washington Post called this bill ``bad social policy, bad tax policy and bad fiscal policy.''
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the Republican bill and support the Rangel substitute so working families get the help they need and so their children will not be the ones stuck with the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the previous speaker that we do not have any problem, in fact we support and we have been a champion of the child tax credit. What we have a problem with is the fact that they do not want to pay for it. What we have a problem with is the other side of the aisle is adding $228 billion to the debt that is being passed on to our kids.
Mr. Speaker, how does the other side go home and say I am helping children and families of our country when essentially they are just adding to the national debt? That is irresponsible. This is the most fiscally irresponsible Congress, this is the most fiscally irresponsible President in the history of our country. It is great to get up and
talk about tax relief, it is great to get up and do all of these wonderful press releases, but when it is not paid for, it is just added to the debt. That is wrong.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. To be sure we are clear, this is a bill to make the child tax credit permanent, to extend it to include families that were not part of the…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
To be sure we are clear, this is a bill to make the child tax credit permanent, to extend it to include families that were not part of the legislation before, those families that are high-income earners.
The other part of this that we have to talk about is the fact that it is $22 billion worth of costs without paying for it.
The first part everyone will agree on. Child tax credit, let us go with it. Second part, increase it or expand it to include families who are among the highest-income earners in this country, we could debate that, but let us do it fiscally responsibly.
The third part, to not pay for it, is the irresponsible part of this legislation.
If my colleagues want to do something to expand the child tax credit at the same time they are making it permanent in the face of what is today a $400 billion deficit for this country, and in the face of, as we have heard other Members say, a $7.2 trillion debt that this Nation has on which we pay close to a quarter of a trillion dollars a year simply in interest, does nothing to give anyone any additional service or benefit, just paying interest.
If we did not have that $17.2 trillion debt, that is about $24,000 for each man, woman, and child in this country today; and if we did not have in this fiscal year a more than $400 billion deficit that we face, that adds to that national debt, then perhaps you could easily talk about extending this to the high-income earners and not paying for the cost of it. But that is not the case.
Today, what is the world like? We have men and women, over 100,000 of them, that have not seen their children, in some cases, for more than a year. We have a Social Security System where people are today contributing for their retirement, where every single cent of the Social Security surplus is being spent and more. We have a situation where more than a million and a half Americans in the last 3\1/2\ years have lost their jobs. And those Americans who have been lucky enough in the last few months to regain a job, are finding they are earning less today than in the job they held previously.
So, then, you have to ask yourself, is this truly the direction we want our country to take? Is this the one problem we have to tackle today, increasing the child tax credit to include high-income earning families in America at a cost of expanding the size of the national debt?
And that is where folks on this side of the aisle break. Because we would love to be able to go back to our districts and say, you know what, we just extended the child tax credit, we made it permanent so you can always count on it being there. But you cannot in good faith do that to people who have sons and daughters in Iraq or in a war where we have no exit strategy, where we have already spent more than $166 billion, again not saying how we are paying for it, and what we are doing is adding to the debt.
One of our colleagues from Nevada came to the floor and spoke eloquently just a moment ago about how he held a newborn child in his arms, and he talked about how that child tax credit
will now go to that family because of that child. What he did not say, of course, is that while that child is going to help that family receive, perhaps, if they are lucky enough to qualify, a $1,000 child tax credit, that child is born today with a $2,000 additional debt just from the last four bills that have passed this House in the last month that deal with tax cuts: this child tax credit; the marriage penalty relief; the relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax; and the cut on the 10 percent bottom tax bracket.
If you total all those up and extend them for the 10 years, that is over $1 trillion dollars in cost, unpaid for. So you cannot continue doing this and be realistic, be fiscally responsible, be fair; and we go from there. This is not the way to go. Go with the Democratic substitute.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. This has got to be a frustrating debate for the American public, these tax bills. It is a frustrating debate for those of us who were for much…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
This has got to be a frustrating debate for the American public, these tax bills. It is a frustrating debate for those of us who were for much of what is proposed. It is certainly a frustrating debate for future generations.
Mr. Speaker, over the last 4 weeks, our Republican friends have worn their reckless tax cut hearts on their sleeves. That is a pretty harsh phrase. But for those of us who believe we ought to balance America's budget as we ought to balance family budgets, it is nevertheless, I think, accurate.
