Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent on Monday, June 2 and Tuesday, June 3. Had I been present, I would have voted as follows on the following rollcall votes: Roll No. 227--``yea''; Roll No. 228-- ``yea''; Roll No. 229--``yea''; Roll No. 230--``yea''; Roll No. 231-- ``yea''; Roll No. 232--``yea''; Roll No. 233--``nay''; Roll No. 234-- ``yea''; and Roll. No. 235--``yea''.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues, and in particular the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo), the gentleman from Colorado (Chairman McGinnis), and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), for their hard work in bringing this much-needed legislation to the floor.

Through President Bush's leadership, we are at long last taking proactive steps here today to provide some major relief from the regulatory quagmire that continues to put our forests and communities in serious jeopardy. The public health and safety risk posed by catastrophic fires can no longer be ignored. With each passing year that we allow good management to be hijacked by radical environmentalists, people's lives are put at risk. We can't stop these fires, but we know that by thinning our forests in an environmentally sensitive way we can make them healthier and more fire-resilient, reducing their fire size and destructive potential.

But analysis gridlock and the appeals and lawsuits by radical environmentalists have stymied good forest management. The Forest Service chief Dale Bosworth recently testified to Congress that his agency is being strangled by analysis paralysis. They spend up to 40 percent of their time in planning and assessment.

Mr. Speaker, clearly, Congress could not have intended our environmental laws to aid and abet a public health and safety risk and a risk to the environment that they were enacted to protect. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and allow us to consider this important bill which will restore some common sense to a system gone awry.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my colleague from Tennessee, Mr. Tanner, to introduce the Tip Tax Fairness Act, a bill to require the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to accurately account for FICA taxes paid by employers on employee's tip income.

As we all know, many employees in the service sector of the business community earn a substantial portion of their income from tips. Recognizing this, Congress passed legislation years ago requiring employers and employees to pay FICA payroll taxes on tip income. This ensures that an employee's total earnings are reflected in their Social Security wage history, which determines the employee's Social Security benefits upon retirement.

In the IRS's effort to collect the FICA taxes they believe is owed on unreported tips,. the agency has created an aggregate method for assessing employers which is inconsistent with congressional intent. Congress did not intend FICA taxes to be paid on an aggregate basis, because earnings subject to FICA taxes are intended to be credited to an employee's Social Security wage history.

Under current law, employees are required to report all of their tips to their employer. The employer is required to send this information to the IRS, along with the employer and employee share of the FICA taxes owed. If the IRS believes the amount of tip income reported is not accurate the agency will audit the employer, bill the employer using an aggregate estimate, and collect the employer's portion of the FICA taxes. However, the agency does not credit the employee's Social Security wage history. By not doing so, the agency is disregarding one of the reasons Congress required employers to pay FICA taxes on tips.

Furthermore, this lack of accounting on the part of the IRS, and the use of aggregate estimates, creates a dramatic shift in the burden of tax collection. Under this method, it is the employer who must determine if there was underreporting of income, not the IRS, and the employer who must disprove an inaccurate assessment. Many service providers have expressed concerns that this shift in burden pits the employer against their own employees, effectively turning them into ``tip police.''

The bill Mr. Tanner and I are introducing today is a solution that we believe employees and employers can support. Simply stated, this legislation requires the IRS to ensure that assessments paid by employers, for FICA taxes owed on unreported tips, are credited to each affected employee's Social Security wage history. As such, this measure requires the IRS to use FICA taxes as Congress intended.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this worthy legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the legislation before us appropriately titled the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003. That is exactly what our efforts today are all about: growing our economy and creating jobs.

This legislation provides immediate tax relief while also making our Tax Code more investor-friendly and less of an impediment to future economic growth. Specifically, this bill accelerates the income tax rate reductions enacted 2 years ago, rather than phasing in over the next several years as previously planned. These lower rates would take effect beginning this year.

This legislation will increase the child tax credit from $600 per child to $1,000 per child. This means real tax relief for families struggling to make ends meet.

