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The Homestead Act authorized the transfer of 160 acre parcels of federal land to private owners. The Gross Homestead is 160.8 acres. A tree, both Daniel and Douglas Gross remember being used as a survey marker when they were boys, was examined in 1989 and found to have a flat face blazed into the wood approximately 50 years
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This family has lived on, and made use of this land for 70 years. It is time for them to be named the legal title holders, and to complete the already started process of shuffling paper.
By Mr. ROTH (for himself, Mr. MOYNIHAN, Mr. GRASSLEY, Mr. BAUCUS, Mr. HATCH, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Mr. MURKOWSKI, Mr. BREAUX, Mr. JEFFORDS, Mr. CONRAD, Mr. MACK, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. THOMPSON, Mr. KERREY, Mr. ROBB, and Mr. BRYAN):
S. 3152. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for distressed areas, and for other purposes; read the first time.
COMMUNITY RENEWAL AND NEW MARKETS ACT OF 2000
Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, today I am, along with 14 cosponsors from the Finance Committee, introducing a Community Renewal tax reduction bill that will help all America benefit from today's economic boom.
As you know, the House bill embodies an agreement between the House and the Administration. Personally, I think that it would be wrong for the Senate to be silent in this process. It is important for this body to at least have a voice in crafting this legislation.
While I would have preferred that this legislation to have been reported from the Finance Committee, I believe my bill represents the Committee's will. It is largely composed of the Chairman's mark and amendments submitted by the Committee's members. Every Member of the Finance Committee had input into this bill. In the regular course of Finance Committee business, we would have reported this bill out of the Committee with an overwhelming vote in support. And the fact that 15 members on both sides of the aisle have joined me as original cosponsors, I believe, attests to the Finance Committee's approval of this legislation.
It goes without saying that America's communities are important. I believe that there are many ways in which we can extend help to them. I also feel that any time we can work together with the Administration to cut taxes we must try and see it to fruition.
While I listened to the concerns of every senator--both on and off the Finance committee--who approached me with a provision in which they were interested, I did not incorporate them all. I did not because I could not without the cost of the bill growing out of control. It is important that we not forget communities that may not have received as much as others from America's economic boom. However, it is also important that we consider the size of this bill in the context of other tax relief priorities that remain. These other priorities are marriage tax relief, retirement security, education, estate tax relief, small business tax relief, and other items. Community renewal tax relief must fit within the overall framework of the tax relief agenda.
This Finance Committee bill is fair and it is in line with the revenue loss of the package, proposed by Senators SANTORUM, ABRAHAM, and LIEBERMAN, which was considered earlier this year in the Senate. In designing this bill, members of the Finance Committee decided not to turn this bill into a grab bag of special interest provisions.
This Finance Committee bill includes a variety of proposals that will further the bill's goals of community renewal--rationalizing and simplifying what was and, was proposed to be, a hodge-podge of often conflicting provisions. It includes an immediate--let me emphasize immediate--increase in the volume caps for low-income housing tax credits and private activity bonds. It also addresses many, many important problems left out of the House and Administration proposal. Among other things, this package contains an energy and conservation component, a farm relief component, an Individual Development Account proposal, an extension of the adoption credit and the enhanced deduction for computer donations, a program to develop high speed rail around the country, and a broadband Internet incentive that will make sure that no one gets left on the wrong side of the digital divide.
One provision that I particularly want to talk about is the tax credit for renovating historic homes. This was one of Senator John Chafee's signature items and I am pleased to include it in the Finance Committee bill, not only because I support it, but as a tribute to our good friend. We all know that if he were here, he would have fought hard for this tax incentive.
In fact, Senator LINCOLN CHAFEE came to see me earlier this year. LINCOLN told that in his dad's last speech, John talked about the importance of the tax credit and said that it was something he wanted to get done before he left the Senate. Unfortunately, he is not with us today, but hopefully we can complete this unfinished business for him.
This is a fair package and a generous package. I believe it is one that this Senate should feel comfortable embracing. I hope each of you who has not done so, will do so.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, last week the Finance Committee was scheduled to mark up the ``Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000,'' but the legislation became burdened by extraneous matters, and the Committee was unable to complete the mark-up. I rise today to join my good friend and Chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator ROTH, in introducing the ``Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000'' as an original bill with 15 cosponsors from the Finance Committee.