Republicans have cynically put popular tax legislation on the floor and dared Democrats to oppose it knowing full well that the only reason that many Members on our side of the aisle would cast ``no'' votes against such bills is because they were not paid for, and on the pretense somehow that cutting taxes, cutting revenues, cutting prices, if you will, for what we buy, whether it is defense, education, health care at NIH, CIA agents, FBI investigators, whatever we are buying, you will want to cut the cost and will not pay for it. You want to put it on our national credit card, and you want my kids and your kids and our grandchildren to pay for it.
Very frankly, if this were a Democratic President today making these proposals, there is not a person on your side of the aisle that would not be outraged at the fiscal profligacy, at the fiscal irresponsibility, at the fiscal immorality of the policies that you are pursuing.
I assume you go back to your districts and say, oh, the deficit will take care of itself, just as it did in the 90s. Baloney. What took care of the fiscal deficit in the 90s was a bill that George Bush, the first, had the courage to sign, a bill in 1993 that no Republican voted for in the House or the Senate. And in 1997, in a bipartisan way, we came together and passed a balanced budget amendment for which I voted, and we passed PAYGO, for which most of you voted, which said that PAYGO would apply to spending and to taxes.
You are digging a hole. You are not digging a hole for yourself, though. You are digging a hole for my children, my grandchildren, and all the children and grandchildren in America who are going to have to pay this debt.
I do not get it. I do not get the intellectual disconnect between what you said in the 70s and 80s and 90s and what you are saying today. I do not get it. And you are hoping the American public does not get it either. You are hoping the American public is saying only that I want tax cuts. I want tax cuts. I want tax cuts and to heck with my children.
We are talking about one another. How sad. The deficit is going to be half a trillion dollars this year. When I came to Congress it was $985 billion. Last year we raised the debt limit by $900-plus billion. And yesterday all of you voted, almost all, to increase the debt limit by $670 billion. And how your side of the aisle railed, and the gentlewoman from Connecticut has been here long enough to remember that railing, against increasing the debt. How awful that was and we ought to stand up and vote for it.
And what did you do? You hid it by the Hastert rule in your budget because you did not have the courage to stand up and say, these are the policies that I am going to pursue as a Representative of the Congress of the United States.
Democrats are for fixing the marriage penalty. Democrats are for keeping the 10 percent tax bracket. Democrats are for fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax. Democrats are for making the child tax credits permanent. We are for that, and we are for paying for it so that we do not say we are going to fix it. But generations to come, young people, hear me, young people, you are going to pay for it. That is bad policy. That is bad morality.
Let us pass the Democratic alternative, which seeks to be responsible and honest with America and with generations yet to come.
Show 11 more
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4359. This is about children. It is about families. I think back to when my husband and I raised…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4359. This is about children. It is about families. I think back to when my husband and I raised our children and the tremendous economic pressure on us. I look at that pressure on my children and their husbands and it is enormous. We paid $28,000 for our house. That is not what the kids are out there facing. We paid $2,000 for a car. The kids are having to make payments on houses that are worth more than the cars we bought and the houses we bought.
It is tough to raise a family today. It is very hard to meet the expenses of raising children in a stable, secure environment, saving for their educations and saving for your retirement which is also part of their security. So this is not about digging a hole. This is about setting priorities.
One of my most deeply held priorities is to reshape public policy so that it strengthens families and increases the economic and emotional security of our children. Indeed, one of the things I like about this bill is that it adopts the definition of the middle class that was encompassed in a bill the Democrats offered just 2 weeks ago as part of their effort to shelter more middle-class families from the impact of the Alternative Minimum Tax. I thought that was a good definition. We were impressed by it.
It does expand the definition of the middle class, and this bill reflects that. But you cannot have a tax policy that one year gives a family $1,000 worth of child credit, the next year $700, the next year $500. It is erratic. They have to be able to plan. They have to be able to think through how will we meet the needs of our family.
Making this particular tax credit permanent is important to building a
solid, strong support system under our families. And I rise in strong and proud support of H.R. 4359, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act.