This bill also speeds up relief from the unfair marriage tax penalty and increases the exemption amount for the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, meaning that fewer families will be subjected to this burdensome tax.

I am especially pleased that this legislation makes it easier for small businesses to make new business purchases by raising the amount of new investment that small businesses can deduct from their taxes, from $25,000 a year to $100,000 a year. This provision will be of great benefit to millions of small businesses across America.

Mr. Speaker, the government cannot grow the economy or create new jobs. Good government policies, however, can allow the ingenuity of the American people to flourish. Let us get our economy moving again. I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to introduce the Cooperative Dividend Equity Act. This legislation will help to end an unfair tax on cooperatives and their members.

As those of us from agricultural and rural areas can attest, cooperatives play a vital role in many Americans' lives. Whether it be farmers pooling their resources in order to survive in the global marketplace, consumers maximizing their buying power through volume purchasing, or healthcare facilities providing community-based services--cooperatives facilitate people working together for a common good.

One of the greatest challenges facing cooperatives today is access to capital. In order to raise much needed capital and avoid further debt, many cooperatives are considering issuing preferred stock. However, under the current tax laws, stock dividends paid to stockholders are taxed three times: (1) When they are earned by the cooperative; (2) when received by the stockholder; and (3) at the corporate level when earnings are distributed.

Members of cooperatives are taxed on income generated by the cooperative. The cooperative itself, however, is not taxed so long as any ``patronage income'' is distributed to its members. Cooperatives frequently earn at least some non-member, or ``nonpatronage,'' income. Much like a corporation, a cooperative must pay taxes on such nonpatronage income, just as the stockholder, whether a member or non- member, must also pay tax on that income when it is distributed as a dividend. Unlike a corporation, however, cooperatives must then pay what amounts to a third tax due to the operation of an obscure IRS rule.

The ``dividend allocation rule'' imposes a third level of taxation on the cooperative by reducing the amount of patronage dividends paid to cooperative members. Cooperatives, such as a typical farming cooperative, may deduct dividends paid to patrons from taxable income. IRS regulations, however, provide that net earnings eligible for the patronage dividend deduction are reduced by dividends paid on capital stock. This requirement has been interpreted to mean that even dividends paid out of nonpatronage earnings will be ``allocated'' to a cooperative's patronage and nonpatronage earnings in proportion to the relative amount of patronage/nonpatronage business done by the cooperative. This ``allocation'' significantly reduces the amount of net earnings from the patronage operation that may be claimed as a deduction, thus increasing the cooperative's level of taxation.

Put more simply, the ``dividend allocation rule'' allocates income already taxed against what would have otherwise been a deduction. As a result, cooperatives pay more taxes on income used to pay a dividend on stock than would a non-cooperative corporation.

It is time to end the triple taxation on cooperative income and give farmers, consumers, hospitals, and other coop members the flexibility they deserve in structuring their affairs. It is time to eliminate the dividend allocation rule and pass the Cooperative Dividend Equity Act of 2003.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Social Security Program Protection Act. I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Shaw) and the other members of the Committee on Ways and Means who have worked tirelessly to improve Social Security programs that provide an important, crucially important, safety net for many of our Nation's neediest disabled and elderly individuals. These changes have been designed to ensure that the right benefits go to the right people, a principle which should guide our efforts on behalf of the taxpayers we serve.

I am especially pleased that the bill before us includes a provision designed to keep convicted fugitive felons from getting Social Security checks. These efforts build upon the criminal welfare provision which I introduced and which were enacted into law more than 3 years ago. By all accounts, these laws have been effective in stopping illegal fraudulent Social Security payments to prisoners. We have also stopped hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being used to subsidize addicts with disability checks. Overall, we have saved taxpayers and beneficiaries literally billions of dollars.

Other provisions in the legislation before us, such as granting the Social Security Administration the tools it needs to weed out waste and fraud, will further protect vulnerable beneficiaries.

