Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, today, Thursday, May 5, 2005, the people of the world memorialize Yom HaShoah--a special day of remembrance honoring the martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust. Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day that has been set aside to remember the victims of the Holocaust and to remind each of us what can happen when bigotry and hatred are not confronted.

Mr. Speaker, I am humbled as I rise today with my colleagues to honor the memories and the lives of the more than 6 million victims of Nazi hatred and aggression during the pogrom known to us as the Holocaust. I am also humbled to stand in this cathedral of freedom and honor the lives of the many heroes who fought so bravely against unimaginable odds to defeat a genocidal madman.

More than 60 years ago, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime set out to eradicate European Jewry. So committed were they to the accomplishment of this goal, their so-called ``Final Solution,'' that even in the waning days of World War II, when defeat was imminent, the Germans continued even more urgently rounding up Jews all over Europe and sending them to their deaths.

Mr. Speaker, driven by a radical and uncompromising anti-Semitic ideology, the Nazis redoubled their efforts to reach every last Jew before the war ended. They were in a rush; time was running out. Depleting sorely-needed resources from the war effort, German forces swept across Europe, assembling and annihilating community after community, individual after individual, from their homes, ghettos and hiding places.

Mr. Speaker, during the last year of the war in Europe, German defeat was all but accomplished, and yet their hatred and bigotry survived and thrived. Consequently, the Nazis murdered more than 700,000 Jews in that last full year of the war, including most of the Jews of the last large community in Europe, Hungary. There, in one of the most efficient deportation and murder operations of the Holocaust, the Nazi and Hungarian regimes deported 437,000 Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau in just eight weeks and killed tens of thousands more later that year.

Six decades have passed since Allied troops liberated the labor and death camps, and yet the memory of the horrors perpetrated against the Jewish people is seared into the collective conscious of the world. However, Mr. Speaker, sadly, we cannot undo history, and we cannot reverse the atrocities carried out by a barbarous German regime.

What remains for us is to honor and preserve the memories and lives of both the victims and the survivors of the Holocaust. Out of the great tragedy of the Holocaust emerges a tremendous object lesson for humanity: hatred and bigotry can never be taken for granted or left unchecked. We must never forget.

Mr. Speaker, memory is critical--our own and that of the victims of unprecedented evil and suffering. The Holocaust is a horror we must remember, but not only because of the dead; it is too late for them. Not only because of the survivors; it may even be too late for them. Preserving memory is a solemn responsibility, aimed at saving men and women from apathy toward evil, if not from evil itself. We must never forget.

Mr. Speaker, sixty years ago, much of the world overlooked the deadly plight of an entire people until it was almost too late. We have a sacred obligation--in order to truly keep faith with the principles upon which our great nation was founded--to remain vigilant, to remember the horrors of the past, to learn from them, and to protect against them for all eternity. We must never forget.

Mr. Speaker, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, perhaps summed it up best when he said, ``to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.'' As Americans, we must heed his call and embrace his challenge. We must never forget.

Mr. Speaker, Benjamin Franklin noted over 200 years ago that ``in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.'' Unfortunately, the convergence of these two inescapable events, in the form of the Federal estate tax, results in a number of destructive outcomes in terms of slower economic growth, reduced social mobility, and wasted productive activity. Moreover, the costs imposed by the estate tax far outweigh any benefits that the tax might produce. For these reasons, among others, I urge my colleagues to join with me in support of permanent repeal of the Federal estate tax.

The estate tax has been enacted four times in our Nation's history-- each time in response to the exigent financial straits deriving from war. In three of those instances (1797-1802,1862-70, and 1898-1902), the estate tax was repealed shortly thereafter. Most recently, the estate tax was reintroduced during World War I (1916) and has existed ever since. What was meant to bring short-term budgetary relief has become a permanent burden on America's farmers, small business owners and families.

Some observers might believe that the estate tax is free from serious controversy. For example, it is often claimed that the tax only falls on the ``rich'' and thus serves to reduce income inequality. Other supporters of the estate tax point to the $22 billion in tax revenues for 2003, or to the incentive for charitable bequests. Nonetheless, there are many reasons to question the value of taxing the accumulated savings of productive, entrepreneurial citizens. Not the least of these reasons is the widely-held belief that families who work hard and accumulate savings should not be punished for sound budgeting. Additionally, it is unclear whether the estate tax raises any revenue at all, since most if not all of its receipts are offset by losses under the income tax.