Now, why do I say we are not digging a hole for our children in the budget sense? First of all, I have been here a long time, and I am one of the ones that fought hard to balance the budget in 1997. I was here when we had to dig out of long years of debt. In fact, when we balanced the budget in 1997, it was the first time in 40 years or the first time in 2 generations and we did it right here in this Chamber by disciplined spending. And the result was that as the economy got going, we had a surplus that required us to add just tax policies because we were taking, the estimates were trillions, more out of people's pockets than we needed to fund government services. So we did make changes in tax policy to make the code fairer and more family friendly.
This was one of the most constructive bills, and I am willing to take the responsibility to make this tax credit permanent, and in the future to adjust defense and other spending as we work our way out of Iraq and address priority domestic needs. That is what we did last time. To pass this year's budget, which is a freeze budget on spending, it is going to be tough for us because we do need to increase the funding for public education and to do that, we will have to cut spending in other areas. But I am willing to take responsibility to pass tough budgets year after year, as we will have to, to get to balance. I am willing to do that again and again and to realistically adjust the defense budget as our responsibilities in Iraq decline in the context of new revenues from an expanding economy. And through those mechanisms, to balance the budget.
Again, we showed the grit to do it before the war and a recession. Then had no choice but to allow imbalance. In the future we will have the grit to do it again. But we should not question that grit and fail to fulfill this obligation today, that obligation being to create a predictable, stabilizing tax policy around our young families.
Mr. Speaker, last night the Republican majority passed a $2.3 trillion budget that left a $500 billion deficit, showing it is impossible to finance three wars with three tax cuts. They never miss an…
Mr. Speaker, last night the Republican majority passed a $2.3 trillion budget that left a $500 billion deficit, showing it is impossible to finance three wars with three tax cuts.
They never miss an opportunity to stick it to working families and add to the deficit, in this case $228 billion. They never miss an opportunity.
When Ronald Reagan created the earned income tax credit and Bill Clinton doubled the size of it in 1993, we actually cut taxes and reduced the deficit. In 1997, we balanced the budget, invested millions of dollars in health care for uninsured children and created the $500 per child tax credit. We did it while balancing the budget.
They have taken the whole notion of fiscal responsibility, thrown it out, added $228 billion to the deficit, raiding Social Security at that time, just so they can have a tax cut and stick it right to working families who, more than just tires and braces, who do not have health care in some cases.
So you can actually have a tax cut, balance the budget, provide health care, open the doors to college education, but you have to govern and, as President Kennedy once said, to govern is to choose. Those are things that they refuse to do. They do not try to make those choices.
We have two proposals here to expand the child credit, but we have two different visions of America, two different sets of values. We are willing to make the choices that put working families, the interest of their health care, their children, their family, their college education, their savings at the front and center without raiding, without destroying, Social Security. In the last three times that they have
brought up tax cuts, they have never missed an opportunity to raid Social Security and add deficit.
In the last 3 years they have added $3 trillion to the deficit, 3 million Americans have been unemployed and they have had three tax cuts. I do not know what it is about the number three that they love so much. I have no idea.
What they have done here is they have decided to stick it to working families. We need to go back, to put our fiscal house in order, not raiding our children's future, provide a tax cut for working families and reduce the deficit. Not to say, ``I empathize with my colleagues on the other side about the importance of the deficit'' but to do something, after passing a budget with a $500 billion hole, do something that we can provide a tax cut finally to working families so they can get the resources and know it is there without raiding Social Security from their grandparents while you are doing it.
Mr. Speaker, twenty-two million new jobs, the beginning of an economic recession. Lifting 4.3 million families out of poverty, the beginning of an economic recession. Reduction of uninsured in this country from 44 million to 38 million, the beginning of our economic recession?
There is a rampant case of an inversion in the world. To the people that had those jobs, more people going to college, more people not in poverty, more people with health care, and the gentleman says that is the beginning of the recession? I could have sworn in the 1990s when I was around, all the Republicans talked about was that it had nothing to do with Bill Clinton; it had everything to do with Ronald Reagan's boom from the 1980s. Maybe the gentleman needs a rendezvous with history here and a rendezvous with his record.
He is right, we raised taxes on the wealthiest and we cut them on working families, and we reduced the deficit and had a balanced budget. I would recommend that the gentleman take a rendezvous with that record of what a balanced budget would look like, since his colleagues have done a great job of adding $3 trillion to the Nation's debt.