Mr. Speaker, this bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the last Congress. I urge my colleagues to join me today in supporting it once again.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill to allow mutual funds to invest without restriction in publicly traded partnerships, or PTPs. PTPs, which are also known as MLPs, are limited partnerships, which are traded on public securities exchanges in shares known as ``units.'' Because interests in PTPs are liquid and can be bought in small increments, they can be and often are bought by small investors. Many of those investing in PTPs are older individuals, who buy them for the reliable income stream they receive from quarterly PTP distributions.

Unfortunately, the tax code currently deters mutual funds representing many small investors from investing in PTPs. As safe, liquid securities, which generally provide a steady income stream, PTPs could be an excellent investment for mutual funds. However, the tax code requires that mutual funds get 90 percent of their income from specific sources in order to retain their tax-exempt status. Distributions from a partnership do not qualify, nor do most types of partnership income, which flow through to the fund. The only way a mutual fund can invest in a PTP is to be certain that the income it receives from that investment and other nonqualifying sources will never exceed 10 percent of its total income. Faced with the burden of keeping track of percentages and the drastic consequences of going over the limit, most mutual fund managers turn to other investments.

It makes no sense for publicly traded partnerships to be excluded from the list of qualifying income sources for mutual funds. While traditional partnership interests--the only kind that existed when these rules were written--were illiquid and not always well regulated, PTPs are traded on public exchanges and must file the same information with the Securities and Exchange Commission as publicly traded corporations.

Mutual funds are an increasingly important part of the capital markets, and the inability to attract them as investors is hindering PTPs in their ability to raise the capital they need to grow and provide new jobs.

Many PTPs are in energy-related businesses, such as pipe lines that transmit oil and gas from where they are extracted as well as from refineries to end users across the nation. Unfortunately, at the precise time that we need to develop domestic sources of energy, we lack sufficient pipeline capacity to move natural gas from where it is produced in the Rockies to extraction facilities and finally to consumers. In the Gulf Coast, the problem is that we have insufficient pipelines to move oil

and gas from the refineries to consumers in the Midwest and on the East coast.

The legislation I am introducing today would not only provide access to the capital needed by these energy pipeline companies, it would also significantly speed up the creation of 20,000 to 30,000 high paying construction jobs to build these pipelines at precisely the time we need to jump start our economy. In addition, the sooner we build these pipelines, the sooner we will reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy.

The bill I am introducing today would provide PTPs with access to needed capital by simply adding income received by or allocated to a mutual fund by a PTP to the list of income sources that a mutual fund may use to meet the 90 percent test. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, this change in mutual fund rules which will hasten our energy independence will cost only $18 M over 5 years and $49 M over ten years.

In the past, this provision was sponsored by Bill Thomas, now chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and was approved by Congress in 1999 as part of the Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act, later vetoed by the President. I am happy to take up the cause in the 108th Congress, and hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation that would restore effective use of the installment method of accounting to long-term service business owners who sell their business interests.

The installment method of accounting allows a seller to pay tax on the gain from a sale as the seller receives the sale proceeds. This tax treatment matches the time for paying the tax to when the seller has the cash with which to pay that tax.

As many Members are aware, in the 106th Congress, we acted on a recommendation from the Clinton Administration to repeal the installment method of accounting for accrual

basis taxpayers. Only after such change became law did we discover that we had effectively eliminated the installment method of accounting for many small business owners and, as a result, made it much more difficult for those business owners to sell their businesses. These business owners were forced to pay the entire federal income tax due on the sale of their business in the year of sale, even though the proceeds of the sale would be received over several years. This up- front demand by the government forced business owners to borrow to pay the tax or to accept lower sale prices in order to induce buyers to pay enough up-front to cover the seller's tax. To its credit, the Congress admitted its mistake and retroactively restored the installment method to accrual basis taxpayers in the Installment Tax Correction Act of 2000 (P.L. 106-573), which was enacted on December 28, 2000.

While restoring the installment method for accrual method taxpayers in 2000 was the right thing to do, it did not go far enough in remedying the installment sale problems of business owners. Despite the clear policy decision by Congress in 2000 to permit sellers of businesses to use the installment method, some long-term business owners continue to be required to pay a significant portion of total taxes upon entering into an installment sale of their business, even though they have not yet received any significant part of the sale proceeds.