The freedom to attain prosperity and accumulate wealth is the basis of the ``American dream.'' We are taught that through hard work we can achieve that dream and, God willing, pass it on to our children. Unfortunately, for many the estate tax turns that dream into a nightmare. The current tax treatment of a person's life accumulations is so onerous that when one dies, the children are often forced to turn over half of their inheritance to the Federal Government. The estate tax, which is imposed at an alarming 45 to 47 percent rate, is higher than in any other industrialized nation in the world except Japan. Thus, many families must watch their loved one's legacy being snatched away by the Federal Government at an agonizing time. This is tragically wrong and nullifies the hard work of those who have passed on.

In the minority community there are numerous examples of the injurious effects of the estate tax. The Chicago Daily Defender--the oldest African American-owned daily newspaper in the United States--is a good example of the unique problem presented for minority families. It was forced into bankruptcy due to financial burdens imposed by the estate tax. But, beyond that, the questions were--was the Chicago Defender family forced to sell, could a minority owner be found to purchase it, or would it become a white-owned asset, reducing the overall wealth of the African American community?

On a smaller scale, another potential victim, a storeowner named Leonard L. Harris who is a first generation owner of Chatham Food Center on the South Side of Chicago is frightened that all the work and value he has put into his business will be for naught because it will be stripped from his two sons. According to Mr. Harris, ``My focus has been putting my earnings back into growing the business. For this reason, cash resources to pay federal estate taxes, based on the way valuation is made, would force my family to sell the store in order to pay the IRS within 9 months of my death. Our yearly earnings would not cover the payment of such a high tax. I should know. I started my career as a CPA.'' These two stories are not isolated.

According to the Life Insurance Marketing Research Association, less than half of all family-owned businesses survive the death of a founder and only about 5 percent survive to the third generation.

Another recent study found the following:

Eight out of ten minority business owners questioned believe the Federal estate tax is unfair.

Only one minority business owner in three has been able to take any steps whatsoever to prepare for the ramifications of the estate tax.

One in four believes that his or her heirs will be forced to sell off at least part of their businesses to pay the estate tax liability.

Fully half the respondents already know a minority-owned business that has had trouble paying the tax, including some that have been forced to liquidate.

Those few minority-owned businesses that have been able to take steps to reduce their estate tax liability complain that it has detracted from their ability to meet business objectives by channeling time, energy and resources away from productive endeavors.

Many of my colleagues who are proponents of the estate tax contend that the tax adds progressivity to the Tax Code and provides needed tax revenue. They argue that the estate tax falls on wealthier and higher income individuals and increases the total tax paid by this segment of the population relative to their income. This helps offset the regressivity of payroll taxes and excise taxes, which fall more heavily on low-income groups relative to their income. They also argue that increasing the unified credit to $4, $5, $6 or $7 million would remove small family-owned businesses and farms from the harsh impact of the estate tax.

I share my colleagues concerns about protecting the tax base and ensuring that our Tax Code remains progressive. However, I find these arguments in support of the estate tax unconvincing in the face of substantial evidence otherwise.

First, there is no clear evidence that the estate tax is progressive or that larger estates are paying a greater portion of the tax. Wealthier members of our society are able to reduce and or eliminate the impact of the estate tax by stuffing money away here and there at the suggestion of high-priced attorneys and accountants. Similarly, tax planning techniques such as gift tax exclusions or valuation discounts reduce the size of the gross estate but do not appear in the IRS data causing effective tax rates to be overstated for many larger estates. The Institute for Policy Innovation recently revealed evidence of this fact in a study showing that the effective tax rate on the most valuable estates was actually lower than that on medium-sized estates.

Second, the insignificant amount of money the estate tax raises for the Federal Government cannot justify the harmful effects it has on business owners who spend more to avoid

the tax than the federal tax revenue raised. According to the President's fiscal year 2005 Budget, the estate and gift tax brought in $22.8 billion in revenues to the Federal Government in 2003. This represents less than 1.1 percent of the total revenues out of a more than $2 trillion Federal budget and less than the amount of money spent complying with, or trying to circumvent, the death tax.

In 2003, Congress' Joint Economic Committee reported that the death tax brought in $22 billion in annual revenue, but cost the private sector another $22 billion in compliance costs. Therefore, the total impact on the economy was a staggering $44 billion. And, when one calculates the amount of money spent on complying with the tax, the number of lost jobs resulting from businesses being sold, or the resources directed away from business expansion and into estate planning, it is clear why this punitive tax must be eliminated.

