Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3996, Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 809 provides for consideration of H.R. 3996, the Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate controlled by the Committee on Ways and Means. The rule makes in order a substitute amendment to be offered by Representative McCrery of Louisiana or his designee. The amendment is debatable for 1 hour.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3996, the Temporary Tax Relief Act. I want to commend the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Congressman CHARLIE RANGEL, for his usual great work on this bill.

And I want to say a special thank you to my good friend and colleague and neighbor from Massachusetts, Congressman RICHIE NEAL, who has been a champion on the issue of the alternative minimum tax for a long, long time. RICHIE NEAL has been the canary in the coal mine, talking about the AMT when nobody else was, and he deserves an enormous amount of credit for his work.

Mr. Speaker, we all know that the alternative minimum tax was never designed to hit middle-class families, but that's exactly what will happen unless Congress acts.

In my district alone, the numbers are staggering. In 2005, 13,000 families were hit with the AMT. That number will jump to nearly 83,000 in 2007, a 517 percent increase, unless we do something about it.

These middle-class workers are struggling with enough problems, skyrocketing fuel costs, higher tuition, higher property taxes, higher child care costs. And for years, President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress passed huge tax cuts for the wealthy, while doing very little or nothing to help hardworking middle-class families. That has to stop, and we're going to stop it today.

My Republican friends on the Rules Committee often like to talk about how strong the economy is, how GDP is growing at such a rate. Well, I agree to a certain point, Mr. Speaker. Somebody is getting pretty rich in this economy, but I would point out that it usually isn't the workers, and they're the ones that make this country great. Last year, the average CEO made 364 times what the average worker did. Just 25 years ago, CEOs made only 42 times more.

So yes, the people at the top are having a blast, but we need to do more for the people in the middle and for those struggling to get into the middle.

This bill before us today not only spares these hardworking families from the AMT, but it does so in a fiscally responsible way, and that is at the heart of the argument before us today.

Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle believe that we should patch the AMT without paying for it. They believe that we should simply add the cost on to our national debt, a debt, by the way, that has now reached $9 trillion. That's trillion with a ``T.''

Of course, this has been their approach for years. The Iraq War? Not paid for. The Bush tax cuts? Not paid for. The Medicare prescription drug benefit? Not paid for.

But, Mr. Speaker, someday, somebody, somewhere is going to have to pay for all of that debt. It's going to be our children and our grandchildren. It's wrong and it's got to stop.

It makes no sense to cut taxes for today's middle-class families just to raise taxes on future middle-class families, but that's exactly the kind of debt tax that my Republican friends would like to enact.

My friends believe that these tax cuts pay for themselves. They believe that the magic money fairy will drop revenue from the sky with rainbows and butterflies. But in the real world, actions have consequences. The Massachusetts families that I am honored to represent have to make tough choices, and Congress has to make some tough choices, too.

These PAYGO rules that Democrats have enacted are tough. This new fiscal discipline isn't easy, but it's the right thing to do. And rescuing tens of thousands of families in my district from the pain of the AMT is also the right thing to do.

I thank my colleagues for their hard work, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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