An exception to the installment sale method of accounting requires taxpayers to pay all tax attributable to depreciation recapture in the year of a sale. This depreciation recapture rule was adopted in 1984 in order to prevent taxpayers from engaging in ``churning'' transactions, sale/leasebacks, and other tax shelter transactions involving real estate and equipment. However, the recapture provision was expanded well beyond its original purpose in 1993 in connection with legislation relating to the treatment of intangibles. Unfortunately, Congress may not have fully appreciated the consequences to sellers of business interests.

In 1993, the Congress adopted rules to clarify the amortization of acquired intangibles (e.g., goodwill, going concern value). The 1993 change required intangibles to be written off over a 15-year period, but specified that any gain on the sale of the intangibles attributable to previous amortization deductions would be treated as depreciation recapture. As a result, tax on this gain must be paid immediately in the year of sale. Because these new rules generally applied to intangibles acquired after August, 1993, business owners are now only just beginning to feel the effects of the recapture rule. This rule is having a particularly adverse effect on service businesses, because intangibles such as goodwill and going concern value represent a major portion of the value of those businesses.

For a simplified example, take the case of a business owner who purchased an interest in an architectural firm for $100 in 1993, substantially all of the value of which was attributable to going concern value. The owner, who has actively participated in the business, retires in 2009 and sells the business for $200, payable in ten equal annual installments. This sale would produce $100 of capital gain (at an assumed tax rate of 20%) and $100 of ordinary income (at an assumed tax rate of 33%), generating a total tax of $53. Because of the intangibles recapture rule, the seller will have to pay $35, or 66% of the total tax, in the first year, despite having received only 10% of the sale proceeds in that year. This result is clearly inequitable and defeats the purpose of allowing business owners to use the installment method of reporting gain from the sale of the business. Moreover, the result is especially harsh in cases where a business owner is retiring and selling the business.

My bill would allow a long-term active participant in a service business to report intangibles recapture gain on the installment basis along with other gain from the sale. The legislation would not change the character of any gain. As such, intangibles recapture gain would continue to be ordinary income to reflect the fact that it previously gave rise to an ordinary deduction. The bill is limited to long-term participants because they are the individuals who would otherwise be likely to suffer the greatest hardship under the recapture rule and who are most likely to be relying on installment sale payments to supplement their retirement income.

Specifically, my bill would allow an individual who has been an active participant for five of the prior seven years in a business in which capital is not a material income-producing factor (i.e., a service business) to report on the installment basis any intangibles recapture income resulting from the disposition of an interest in the business.

Because this proposal does not apply to depreciation recapture from tangible property, the proposal does not conflict with the original goals of Congress in adopting the depreciation recapture exception to the installment sale rules. Specifically, this is not a change that would permit tax sheltering through any sort of ``churning'' transactions,

While this proposal does not address all of the potential cases in which the installment sale method is unavailable upon the sale of a business, it does go a long way towards addressing one of the most egregious situations. I urge my colleagues to support this worthy legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Social Security Program Protection act. I would like to thank Chairman Shaw and the other members of the Committee on Ways and Means who have worked tirelessly to improve Social Security programs that provide a crucial safety net for many of our Nation's neediest disabled and elderly individuals. These changes have been designed to ensure that the right benefits go to the right people, a principle which should guide our efforts on behalf of the taxpayers we serve.

I am especially pleased that the bill before us includes a provision designed to keep convicted fugitive felons from getting Social Security checks. These efforts built upon the criminal welfare prevention provisions which I introduced and which were enacted into law more than 3 years ago. By all accounts, these laws have been effective in stopping illegal, fraudulent Social Security payments to prisoners.

We have also stopped hard-earned taxpayer dollars from being used to subsidize addicts with disability checks. Overall, we have saved the taxpayers and beneficiaries literally billions of dollars.

Other provisions in the legislation before us, such as granting the Social Security Administration the tools it needs to weed out waste and fraud, will further protect vulnerable beneficiaries.