It is also important to note that many economists believe that overall tax revenues would increase if the estate tax were repealed. According to a study of estate tax repeal proposals, which was prepared by Dr. Allen Sinai for American Council for Capital Formation and Center for Policy Research, Federal tax receipts would rise in response to a stronger economy, feeding back 20 cents of every dollar of estate tax reduction. In fact, over the years 2001 to 2008, estate tax repeal would increase real Gross Domestic Product by $90 billion to $150 billion, and U.S. employment by 80,000 to 165,000.

Finally, it is not clear that increasing the unified credit to $6 or $7 million would remove small family-owned businesses and farms from the threat of the estate tax. The Small Business Administration's definition of a small business is based on industry size standards. For example, a construction company or grocery store with less than $27.5 million in annual receipts is considered a small business. Thus, families who build their businesses past the exemption amount will continue to face estate taxes that range from the aforementioned, alarming rate of 45 to 47 percent. The exemption threshold would not help these small businesses. More significantly, without significant reform or, more appropriately, repeal, these same small businesses face the prospect of estate tax rates as high as 60 percent beginning in 2011.

Permanent repeal of the estate tax will provide American families with fairness in our tax system and remove the perverse incentive that makes it is cheaper for an individual to sell the business prior to death and pay the individual capital gains rate than pass it on to heirs. But for minorities, it provides much more. It will allow wealth created in one generation to be passed on to the next thereby establishing sustainable minority communities through better jobs and education, better healthcare, and safer communities.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 8 to permanently repeal the Federal estate tax and to restore fairness to our Nation's Tax Code.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a valued educational institution--Baton Rouge Magnet High School--a 2003-04 school year Winner of the Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network Creative Ticket National School of Distinction Award. This school is an institution that combines academic excellence with tradition, achieving excellence in the arts.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has recognized five schools as recipients for the 2003-04 award. The Creative Ticket National School of Distinction Award recognizes schools that have done an outstanding job of making the arts an essential part of the education of their students.

In addition to their recognition of excellence in the Performing Arts by the Kennedy Center, Baton Rouge Magnet High School held its Blue Ribbon award ceremony on Thursday, October 23, 2003. The Blue Ribbon Schools Programs honors public and private K-12 schools which are academically superior in their states or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement. BRMHS is one of only two public high schools, and five total schools in Louisiana, and one of 248 nationally recognized as Blue Ribbon schools. It is the second time Baton Rouge Magnet High has been recognized with the honor. It is an award colleges look favorably in when reviewing students' resumes.

Thank you, Baton Rouge Magnet High School for your many years of dedication to quality education, arts programs and your outstanding representation of Louisiana.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is offered because the provision is dated by some 3\1/2\ years. It has been carried over year after year. It prohibits the use of engineering funds in the program for engineering work related to an additional runway.

It raises an issue of concern on the part of our authority with respect to planning. It was ostensibly placed in the bill, in the legislation some years ago because of concerns about practices that a prior administration that existed some 2 years ago now, which has been replaced by a new aviation board, a new mayor, widely regarded as a reforming regime, and is simply now in the way of appropriate planning.

There are issues of safety, issues of security, issues now even of evacuation as we try and move people. It is very important our airport be permitted to plan as it should. So this provision is dated and I urge that it be stricken from the bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I wish to inform the gentleman that the airport is in the district that I represent. It is not in the gentleman from Louisiana's (Mr. Tauzin) district or the gentleman from Louisiana's (Mr. Vitter) district.

It may be that a part of the runway may stretch into the area but the airport is in my district. It is not in the

district of the gentleman as you have so stated. So I want that corrected.

We have a vital interest in this. It is the city's property. It is the district's property that I represent and, really, we have the greatest interest in the outcome here.

Offered By: Mr. Jefferson

Amendment No. 8: Page 13, strike lines 11 through 14.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues an excellent and informative television program that featured the country of Botswana as one of the greatest success stories in Africa. It was the Today Show on NBC on Monday, Feb. 9, during the series ``Where in the World is Matt Lauer?''

Many Americans know Botswana from having seen or visited its wonderful game parks on safari, but this program told Botswana's complete story. We learned how the country protects its precious animals, how the country is courageously facing its problem with HIV and AIDS and how its diamonds are mined and secured.