Mr. Speaker, the objective of child tax credits should be to help families with children who are in need of assistance and to improve tax fairness. This legislation provides little to no help for a…
Mr. Speaker, the objective of child tax credits should be to help families with children who are in need of assistance and to improve tax fairness. This legislation provides little to no help for a single mother making minimum wage, while increasing the income ceiling allowing parents that earn as much as $300,000 per year to receive tax credits.
Low-income working mothers and fathers pay a disproportionately high cost for providing care to their children so that they can earn a wage outside of the home and stay off of welfare assistance. These are the families most in need of a child tax credit, yet, they are the families that are short-changed and left behind by the Republican tax bill.
The money to provide these tax credits for families making well over $100,000 per year is taken from the thin wallets of families making up to $10,000 per year, who receive no benefit from this legislation, and from borrowed funds that will further increase our record deficit. The inequities of this legislation are unconscionable.
Mr. Speaker, I too was struck by the words of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) because I think he has the rhetoric right, but I am concerned about the target for his concern. The Republican bill takes resources and extends them to families who make up to $309,000 a year for a family of three. I have people like that in my neighborhood who would like compassion, who would like some help, who are soccer moms and dads. But frankly, I am more concerned about those parents that do not have the resources to be soccer moms and dads, that parent who has three kids and works at minimum wage and who is left off altogether.
Somehow the concern that we have to raise the level to over $300,000 and ignore the people who are most in need, I find disingenuous and I find it sad.
This is not any confusion about whether or not the Democrats want to provide assistance for the middle class. The millionaire's tax that my Republican colleagues refused to fix on a permanent basis so they can use over a half trillion dollars to mask the costs of further tax cuts for people who need it the least is something that we tried to do something about so they would not be subjected to the millionaire's tax.
But today, we are talking about the child care credit. The Democrat substitute is seeking to focus it where it is needed most, not the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), not my friends in my neighborhood who make over $300,000 a year.
Most important, it is an opportunity for us to step back and think about who our priorities ought to be directed at. He talks about attacks on entrepreneurs because we would have a small surcharge on people who make over a millionaire dollars a year. Yes, it includes some entrepreneurs, it includes some power forwards, it includes some actuaries, but these people have been treated most generously. They have received massive reductions, increased disposable spending. To provide a modest adjustment to help the families most in need is something I can go back to my middle class, my upper middle class, my rich constituents, and I can defend.
Indeed, I do not have to. I have them asking me to do this for poor families. I have CEOs sitting next to me in airplanes saying why are you giving me these tax cuts when there are people who are more in need. I would hope our Republican colleagues would get in touch with those who need help the most.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, these are very troubling days in the Congress of the United States of America, because we are engaging virtually every…
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, these are very troubling days in the Congress of the United States of America, because we are engaging virtually every day in the easy part of government. It is really easy to come to this floor and spend more money on things that people like, whether it is defense contracts that put people to work, or highway projects that make the traffic flow more easily, or cleanup of toxic waste dumps or more financial aid for colleges and universities. It is easy to do that, and it is great to go home and take credit for it.
It is even easier to stand on the floor of the House and vote to lower people's taxes. There is not a constituent in America that I can think of that does not like to hear us come home and say we just lowered their taxes.
What we are engaging in here is an act of economic malpractice against the people of this country. I heard my friend from Nevada talk about his friend holding his newborn baby. Well, I have two children, and I am going to vote against this bill, because I do not want to send them the bill for the money that we are borrowing to pay for our increased spending and tax cut after tax cut after tax cut.
For every $100 dollars that this government spends, we borrow $30. We borrow $30 for every $100 we spend around here. We borrow it from the Social Security trust fund that is going to run out of money in the next decade, and we borrow it from future taxpayers of this country.
Now, it is very easy to vote for these things today and hand the bill to our children in the future, but it is very wrong. And I hear all this talk about ``job creation.'' We have had tax cuts since 2001. We have lost a net 2.2 million jobs since 2001. I do not think they have worked.
I will tell you what will work. There is a tried and true formula in America. The more money the Federal Government borrows, the higher the interest rates eventually go. The higher the interest rates go, the less economic growth you have. The less economic growth you have, the more jobs you kill. The more deficits you create, the more communities you hurt. We have seen this before. It happened in the 1980s and it was a disaster, and we are doing it again.
Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleagues to listen to a Republican voice in the wilderness from the other body, Senator McCain, who said yesterday, referring to our Speaker, ``The Speaker is correct that nothing we are called upon to do comes close to matching the heroism of our troops.''
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
Mr. Speaker, I would then paraphrase what the good Senator says.
I can certainly understand why the Speaker does not want this quote characterized.
Mr. Speaker, this Member of the House believes, and shares this belief with many people in both parties across the country, that it
is reckless and irresponsible at a time of war to be borrowing money to pay to reduce anybody's taxes.
There used to be a time in this country when we had to sacrifice as a country, that everybody was part of that sacrifice. It is shameful that for the purpose of going home and delivering good news, we are borrowing money from our children.
We should oppose this bill and we should support the substitute of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), because it is paid for; and we should stop this economic malpractice against the people of this country.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly support providing tax relief to middle-income Americans and I support permanent extension of tax cuts aimed at helping working American families. However, I am not in favor of…
Mr. Speaker, I strongly support providing tax relief to middle-income Americans and I support permanent extension of tax cuts aimed at helping working American families. However, I am not in favor of a new tax break for families making over $300,000 per year, which is exactly what H.R. 4359 provides, and I rise in opposition to this legislation.
The legislation before us today is a dangerous tax cut Trojan Horse. Disguised as an extension of the child tax credit increase included in the 2001 and 2003 tax cut packages, this bill provides an entirely new tax cut for the wealthiest of Americans by expanding eligibility for this tax cut to families making over $300,000 per year. This more than doubles the previous high point of $110,000 per family where the child tax credit started to phase out, and provides those in the top 10% of income earners over $70 billion in tax cuts.
This is not surprising considering the House leadership decided not to include a child tax credit benefit for working families making between $10,500 and $26,625 during the 2003 tax cut package. By loading on tax breaks for the very wealthy, H.R. 4359 is simply another demonstration of the majority's contempt for working American families.
Further, it is unfair to Americans today, and especially the next generation, to delude ourselves by thinking the record budget deficits facing our nation, estimated by the White House at over $500 billion this year alone, will simply go away. H.R. 4359 as drafted contains no offsets, and will add $288 billion to the budget deficit over the next 10 years at a time when the raid on the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds continues.
As a member of the House Budget Committee, I supported a budget resolution that would have extended the child tax credit at the current levels, while still reducing the deficit. This approach required touch choices, prioritization, and a commitment to helping working families. Unfortunately, this was not the approach taken by the House leadership, putting tax relief for middle-income Americans in jeopardy.
I support the alternative offered today by my colleague Representative Levin that fully extends the child tax credit increase for middle-income Americans. It would prevent any tax increase in 2005, and will not increase the budget deficit because it is fully paid for through a responsible offset. Further, it provides more tax relief to more families making up to $110,000 by indexing the child tax credit for inflation--bringing it up to $1,100 by 2009. It also benefits our military families by allowing combat pay to be counted toward the refundable portion of the credit. This approach makes sure that during these difficult economic times, the vast majority of the benefits of the child tax credit help the vast majority of Americans.
In conclusion, I urge my colleagues to support the Levin alternative and reject the new tax break for the wealthiest of Americans. Without the Rangel alternative, this legislation creates more harm than good; it not only increases the budget deficit of today, but also increases the debt of the future at the expense of working families.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is apparent we have three different perspectives on taxes. There is one group, when talking about giving back programs or benefits, that says when…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
It is apparent we have three different perspectives on taxes. There is one group, when talking about giving back programs or benefits, that says when we give. Well, that comes from the assumption that the money they are giving is actually their money, like the Congress has this big bank and we are just going to give it away because we are doing good things for the American people. They do not really think this through, that that money comes from working families and the Congress is just the middleman who just kind of passes it along based upon the votes that the majority might get on a particular issue.
There is another group, too, that troubles me in Washington when they look at taxes. First, they look out across the economic landscape and they see people doing something very bad. They are actually making money, you know, it is a terrible thing.
So, first, we are going to regulate it, make sure we kind of slow that pace of making money down. If that does not work, then we are going to tax them and, by George, if they are still moving after we regulate and tax, let us just sue them. It is a three-step recovery plan to keep an American from having anything in their pocket.