Mr. Speaker, this bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the last Congress. I urge all my colleagues to join me today in supporting it once again.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This important legislation before us today, H.R. 4, the Personal Responsibility Work and Family Promotion Act of 2003, builds on the many successes of the historic 1996 welfare reform law. H.R. 4 will help even more people transition from welfare to work and know the dignity of collecting a paycheck instead of a welfare check.

As my colleagues may recall, before 1996 the Nation's welfare program actually encouraged dependence with recipients staying on the rolls for an average of 13 years. The program discouraged work, and caseloads reached record levels with some 5 million families and 14 million recipients dependent on benefits by 1994.

Since the 1996 changes, work has increased, incomes are higher, child poverty has been reduced, and families are more self-reliant. Welfare caseloads are down more than 50 percent and have continued to decline even over the past 2 years as unemployment rates have risen. Nearly 3 million children have been lifted from poverty, and poverty rates for African American children and families headed by single mothers have reached all-time lows.

We must continue to build on this record of success. We can do that by passing H.R. 4. This legislation fulfills the President's call to further improve the welfare system by encouraging even more welfare recipients to work. It would protect children and strengthen families by promoting healthy marriages, and it would allow States increased flexibility in operating their welfare programs.

The welfare program needs our immediate attention since it has been on life support since October 1 of 2002. Permanent reauthorization of this program is vitally important to States and the families and individuals this program serves.

I urge all Members to vote in support of H.R. 4.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, just to respond, it is important that we move now. We had more than 20 hearings on this legislation last year. The legislation actually expired September 30 of 2002. We are now 6 months on life support.

The gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) mentioned that the reason the welfare rolls have dropped is because of prosperity. I would remind the gentleman that we are in a recession now. And even though we are in a recession, the welfare rolls, even since 2000, have dropped some 7 percent.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind my good friend from California, who is talking about Christian programs and how much poverty is affected by our current welfare bill and the new one, our own State of California poverty rates by the latest Census have gone down since the 1996 bill by 1,031,000.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), the original chairman of the committee that put out the 1996 welfare reform.

Mr. Chairman, I yield three minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like, just in response to the gentleman from Maryland, the CBO has indicated that there will not be any unfunded mandates. I have a letter in front of me. Because of the broad flexibility afforded States under the TANF program to structure the program and determine benefits, the new requirements of H.R. 4 would not be intergovernmental mandates.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), a key player in welfare reform on the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), another important member of our Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Chairman, do I have the right to close?

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to my friend from Texas that when we started welfare reform back in 1996, the average amount of money that was available for each family was slightly less than $7,000. Today, that amount, because we block granted it, the average amount that is available for each family today is about $16,000. More than double. Also in this bill we have $2 billion that is for additional child care.

And just to the State of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), that will amount to some $370 million of additional child care, just for the State of Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp), a key member of our Subcommittee on Human Resources.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Sometimes, when I listen to the debate on the other side, I wonder if we are talking about the same legislation. We are seeing in the area of child care some $2 billion more that is being placed into this legislation than was in the 1996 bill.

Again, since we keep hearing about unfunded mandates, I again have a letter in front of me from the Congressional Budget Office indicating that there are no unfunded State mandates.

But let us go over the incredible successes of the 1996 bill and where we go here in our new legislation. Child poverty has fallen since 1996 by nearly 3 million children who have been lifted up out of poverty. The black child poverty rate is now at a record low. More parents are working today than ever before in welfare. Employment by mothers most likely to go on welfare rose by 40 percent between 1995 and 2000. Dependents fell by unprecedented levels. Welfare caseloads fell by 9 million during this period of time, from 14 million recipients in 1994 to just 5 million today. Yet there is much that needs to be done.

Even though we have more people working than before, there are still 58 percent of recipients who are not working or who are not receiving training or who are not involved at all. Too many families are breaking up. It is tough enough to raise children with two parents, let alone just one. We still have 2 million families that remain dependent on welfare that we want to address.