Botswana's diamond industry, a global leader and innovator, was featured. Mr. Louis Nchindo, general manager of the Debswana Diamond Company, told Mr. Lauer how the country has insured that its clean diamonds are kept out of the world of illegitimate ``conflict diamonds'' by carefully managing the process from mining to export. He described the elaborate security measures including the requirements for licensed dealers throughout the process. I was proud to work with Mr. Nchindo in setting up a process for labeling diamonds to keep them out of the illicit trade. Debswana and Mr. Nchindo are to be commended for their efforts in this regard.

Mr. Lauer mentioned how Botswana is a stable democracy and ``all- around wonderful place,'' with first class accommodations in the game parks and which rightly boasts a rich and welcoming culture.

I was pleased to see Botswana honored by NBC and commend the country, a good friend of the United States, to my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I hope the Nation can appreciate this bipartisan effort here that is being made to bring to the attention of those who are still unconvinced that LSU is the undisputed national champion of college football. I hear no objection to that on this floor from any of my colleagues, because it is a fact.

I am very proud that this event that established LSU as the undisputed national champion was held in my home district in New Orleans in the Super Dome. It was a rousing crowd and a wonderful event; and, of course, the right team won.

I am also here to say for Southern University how proud we are of that university. That is a school to which I went some 35 years ago now, from which I graduated before law school and which I hold very close to my heart. Southern University has won the National Black College Championship Award for this year. So two schools from Louisiana, both from Baton Rouge, from the biggest district have distinguished themselves and therefore brought honor on our State and I believe for our entire Nation.

We ought to be very proud of them. They not only distinguish themselves in football, as my colleagues know. They have wonderful records of accomplishments in academia, which is their major function. They graduate as athletes, and they do a wonderful job all the way around.

So Louisiana is in the spotlight tonight for something that is very, very good. All of us are proud of them, Republicans and Democrats across this country. We are proud of our schools and proud of what they stand for and proud of the tradition that they represent, the best of competition in college football. This year that competition being rewarded in the fact that both of them are undisputed national champions in their respective fields of operation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an outstanding American, Dr. Jewel Limar Prestage. Dr. Jewel Prestage is one of the first African American women to earn a Ph.D. She earned it in political science in the United States, and through her work and contributions since, has become one of the most important women of our times.

Through teaching, mentoring, research and service, Jewel Prestage has had a profound influence in the political science discipline, in the political life of our country and on the lives of the thousands of students with whom she has associated over the years. Her talent, dedication, and good works must not go unacknowledged or unappreciated.

As a distinguished professor of political science, Jewel Prestage has lectured at numerous institutions of higher education. Her service at two Historically Black Universities in the South, however, anchored her career.

For 18 years, Dr. Prestage served as the Chair of the Political Science Department at Southern University. During her tenure, this academic department became the nation's leading catalyst for the development of African American Ph.D.s in political science.

After 33 years of dedicated service, in 1989 Jewel Prestage retired from the Southern University system as the dean of its Public Policy School and of its Urban Affairs School. However, her retirement was short-lived, as Jewel Prestage joined the political science faculty at Prairie View A&M University, where she eventually became dean of the Benjamin Banneker Honors College. At Prairie View, she continued her impressive record of guiding students toward postgraduate education. In September 2002, she retired after a stellar academic career that spanned 46 years.

Jewel Prestage has been a pioneer in academic research in the area of race, gender, and politics. She was the first person to pursue research that focused on African American women legislators and the first to offer the theory of marginality to describe the political behavior of African American women.

Her book, ``A Portrait of Marginality,'' coauthored with Dr. Marianne Githens, has become the seminal work on minority women and politics and is

referenced by many who are concerned about issues of race and gender. She also pioneered early research focusing on the political socialization of African American children and youth.

As a leader in the discipline of political science, Jewel Prestage has served as an officer and on the executive council of many of the Nation's highly esteemed political science organizations. Her capstone accomplishment was her role in the founding of the professional organization, the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

In recognition of her service and of her achievements, these organizations have honored her with their highest awards, including the National Conference of Black Political Scientists' Fannie Lou Hamer Award, the American Political Science Association's Frank Goodnow Award, and the Southern Political Science Association's Manning Dauer Award.

The Policy Studies Organization and the Southwestern Political Science Association have also elected to honor Dr. Prestage by creating awards in her name to recognize her outstanding academic achievement in the areas of race, gender, and politics.

Jewel Prestage has made many contributions in the field of community service and has been an outstanding community servant. In the late 1960s and 1970s, she worked to prepare many Southern politicians for the new public service opportunities that became available in the wake of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A Democratic Party faithful, she has also served as a delegate and as an appointed member of the Judiciary Council of the Democratic National Committee.