There is a third group. We happen to believe that the 52 or 53 percent of Americans who pay all the taxes in this country, who are working families, who work hard every day, ought to have the opportunity to do something radical. If you make money, we think you might ought to get to keep it. I know, that is out there on the edge, but I think we ought to give it a try because going into the future, as we worry about the economic prosperity of this country, this is a country of small businesses, family-owned businesses, people who get up very early in the morning and work hard all day just to pay their taxes, keep the kids in school, keep the car running and keep the blue jeans on. It is not easy.
Will this tax benefit reverse the economic fortunes of our country? No, but I will tell my colleagues what, there are a whole lot fewer dairies in Louisiana and a whole lot less farmers today than there were a decade ago, and it is primarily due to government regulation and taxes.
This may keep some family farm operating. It may keep another dairy
door open, and it may make some small business that we do not know about tonight operate for 3, 4 or 5 years, but let us give it a chance. Let us let people who work, who are the engine of our economy, 52 or 53 percent of all working families pay all the taxes, is it not time we give them a break?
Mr. Speaker, here we are again. For the fourth week in a row, Republicans have put us between a rock and a hard spot, forcing a choice between short-term relief for hard-working families and the…
Mr. Speaker, here we are again. For the fourth week in a row, Republicans have put us between a rock and a hard spot, forcing a choice between short-term relief for hard-working families and the long-term interest of future generations. It breaks my heart.
Each one of these votes has broken my heart because I have four adult children. They are families, they each have a spouse, and I have three grandchildren. They would like this short-term relief; but guess what, they know better. They know better than my colleagues do on the other side of the aisle.
It broke my heart to oppose the 10 percent tax bracket, to oppose relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax, and the end of the marriage penalty; and it will break my heart to oppose the child tax credit extension today. But I will oppose it because I know we could do better for our children.
I wanted to vote for tax relief because these bills would help my kids, and it would help the people in my district, but short term. These bills would help short term the four families that I have talked about. Members talk about hard-working families. These kids work around the clock, week in and week out; yet the Republicans are squandering the future of these children and their children. They are providing tax relief for the very wealthiest, and they are providing tax relief in the short term, and I think we can do it better. We will do it without mortgaging the future of our grandchildren with this substitute.
Here are two of my grandchildren. Let me introduce Members to Teddy and his baby sister, Julia. Teddy is 4 and Julia is 9 months old. They have a 16-year-old cousin named Sean, and they have two cousins on the way by year end. I will not ask my grandchildren to pay for their parents' tax relief, nor should you. It is not in their best interest to grow up in a country that cannot afford to properly fund its public schools. It is not in their best interests to work in a Nation crippled by debt. My grandchildren and yours deserve better than that.
The Democratic substitute we are considering today will give both my children and my grandchildren a little extra money, and it will not mortgage the future of the next generation. At first blush, it is troubling to oppose this bill, a bill that would seemingly benefit my own hard-working family. But I am lucky, my constituents and my children understand the hidden price of these tax bills. We understand that tax relief for my children should not come at the expense of Teddy, Julia, Sean, and their cousins we are expecting to be born before the end of year.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) for yielding me this time in support of H. Res. 644, the rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 4359, the Child Credit Preservation…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) for yielding me this time in support of H. Res. 644, the rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 4359, the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004.
Mr. Speaker, this is a modified closed rule which provides that the minority will be able to bring an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the House floor for consideration by the full House. In this respect, H. Res. 644 is in line with the recent history and tradition of the House when debating tax legislation on the floor.
I urge the House to approve this rule in order to give the House the opportunity to consider the merits of the underlying legislation.
With this in mind, I want to commend the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) for bringing H.R. 4359 to the floor today. This bill permanently extends the full $1,000 child tax credit that the Congress and the Bush administration were able to enact in 2001 and 2003.
Failure to get this proposal signed into law means that in 2005 an estimated 34 million families, with approximately 59 million more children, face higher taxes, as the credit is lowered to $700, and eventually sinks to $500 in 2011.
Moving this bill into law will make crystal clear to the American people that President Bush and the Republican Congress are committed to protecting the tax relief that we were able to enact in 2001 and 2003. Anything less than that represents a tax hike. And clearly, based on recent economic reports, a tax hike is exactly what our economy does not need as it continues to grow.
