Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008

Floor Speech

ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX RELIEF ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - September 24, 2008)

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Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I suspect that after many decades of stellar public service, this will be one of the last times that we see our good friend from Buffalo (Mr. Reynolds) who served ably as a member of the Rules Committee for many years and now as a member of the Ways and Means Committee actually manage a measure on the floor. I would like to thank him for his wonderful public service and to say that we are very pleased to be here with this very important measure.

I don't want to be the skunk at a picnic, but I have to point to a couple of very, very important issues. I listened to my good friend from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) talk about the fact that Mr. Neal has moved forward with a measure that is paid for. The fact of the matter is we are waiving PAYGO on this provision which will allow us to deal with this patch for the AMT relief.

We all know back in 1969, 155 millionaires were the target of the alternative minimum tax, as was pointed out by my friend from Houston (Mr. Brady). The fact is, the indexation has created a situation whereby millions and millions and millions of Americans are now saddled with this responsibility.

Madam Speaker, what we heard time and time again was that in this new Congress, we were going to have everything paid for. I find it interestingly ironic that here, as we deal with the alternative minimum tax, this measure, we have suspended the rules and waived PAYGO on this. Yet we did not choose to do that when we dealt with the very important issue that the American people wanted us to try to address, and that is to bring gasoline prices down with a responsible energy bill.

We chose to waive it for the farm bill. Unfortunately, again, on the gas issue, we didn't waive it there, and we are waiving it again here.

I would also like to point to the fact that my good friend from New Jersey talked about the fact that his State, I guess, has the third highest number of people impacted by the alternative minimum tax. The issue of repealing the alternative minimum tax is a high priority for many of us. I believe that it should be completely eliminated.

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Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend.

Let me say that I believe it's important for us to remember that a very short 8 years ago, in 1999, the House and the Senate passed a repeal of the alternative minimum tax. Unfortunately, President Clinton at that time chose to veto that measure.

We can get into the issue of paid for or not paid for, but it's interesting that the measure we are considering today is basically under the same structure that we in 1999 passed the repeal of the alternative minimum tax out under and President Clinton chose to veto it at that point.

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