While her distinguished career in higher education and public service has resulted in many achievements, Dr. Jewel Prestage's greatest legacy may be in the inspiration she has provided to the thousands of students she has taught and mentored. Her former students have obtained many accomplishments and can be found throughout academia, the business sector, and the government.

Former students have organized academic awards and scholarships in recognition and to honor her lifetime achievements. I am proud to say that Dr. Prestage was my teacher and my dean and she has had a lasting influence on my pursuit of public service. I will be forever grateful to her for what she did for me personally and for so many others like me.

When the life of a person exemplifies such a strong commitment, others often wonder about the source of their inspiration. Throughout the years, it has become clear to many that Jewel Prestage has a deep and abiding commitment to the advancement of her community. Through her activities at Southern University and Prairie View A&M University, she encouraged students to be the best that they could be so she could help them help their communities and help them to help our country meet its need for more African Americans with professional and graduate degrees.

Jewel Prestage cares deeply about the diversity issues in America and believes that one way our future can be secured is by producing more committed individuals who can give back to the community while serving as an inspiration to young people.

Her activities in the public sphere have been encouraged and supported by her loving husband, Dr. James Prestage, and their five children: Terri Prestage-White, James Grady Prestage, Eric Warren Prestage, Karen Prestage-Washington, and Jay Wilkins Prestage.

Her efforts merit our great appreciation and our respect. I commend Dr. Jewel Prestage for her dedication and personal sacrifice that has generated so many positive experiences and wonderful memories for so many thousands. She is an outstanding model for our Nation and an excellent example of one person who has truly made a difference in our lives, in our community, and in our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, July 25, 2003, I was unavoidably detained and missed Rollcall vote No. 445, final passage vote on H.R. 2427, a bill to authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to promulgate regulations for the reimportation of prescription drugs, and for other purposes. If I had voted, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the U.S.-Singapore FTA, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

This is one of the first agreements negotiated under the trade promotion

authority or under the old term ``fast track authority.'' Many of us were concerned that the efforts we made to get labor and environmental guidance in this fast track authority would not be heeded or heeded sufficiently by the administration. I am relieved to know that this is not the case, that this agreement does address, in the way that was intended by this Congress when we passed it, the important issue of labor and environmental concerns, but it also gets to the heart of so many other concerns that I think are most important to our economy.

The U.S.-Singapore FTA is a thorough, comprehensive agreement. It will remove Singaporean restrictions through the importation of a broad range of products and a broad range of services and a broad range of sectors as different as information technology, engineering, environmental services, legal and financial services.

Singapore is already the United States 11th biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade of nearly $40 billion. It has one of the world's most open and dynamic economies. Its port is one of the world's most efficient. Over 1,300 U.S. companies are now doing business in Singapore; some 300 of those have made Singapore their Southeast Asian regional business headquarters, it is such a vibrant area for it.

The U.S.-Singapore FTA will serve as a catalyst, I think, for broader U.S. economic engagement in Southeast Asia. It will also celebrate the progress of a multilateral trade agenda that our country has there.

Singapore has been a stalwart ally of the United States and the war on terrorism. It has worked very closely with us on container security and other important trade initiatives. It is a solid agreement that deserves our strong support, deserves bipartisan support, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, the folks at home must be really confused about this debate today. A few years ago we heard the Republican leadership come to the floor with a tax bill saying we were awash in cash and we needed to give the people back their money. And the government should not have the money, the people should have it.

The trouble is before we could give the folks their money back, the government spent the money. Now we are back telling them the same thing, it is the people's money, we ought to give them back their money, but the only way to give them back the money this time is to borrow the money.

This does not make any sense. It is about like a businessperson saying I do not have any money, do not have any cash, do not have any profits, but I want to give my folks a distribution. I am going to go borrow money at the bank, give it back and give folks a distribution and pay for it later somehow, some way.

This is called a stimulus package but a stimulus package ought to be temporary in effect. It ought to stimulate consumption. The only stimulus package we can have to make any sense is have consumption on the part of States, on individuals or on the part of business.

We leave the folks out of this package who could probably provide the stimulus that we are looking for. The folks who are in the 10 and 15 percent bracket do not get a break under this deal. The folks who work every day and who do not pay income taxes, who pay payroll taxes through the nose, do not get a break under this bill. These folks would actually consume something in this economy if we put the money back in their hands.

This is a wrong-headed bill. I urge it be voted down.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for yielding to me and for the wonderful work that she is doing in this area and for the Special Order that she has taken out this evening to explain to the American taxpayers and to the American people just what is at risk by these Republican policies.

