The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“FAMILY TAX RELIEF IMPORTANT FOR AMERICA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4086-H4087 on April 3, 1995.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FAMILY TAX RELIEF IMPORTANT FOR AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee today to discuss the importance of family tax relief. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, how must I appreciate your personal commitment to the American family and your leadership in promoting legislation which strengthens and empowers American families.
The intact family is our country's most effective government--the most effective department of housing, the most effective department of education, the most effective department of human services, and the most effective department of labor.
The family is the fundamental unit of society, the guardian of our social fabric and primary conveyor of values. Yet it has been under attack by an unsympathetic government. We could not have devised more antifamily public policy--to the end of undermining the traditional American family--than if we had sat down and consciously designed such a plan.
We have taxed them until both parents have to work in the job market, regardless if one wishes to stay at home and rear the children. The average family of four now spends 38 percent of its income on taxes--
more than it spends on food, clothing, housing and recreation combined.
We have allowed the value of the dependent exemption to erode over time until it is worth only a fraction of what it was 40 years ago. In effect we have said that children and families are of less value than they were in the last generation.
We have allowed a marriage penalty to exist in our tax law that sends the undeniable signal to our citizens that marriage isn't really all that important.
We have codified inequitable IRA tax provisions that say a spouse in the marketplace is more valuable to society than one in the home.
We have created a costly and bureaucratic adoption system that leaves thousands of adoptable children in less stable and secure environments than they could be enjoying.
[[Page H4087]] And we have defended a welfare system that offers cash subsidies to unmarried teen-age mothers.
Why are we than surprised when family break-up becomes commonplace, dysfunctional families are routine and 1 out of 3 children born in America are born out of wedlock?
If it were a foreign government that had imposed these policies, it would be regarded as an act of war.
It is not too much to expect that government be the friend, not the foe, of the family. One critical step toward that goal is the passage of the $500 per-child tax credit. Seventy-four percent of this tax relief would go to families with incomes under 75,000. it is progressive and would be worth a lot more to the cuy with a lunch bucket than to the corporate executive in the country club dining room.
This $500 per-child tax credit would shift power and money from Washington bureaucrats and return it to the moms and dads of middle America.
For a middle class family of four that $1,000 could mean the difference in whether both parents have to work, it could mean the difference in whether health care premiums can be paid, it could mean clothing costs for an entire year, it could mean the down payment for the cost of a collage education or it could mean a trip to the pizza parlor once a week, but it should be the families' choice not ours.
Please remember family tax relief is not a new spending program, not a new entitlement, not a give away from the Government. It is simply allowing the American family to keep something that already belongs to them--more of their earned income. The time for family tax relief is now. Forty-five million American families making less than $75,000 a year would receive meaningful relief from the heavy burden of taxation. The American family is tired of high sounding rhetoric and empty speeches about family values while policy makers kick them in the teeth again by saying ``we can't afford it now.'' We can't afford not to do it now. Our national security is intertwined with family security. Strong and secure families mean a strong and secure society.
{time} 1945
Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am glad to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. STUPAK. I just had a question, Mr. Speaker. In your statement you indicated that the person would be better off under your tax plan because he would have more money in his pocket. Yet how do you justify the gentleman with the lunch bucket paying Federal taxes, and yet your tax bill repealed the alternative minimum corporate tax, so the corporations do not have to pay their taxes? How would that help the gentleman with the lunch bucket?
Mr. HUTCHINSON. I am referring specifically to the $500 tax provision, the tax break we offer for the children. I think it is clear that someone in the middle and low income is going to benefit a lot more than someone eating in the corporate dining room.
Mr. STUPAK. I am asking about the corporate tax repeal.
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