Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2009 -- Continued

Floor Speech

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009--Continued -- (Senate - March 11, 2008)

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Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, as my friend from Iowa is leaving the floor, I thank him for his incredible leadership on children's health insurance and the bipartisan way we came together around that measure. We hope to be able to do it again because we have millions of children and families who are still waiting for children to be able to receive health insurance.

I wish to speak, though, as a cosponsor of the Baucus amendment, to the middle-class tax relief amendment, which is so significant. I find it interesting: my friend from Iowa was referring to a chart that related to the payment limitation issue, with 73 percent of the benefits going to 10 percent of the farmers, where you could cross that out and put President Bush's tax cuts at the top, and you could have the very same kind of ratio or even more of a difference. You could take estate tax repeal and put that up there and have the very same kind of ratio. So I hope when we get to a debate of a permanent extension--which I understand is coming--of the President's tax cuts, that we will see that same kind of concern about where tax benefits are going in America. I have middle-class families, working families who are still waiting, frankly, to receive the benefits they have heard so much about.

That is what this amendment, the Baucus amendment, is all about: focusing on the extension and addition of tax cuts for middle-class families and for our brave men and women who are serving in harm's way right now around the globe, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families. This is a very important amendment.

Let me start by saying what we want to address is the situation that is now occurring. We want to change what is now occurring as it relates to tax policy. Last year, in 2007, those who were earning more than $1 million a year received a tax cut of $119,557. So, roughly, it is fair to say $120,000 in average tax cuts for somebody earning over $1 million a year. That is more than twice what the average hard-working person in Michigan is earning, the paycheck that they are earning every single year.

What we are seeing across the country are folks in the middle class being squeezed on all sides and actually seeing their incomes going down. Too many times we are seeing jobs being lost overseas. We are seeing people being asked to take less in terms of a paycheck. But gasoline now is projected to be inching up toward $4 a gallon, if my colleagues can believe it. Health care costs are going up. The cost of college is going up. Everything is going up, while wages, for most people, are either staying the same or going down.

So when we talk about where we want to focus tax cuts for this country, it ought to be the folks who are working hard every day, who love this country and want to have the American dream available for themselves and their families but have not seen the tax cuts that have been talked about so much by the administration. So that is what this amendment talks about. Instead of $120,000 a year for somebody earning over $1 million, let's focus on middle-class families.

The Baucus amendment would permanently extend the 10-percent income tax bracket. Everybody would get relief, but proportionately it would be relief for low- and moderate-income families. It would extend the refundable child tax credit. We want to make sure those families who have more than one child--two, three, four children or more--are able to benefit from the child tax credit. The marriage penalty--we want to make sure that is extended. Certainly, we ought not to be in America penalizing folks because they are married when it comes to their tax returns. This permanently extends marriage penalty tax relief.

We also permanently extend the tax credit for childcare expenses. No one who has a child in America today will speak about childcare expenses as a frill. It is a necessity. If we care about children, children's well-being, and families, we need to make sure we are recognizing that childcare expenses are a very important and expensive cost for families, and we need to address that by permanently extending the tax credit for childcare expenses.

We also permanently extend the increased adoption tax credit. We want to make sure families who are reaching out to children, who want to be able to adopt a child, have support and incentive to do that. Certainly, the biggest incentive is that beautiful baby, but we want to make sure the Tax Code will help them with their costs and expenses as well. Again, this is a pro-family, pro-children, pro-middle class amendment. I am hopeful it is one that we are all going to embrace.

We all want to bring certainty to the estate tax law. No one, I believe, wants to see in 2010 the old law take place. We don't want to have uncertainty for families, for family farms, and small businesses. This permanently extends the tax relief that has already been adopted, the tax cuts that have already been adopted.

Something else is very important for families right now as they are struggling to keep their homes. We are all very focused and have spent time on the floor talking about what we need to do. Senator Reid has put forward a very important proposal addressing what we can do to help with the home crisis and so many families losing their homes. This particular amendment includes a first of its kind standard deduction for property taxes for Americans who don't itemize on their Federal income tax returns but would allow them a tax deduction for their property taxes. This is a very important piece for supporting families who are working hard to be able to literally keep their home.

The other provision that is so significant is to focus on those things that are needed in the Tax Code to support our brave men and women who are serving us in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and around the globe. We have men and women now who are on third and fourth redeployments. They have made tremendous sacrifices, and their families are as well, and we need to be doing everything we can to support them. So this does a number of things. It has a permanent allowance for soldiers to count their nontaxable combat pay when they figure in the earned-income tax credit, so they can get the benefit of the earned-income tax credit for low-income working families. We provide a tax cut for small businesses that are paying some of the salary of the members of the National Guard and Reserve who are called to duty. Again, we have families now that are really at a point of desperation trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage, how to keep going, and we have so many small businesses that are being supportive, and we want to recognize that and give them some support as well.

A permanent allowance for all veterans to use qualified mortgage bonds to purchase their homes, again, is another way to help people be able to purchase homes, to be able to do what we all want, which is to have a home, save through the equity of a home, and be able to live a good life in America.

We also have created the ability for Active-Duty troops to withdraw monies from retirement plans without penalty. This is very important, when people unfortunately now have dipped into savings. They may have a home equity loan going on and they find themselves in strapped situations and we ought to allow them to take their savings and retirement plans without penalty to be able to help them pay the bills.

We have an extension of a provision that gives retired veterans more time to claim a tax refund. Under certain disability benefit payments, the ability for families of reservists killed in the line of duty to be able to collect life insurance and other benefits provided by civilian employers and the ability for families of soldiers killed in the line of duty to contribute 100 percent of survivor benefits to retirement savings accounts or education savings accounts. This is a very important part of this amendment that pays tribute to those who have been asked to sacrifice the most, whether it be someone bravely serving right now in the war, someone who has come home disabled, or the family of someone who did not come home.

We are debating a budget resolution right now and talking about who receives benefits and where we have to make hard choices. The folks who have made the toughest choices are the folks who are serving us, serving our country in war halfway around the world. I have a lot of folks who are in this category of getting the more than $120,000 a year in tax cuts this last year who have said to me: I don't need it. I earn over $1 million a year. I don't need this. Give this to the men and women who are serving us. Help pay for the war so that we are not paying for it on a credit card or make sure our veterans have the health care they need when they come home or make sure we fund a GI bill that Senator Webb has introduced that would provide educational opportunities for the men and women who have come home from this war that so far has lasted 5 years.

So there are many wonderful people who love our country who are saying this kind of a tax system where those who make less than $100,000 a year get $674, but if you make $1 million a year or more you get $120,000 in a tax cut, just doesn't make sense. In my opinion, it doesn't represent the great values of America, our values and priorities, what we are all about in this country. We are not about having a system where a privileged few receive all of the benefits, while we are asking so many others to sacrifice and to be able to be required, unfortunately, on too many occasions now, to lay down their lives for their country.

So I hope the Baucus amendment is passed overwhelmingly. Then I hope we say no to what I believe will be an additional amendment, which would extend this tax policy. It would extend it out. With a war unpaid for, with the massive debt that we have in our country, the obligations to our veterans and their families when they come home, we do not need to extend a tax policy that has given so many of our precious resources to a blessed few people in our country, many of whom are asking us, in fact, not to do that.

So I thank our leader on the Budget Committee for all of his wonderful leadership, as well as the ranking member.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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