I know she has covered a great deal of territory already, but I want to just talk about things perhaps that have not yet been discussed or, if they have been, discussed tangentially. And that is the issue of what the government ought to be doing with respect to tax policy. I had the good fortune, the gentlewoman might remember, of doing a great deal of work on this tax policy.

Having spent time in school to work on it and having gotten a master's of laws in taxation and having studied the issues of what tax policy ought to be involved with, what I found out was this: that there is a legitimate concern on the part of government to have a tax policy that is fair in the first place, to have a tax policy that is simple in the second place, to have one that does not intrude into the private sector decisionmaking of people in the third place; and perhaps if we find a social policy we all agree on, we found it legitimate to use the Tax Code sometimes to encourage certain behavior on the part of the public.

The one thing on the fairness I think the gentlewoman has spoken very well about how this policy violates the Federal standard of fairness any number of ways, and I want to talk about one last way it does a little later; but the one thing that I think it does that people ought to recognize, and it has effects for the deficit, for the interest burden, all the rest, is that it puts the government into a position where it is going to compete with the private sector for money. It is going to drive up demand for money because we are going to have to borrow money. There is only so much of it out there. We have to borrow money to fund the government's operations. When we do that, we drive up the demand for money; and when we do that, we drive up interest costs. No question about it. And so this government is going to compete with the private sector. It has to because there is not enough money to fund this tax policy. We are going to put a tax policy together and borrow money to pay for it. It does not make any sense at all. But the biggest problem is that it is inescapable that it is going to drive up demand for money out of this economy, and we are going to borrow money from our banks here and make it tough on our country, and we can also borrow money from foreign governments and make it tough for steel. So this is an antitax policy, logically thinking, when we go this route.

The second thing, there has been a debate for many years about whether it is a good idea or a bad idea to tax capital gains or a bad idea or a good idea to tax dividends, dividend income. All of this has been the subject of debate for many years. And one of the reasons why people have avoided dealing with it is because it is so expensive to fix it, to deal with it, to try to come up with a solution for it. So every time we have a tax reform session, people gripe one side or the other about these questions; but they never deal with it because they are so horrendously expensive.

Here we have now a President in the middle of a recession, certainly in a huge downturn in our economy, talking about restructuring the Tax Code, essentially is what is happening here, in the middle of a recession. This is not about stimulus for the economy. This is not about giving people jobs. It really is all about restructuring the system that some people think penalizes rich people more than it should, and there are all sorts of debates, as I said, about that and we can come down a lot of different ways on the question. But this is no time to do tax reform when we need a stimulus package for the government and for our people. This is no time to take these issues that we fought over for many years, not new issues, and bring them to the floor now under the cloak of a stimulus package and of job creation. This is not what it is.

And the last question I have that I want to just raise with the American people is this one: everybody at the upper levels gets a tax break from this President's proposal. The folks at the very highest level, 38.6 percent, get a 3.6 percent tax break and down the line to those who are at around the 25 percent rate; and they all get a 2 percent tax breakdown to 25. The folks who are on the bottom, the 15 percent tax rate, that bracket, and the 10 percent bracket get nothing. They get no help. They get no break under this President's plan. They are not touched at all. So those folks do not have any unearned income to speak of, very little, minimal, 7 percent, less than that of income, the whole group, and almost all of it, 2 percent of the folks, are getting that in that little bracket. They are just a handful of people in that bracket. So what we are doing is moving from a system where we are taxing unearned income one way and to a system where we are only going to tax wages of working people. So as we lower the capital gains taxation from 20 to 15 and the upper brackets by 2 percent in some cases, 3 percent in one case, we do nothing for the folks at the very end.

So my question is if we are going to give a tax break, why not give it to everyone, an income tax break? Then there are other folks who do not pay income taxes. In my district there are 35 percent of the folks who work every day, 40 hours a week or more, who never make enough to pay income taxes; but they are paying the payroll tax through the nose, and the difficulty is we do not touch that issue either. These folks get no break under the President's system.

It is just unfair for them not to get a break, but beyond that, it is nonsensical for a stimulus package not to include these people because, as the Members know, these are the ones who actually would spend their money if they got the money from the government, got something back from the refundable credit on the payroll taxes or refundable credit in some other cases. They would use their money to buy the refrigerator they need or the child's clothes for school or something that is a household need that they cannot now meet because they do not have much money. So if we really wanted to stimulate the economy and we wanted to stimulate consumption, which is what this is all about, either consumption by the State governments or local governments or by individuals or businesses, in this case individuals, we would put money in the hands of the people who actually spend it and consume some of the goods and services out there in the country that they need to consume.