In fact, as Treasury Secretary Snow stated this week, effective monetary and fiscal policies, ``of which the President's tax cuts are a part,'' are enabling the economy to perform very well. This President and this Congress understood that by reducing the tax burden and improving economic incentives, we can boost economic growth and increase the flow of resources into production. That is what has occurred by following the Republican tax relief plan. By removing the heavy burden of government from the backs of small businesses and families, we are creating more economic activity which means more jobs for all Americans and ultimately more revenues to the Treasury.
We need to permanently extend this tax credit for American families, and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join me in supporting this bill's passage and enactment into law.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule so we may proceed to consider the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 4359, the ``Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004.'' Once again the Republicans are giving a new and unnecessary tax break to wealthier…
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 4359, the ``Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004.'' Once again the Republicans are giving a new and unnecessary tax break to wealthier Americans at the expense of the hard working middle class. For this reason I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Republican proposal and support the Democratic substitute, which provides real relief for middle-class families and ensures working families benefit for years to come.
Making the child tax credit expansion permanent is one of the best things we can do to provide tax relief for working families. However, the Republicans have made a mockery of this expansion by giving the full credit to families that make $250,000 a year. Members of Congress don't need this tax credit, but under the Republican proposal, many members would qualify for thousands of dollars in new tax credits they do not receive under current law.
No big surprise, the Republicans also don't want to pay for this new tax cut for households making over $110,000 per year. Just yesterday they passed a budget that specifically exempts this and other tax cuts from a requirement that they be paid for. Even Republican Senator John McCain said this week
it was fiscally irresponsible to cut taxes given the current status of our domestic and international obligations.
The Democratic substitute is a real solution for working families. Our tax credit expansion is indexed so that the value of the credit keeps pace with inflation and doesn't lose value over time (something the Republican bill ignores). We ensure lower-income families get the benefit of actual money in their pockets by increasing the refundable portion of the credit and lowering the income threshold. Our substitute also refuses to make this credit available to families making over $110,000 per year who don't need it. Finally, we pay for our proposal by asking households making over $1,000,000 to pay a little more.
The Republican bill proposed today gives $70 billion in tax cuts to families in the top 10 percent of income, but does nothing to ensure real low and middle class families get the permanent relief they deserve. The Republican agenda is clear, more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the majority of hard working American families. My agenda is also clear, I will continue to oppose these unfair, fiscally irresponsible tax cuts that put more money in the pockets of the fat cats while taking it away from those who need it most.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and colleague for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in disbelief that we are even considering such an irresponsible bill today. Instead of taking…
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and colleague for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in disbelief that we are even considering such an irresponsible bill today. Instead of taking responsible steps to make permanent a tax cut to help working families with children, this bill balloons our Federal debt and gives thousands of dollars in extra tax breaks to the very wealthiest Americans.
On the other hand, those who need help the most, low- to moderate- income working families with children, receive little benefit under this bill. And those at the very bottom get nothing. That is right, they get nothing.
A family with one parent who works full time at minimum wage earns about $10,300 a year. That struggling family will get no benefit under this unfair bill. A better off, but still low-income, family with two children earning $12,000 will get a one-time $300 tax break. This is only $25 per child or $50 more than they would already receive under current law.
Contrast that with a two-child family earning between $150,000 and $250,000. That family will get $20,000 in extra tax breaks over the next 10 years, $20,000.
This largess comes at a high price indeed. This bill comes with a price tag of $228 billion over 10 years. In fact, when we combine the cost of this bill with the cost of the three other tax bills we have passed over the last month, we are looking at $569 billion worth of tax cuts. That is over half a trillion dollars added to our already incredible debt of $7.2 trillion.
Yes, my colleagues heard me right, $569 billion on top of $7.2 trillion.
This bill is outrageous. It is a sham. It is a shame and a disgrace. What we
are doing today, yet again, is offering huge tax breaks for those who need them least by greatly increasing the debt tax that will burden all of our children and grandchildren for many years to come.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to tell me how that is fair. The fact is they cannot, and no one can because this bill is not only unfair; it is downright reckless.