What our new legislation would do is that we allow for more parents to be able to work and, therefore, be able to receive benefits. States will continue to receive the record Federal welfare and child care funds, despite since 1995, a nearly 60 percent reduction in rates. This means that average allotment per family will go from less than $7,000 in 1995 to some $16,000 today. And there are funds in here to help encourage and to help give counseling to encourage that every child has two parents at home. So we recognize this.

Again, of all the legislation that I have been involved with in 16 years, I feel this has been the most successful. And what we are doing in this current legislation, H.R. 4, is building on these incredible successes of the last 5 years and continuing them.

I urge the strong, overwhelming support of this body on H.R. 4.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the substitute and I yield 10 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) for purposes of control.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) for the sake of a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I agree it is important to continue to provide States with the resources and flexibility necessary for them to address the needs of the residents. The 1996 welfare reform law included specific provisions designed to address the concerns for growing States such as Nevada. Those provisions are retained and extended in this bill. As we move forward, we will continue to take every

step to see that this legislation includes adequate resources for the States to serve low-income families and children, including in States with growing populations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach) for the sake of a colloquy.

If the gentleman would yield, yes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his interest and activity on the mentoring issue. The programs you have described are important to helping welfare recipients to succeed in the workforce.

The gentleman's proposal will be considered, and I look forward to working with him to support these types of mentoring programs so that we can help even more recipients achieve independence through work.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), a key person on the Committee on Ways and Means.

(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind my good friend from Texas that in H.R. 4, his State of Texas will receive an additional $370 million for child care over the next 5 years.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I have great respect for my colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin). I appreciate his hard work on this issue. I do, however, have a difference of opinion with him regarding the amendment we are considering, and I oppose it for several reasons.

The gentleman's amendment weakens work requirements and would lead to less work, more welfare and more poverty. Like the failed AFDC program that preceded TANF, the substitute promotes more welfare dependence. It places new mandates on States by requiring them to assess every recipient

for child care needs, barriers to work and history of domestic violence, and by prohibiting States from applying sanctions to those who refuse to work.

The substitute, which we estimate to cost at least $20 billion over the next 5 years, is just too expensive and would greatly increase deficits.

However, I would like to commend the gentleman for including certain provisions that mirror those in our H.R. 4. Those provisions include maintaining the basic TANF funding and block grant structure, requiring parents to engage in real work for 24 hours per week, raising total work requirements to 40 hours per week at State option, increasing State work rate requirements and adding reducing poverty as a TANF purpose.

I urge the Members to oppose this amendment and vote in support of

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join with President Bush in his call to assist our Nation's small businesses by introducing the ``Small Business Expensing Improvement Act of 2003.'' This legislation will encourage new business investment and expansion, and I am pleased to be joined in this effort by several of my colleagues on the tax- writing Ways and Means Committee.

Small businesses truly are the backbone of our economy, representing more than half of all jobs and economic output. We should not take small business vitality for granted, however. Rather, our tax laws should support small businesses in their role as the engines of innovation, growth, and job creation.

Earlier today, President Bush unveiled his economic growth proposal. I applaud the President for his commitment to our Nation's small business owners and his dedication to ensure that our tax laws do not impede the growth and development of small businesses. The legislation we are introducing today will implement a key element of the President's plan, expansion of the benefits available to small businesses under Internal Revenue Code Section 179.

Our bill will improve our tax laws to make it easier for small businesses to make the crucial investments in new equipment necessary for continued prosperity. Under Code Section 179, a small business is allowed to expense the first $25,000 in new business investment in a year. Following the President's lead, our legislation will permanently increase this amount to $75,000. Furthermore, our bill will index this amount to ensure that the value of this provision is not eroded over time.

This legislation will also allow more small businesses to take advantage of expensing by increasing from $200,000 to $325,000 the total amount a business may invest in a year and qualify for Section 179. It is important to note that this amount has not been adjusted for inflation since the provision was enacted into law in 1986.

Mr. Speaker, in times of economic uncertainty, we must do all we can to encourage new investment and job creation. The ``Small Business Expensing Improvement Act of 2003'' will help accomplish this worthy goal. I applaud President Bush for his leadership on this issue, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this much-needed legislation.