So apart from all of the issues that the gentlewoman has raised, and they are wonderful issues and ones that we have heard a great deal about in our caucus and in our debates in the Congress, and they are the central ones in this debate, but I wanted to bring these other issues out to discuss them because I cannot find one way that this deal makes any sense for the American people, and I do not understand, frankly, how the other side can put these proposals forward with a straight face.

On every level I have been able to examine, it does not make any sense, and I hope that when the American people have the time to examine this argument that we are making here, examine the issues here, that they will come to the same conclusion that the gentlewoman and I have come to, that this policy is a bad policy for America. It does not stimulate the economy. It is a terrible intrusion into the tax system that is going to end up with the private sector competing with the government or the other way around, and it is going to drive up the cost of interest in the long term, and of course it is an issue of getting involved in a structural tax debate that we have had on the table for I do not know how long and we are now trying to fix under the cloak of a stimulus package.

So I want to again thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones) for what she has done this evening in giving us a chance to talk about these issues, and I want to implore the American people to really examine this very closely because it is a critical point in the history of our country. We are about to make decisions now that are going to saddle our children and grandchildren for years to come, and people really ought to pay attention to what is happening in this House.

Mr. Speaker, of course not. It is not mentioned in the package, and as most of the experts have said, this is the greatest multiplier effect of most of the things we can put on the table to do, and that is to put money into the hands of people again who have been out of work, who have been strapped, who do not have enough money to pay for the things that they need to take care of in their households, who we know will consume if they get the money.

Stimulating the economy is all about stimulating consumption. It is not about anything else. And if we are not smart enough to give people money they can use now, and these are not people who are sitting around looking

for welfare, looking for a handout from the government; these are hard- working people who have worked for many years, in most cases, who now because of economic hard times and down turns in the economy, layoffs all over the place, have ended up without a job. These are folks who are actively seeking work, going out looking for a job every day, going to the unemployment offices, unemployment services, looking for help, looking for a job, and they have not been able to find work because this economy has lost 2.6 million jobs in the last couple of years. So it is just hard to find a job out there.

This ought to be in this package. If the other side were serious about stimulating the economy, this is the best way to stimulate consumption, and the fact that it is not in the bill argues that they are not really serious about getting this done.

Mr. Speaker, one of the smartest things we did in this Congress was to pass the EITC and the next smartest thing we did was to expand it in the last few years to make sure we had more people covered. And it is a way to reward people for working. It was always designed to take low-income people and encourage them to stay on jobs that did not pay much because the welfare was competing quite handsomely with folks who were making such a low income until they might as well have stayed home if they were just looking at it on the basis of what is the better thing to do, stay home with the children, stay home and do whatever, or go to work. EITC is a conservative idea.

The earned income tax credit is a conservative idea. It is an idea to reward people for working, to award poor people staying on the job instead of choosing welfare. It ought to be embraced by the Republicans full throttle, and it ought to be as simple as it is to do anything else under the tax regime. Not that things are all that simple, but one of the major tenets of tax policy is to keep it as simple or to make it as simple as we can.

The fewer resources one has, and we know poor people have fewer resources than the people who are wealthier, the simpler we ought to make it for them. That is why we invented this short form of tax reporting; that is why you have this easy way to do your standard deduction, because you figure that these are the people who are not going to have a lot of money for tax preparation or access to accountants and lawyers and all the rest of it. So you make it as simple as you can for people who you know are going to be principally their own tax preparers, and you hope they can understand it without having to expend much money to do it. Up the line, people who have all these various deductions and exemptions they can take and all the rest, they are folks who usually can pay for the lawyers and accountants and the rest and get it all figured out and worry about saving money.

So I think the gentlewoman is dead right, that instead of making it more complicated for the poorest people in this country who are going to work every day, who are working hard every day, and who we have encouraged through the EITC to stay on the job rather than to accept welfare, we ought to make it simple for them to get their reporting done.

I thank the gentlewoman for what she is doing.

Mr. Speaker, I submit the following Brief for the Record.

[No. 02-241]

In the Supreme Court

of the United States

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that Congress is advancing the Millennium Challenge Account or the MCA, a bold initiative supporting economic growth and self-sufficiency in the world's poorest nations. I applaud MCA's focus on reforming poor nations that have demonstrated achievement in ruling justly, investing in people, and encouraging economic freedom. MCA should have a special emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest region of the world with over 290 million people living on less than one dollar per day.