Mr. Speaker, it is long past the time for us to exercise fiscal restraint, but it is never, ever too late to take that first step.
The Democrats, the people on my side of the aisle, we have a better version, a more responsible bill, a more equitable bill, a bill that truly helps those who need it most.
I urge my colleagues to take the first step. Vote against this bill and vote for the Rangel substitute. Our children and our grandchildren deserve better.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to protest what I consider to be one of the most egregious examples of the reckless fiscal policies that are being pursued relentlessly by those on the other side of the…
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to protest what I consider to be one of the most egregious examples of the reckless fiscal policies that are being pursued relentlessly by those on the other side of the aisle. Today, the majority has decided to distort the child tax credit--a policy intended to help lower- and middle-income families support their children--and twist it into yet another tax break for the rich.
Mr. Speaker, I favor making the existing $1,000 tax credit permanent, and I favor expanding the credit to cover more low-income families. However, I cannot support a policy that would provide a tax credit for families that make more than $300,000, while denying a credit to those with the lowest incomes.
The bill that the majority has proposed today would greatly expand the tax credit for families with incomes between $100,000 and $300,000, but would not allow a low-income family where a parent works full-time, year-round at the minimum wage to receive the credit! The tax credit would remain unavailable to families with incomes below $10,500. Approximately 8 million children are in families with incomes below this amount! Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that those families with incomes below $10,500 are having a much harder time affording the costs of raising a child than are families with incomes of $300,000, and yet this bill does nothing to help them.
Not only would the bill under consideration today provide another tax break to those who do not need one, but it would do so by digging a deeper hole in our federal deficit. Mr. Speaker, the deficit this year is expected to be the largest in history! Yet, this bill would add more than a quarter of a trillion dollars to that deficit--and nearly a third of the cost ($69 billion) is due to the expansion in tax breaks for those with incomes between $110,000 and $300,000.
Mr. Speaker, we are a nation at war. We have deficits so large that international organizations like the IMF are warning that the continuation of our fiscal policies threaten to hurt not just the U.S. economy, but the global economy. This is no time to be using borrowed money to give tax breaks to those who do not need them. Mr. Speaker, the legislation under consideration today is a stark reflection of the differences in priorities and values that many of us have with the current tax and economic agenda of the majority.
Bill Text
3 versions available
[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4359 Placed on Calendar Senate (PCS)]
Calendar No. 609
108th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 4359
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 21, 2004
Received
June 25, 2004
Read the first time
July 6, 2004
Read the second time and placed on the calendar
_______________________________________________________________________
AN ACT
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the child tax
credit.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Child Credit Preservation and
Expansion Act of 2004''.
SEC. 2. INCREASE IN CHILD TAX CREDIT.
(a) In General.--Subsection (a) of section 24 of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to child tax credit) is amended to read
as follows:
``(a) Allowance of Credit.--There shall be allowed as a credit
against the tax imposed by this chapter for the taxable year with
respect to each qualifying child of the taxpayer an amount equal to
$1,000.''.
(b) Increase in Phaseout Thresholds.--Paragraph (2) of section
24(b) of such Code is amended to read as follows:
``(2) Threshold amount.--For purposes of paragraph (1), the
term `threshold amount' means $125,000 ($250,000 in the case of
a joint return).''.
(c) Acceleration of Increase in Refundable Portion of Credit.--
Clause (i) of section 24(d)(1)(B) of such Code is amended by striking
``(10 percent in the case of taxable years beginning before January 1,
2005)''.
(d) Combat Pay Taken Into Account.--Paragraph (1) of section 24(d)
of such Code is amended by adding at the end the following new
sentence: ``For purposes of subparagraph (B), any amount excluded from
gross income by reason of section 112 shall be treated as earned income
which is taken into account in computing taxable income for the taxable
year.''.
(e) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall
apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2003.
SEC. 3. REPEAL OF SUNSET.
Title IX of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act
of 2001 shall not apply to the provisions of, and amendments made by,
sections 201 and 203 of such Act.
Passed the House of Representatives May 20, 2004.
Attest:
JEFF TRANDAHL,
Clerk.
Calendar No. 609
108th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 4359
_______________________________________________________________________
AN ACT
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to increase the child tax
credit.
_______________________________________________________________________
July 6, 2004
Read the second time and placed on the calendar