Several countries in sub-Saharan Africa are successfully addressing some of the most critical developmental challenges of our century, HIV/ AIDS, poverty eradication, political reform and economic liberalization.

As our Nation prepares to launch MCA and make this important contribution to human and economic development, we can draw inspiration from countries such Uganda. Uganda progress demonstrates that the developmental challenges confronting Africa are immense but not insurmountable.

Uganda was recognized by the World Bank/IMF as the first IDA or International Development Association country to adopt a comprehensive and participatory national strategy to eradicate poverty. As a result, Uganda's poverty rate dropped from 56 percent to 35 percent over the past 10 years. During this same period, Uganda has maintained a growth rate of over 6.5 percent. Uganda is leading the developing world in addressing its HIV/AIDS rate and its infection rate which fell from 30 percent 10 years ago to less than 7 percent today.

Over the last 12 years primary school enrollment in Uganda increased from 40 percent to 99 percent. This transformation helped Uganda to further distinguish itself as the first country to qualify for the World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Country debt relief initiative or

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we are witnessing today the best of the leadership of the civil rights movement, that of the past and the present, and that of the present and the future, in John Lewis and in Kendrick Meek, a young Congressman who envisioned this hour for America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the many students that traveled all over the country to rally in support of affirmative action. Particularly I would like to acknowledge the many students from my own State, Louisiana, who made the journey. Students from Xavier, Southern, Grambling, Dillard, and throughout Louisiana, let me say I am very proud of you.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said, ``Everyone can be great because everyone can serve.'' It is in this spirit that I have dedicated much of my life to public service, and I found it very encouraging that on April 1, 3 days before the anniversary of Dr. King's death, thousands of students honored him and all that he fought for by actively getting involved and actively serving as well.

Mr. Speaker, it is shocking to observe that 141 years ago, virtually every African American in this country would be somebody else's property. Just think about that: unable to earn, unable to learn, unable to hold wealth. It is this legacy of subjugation, of discrimination, of denial, over 400 years of segregation, that justifies affirmative action today.

If the government, and it did, took race into account to create this legacy of disabilities, then it is the government's responsibility today to take race into account to obliterate them. So it is particularly disappointing that 40 years later, after Dr. King's historic march to Washington, that we as a democratic Nation are still struggling to realize his dream; and 140 years after the emancipation of slavery, there still exists two Americas, separate and unequal, one black and one white. As one student's sign read: ``Surely 400 years of slavery is worth 20 points.''

Without affirmative action, these disparities will likely widen, not only in education, but also in employment and property ownership and income levels. Yet, as Dr. King noted, ``Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror, because while they agree that the Negro,'' as he said, ``should be granted equality, they believe that he should ask for nothing more.''

I cannot tell you how proud I am of all our young men and women who have worked tirelessly in participating in efforts to demonstrate supports of the University of Michigan. Students of all races around the country have worked in some capacity to protest this attack on equal opportunity, realizing that any successful attempt would be a major setback for our society as a whole.

Numerous other students took action and demonstrated and spoke out on their respective college campuses, such as my daughter Akilah and other young people at her college who did not travel to Washington.

I was especially pleased to join the Black Law Students Association from my alma mater, Harvard Law School, as one of several counsel on an amicus brief. This brief was submitted on behalf of the Harvard Black Law Students Association, as well as those from Yale and Stanford.

As I stated then, I believe that we live in a country that affords us great liberties. However, for some Americans, the pursuit of these freedoms is hindered by tremendous barriers. Opportunities for some are limited because of America's sins of the past. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to make conscious attempts to right these wrongs. Hence, initiatives like affirmative action.

Affirmative action in education programs, such as the one at the University of Michigan, looks beyond students' limitations and sees their potential, potential that may be realized if presented the opportunity. More importantly, affirmative actions, like the one at the University of Michigan, benefits not just African American students, but all students.

Mr. Speaker, it promotes a diverse student body, which provides an education that equips our future leaders, both black and white, with the capabilities to successfully function in a diverse society.

Mr. Speaker, it was our hope during the civil rights movement many years ago that we were fighting this battle now so that our sons and daughters would not have to fight it later. And though I am dismayed that still this fight goes on, even today, I am heartened by the tremendous number of fresh soldiers for civil rights, eager, active and capable of engaging in the battle and winning the struggle. I commend them all.

I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) for yielding to me.