Sir, we all should be grateful for Senator ROTH's leadership in this matter. Community renewal is an effort to rebuild American communities, which is based on an agreement reached between the President and the Speaker of the House that this is legislation we ought to have. The signals are clear: the legislation will be enacted this year with or without us. Today, Senator ROTH and I give a voice in this process to the Finance Committee and the Senate.
Mr. President, this bill represents the will of the Finance Committee. It incorporates the worthwhile ideas of its members, including the work of my good friend, Senator ROBB, who, along with Senator ROCKEFELLER, has worked tirelessly to provide meaningful incentives for investment in distressed communities.
I also take a moment of the Senate's time to echo Senator ROTH's tribute to Senator John Chafee. It is fitting that we should enact, in a bipartisan bill, the tax credit for renovating historic homes in honor of a great Senator.
Substantively, the Community Renewal legislation is significant in several respects. First, it provides a notable measure of tax simplification, even as it accomplishes a worthwhile goal--tax benefits for investment in poor communities. While the bill designates 30 new ``Renewal Zones,'' it also conforms the tax incentives available to individuals and businesses investing in any of the zone designations, current or future. Our legislation smartly unifies these Empowerment and Renewal Zones and creates a common set of incentives. This is the right kind of legislation.
I also note, Mr. President, with some appreciation, two provisions that will make transportation and data transmission very quick indeed. The bill includes provisions to accelerate and expand access to high-technology infrastructure for all communities. First, it authorizes $10 billion of tax credit bonds for Amtrak to develop high-speed railways. High-speed railways have the potential to connect the very communities targeted by this legislation and provide them with greater access to information.
Second, the bill includes a proposal that I first introduced on June 8, 2000. That proposal, which now has 52 Senate supporters, provides graduated tax credits for deployment of high-speed communications--called ``broadband'' --to residential and rural communities. Current market forces are driving deployment of broadband technology almost exclusively to urban businesses and wealthy households. The proposal in the bill will encourage broadband providers to act quickly to deploy broadband to Americans in all communities.
Mr. President, if you will allow me one further observation, as I am compelled to compliment the bill in one other respect. Consistent with the purpose of this legislation, it includes a
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Mr. President, I again applaud the leadership of our revered Chairman and proudly join him in introducing the Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000.
Mr. MACK. Mr. President, as a co-sponsor of the Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000, I want to commend Chairman ROTH for his usual fine work in assembling a bill that garners the support of such a large number of our Finance Committee colleagues. I am pleased that a number of items in this bill are provisions that are extremely important to me, and I would like to speak briefly concerning them.
But I also want to draw attention to some provisions in this bill that I do not favor. As this bill stands in the place of what would have been a bill reported out of the Committee on Finance, it reflects the compromises that are inherent in the committee process. Unlike typical bills, of which it is reasonable to assume that every provision is supported by every co-sponsor, probably every co-sponsor of this bill can find provisions contained in it that he does not support. Of many, there are two that I find most troubling: the ``new markets tax credit,'' and the ``individual development accounts.''
These two provisions are appropriations masquerading as tax cuts. Under the new markets tax credit, the Secretary of the Treasury would annually pay dividends to investors in ``community development entities,'' which must be certified by the Treasury Department and which must have as their primary mission investing in low-income people or communities. This proposal is premised on the belief that an entity that lacks a profit-motive, under federal bureaucratic supervision, will be an attractive investment for people if dividends are guaranteed. It is the sort of scheme that could only be dreamed up by people who have spent their entire careers in government. A simpler way to direct capital to investment-starved pockets is by eliminating the tax on capital gains--this is the decentralized, market-oriented approach.
The ``individual development accounts'' would launder government-matching funds for low income savers through financial institutions. This new entitlement cannot be justified. It is true that, by some measures, the savings rate in the United States appears low. Simple logic dictates that the savings rate have been lowered due to federal tax policies, which impose several layers of taxation upon income that is saved. It is one thing to address this problem at the source, by removing the extra taxation on savings--a we do to the extent that people can make deductible contributions to traditional IRAs and contributions to Roth IRAs. But to give people money to reward them for saving is pure income redistribution, a misuse of the taxpayers' money.
Despite my disagreement with some of the provisions of this bill, I am pleased that the bill contains several initiatives that I have proposed over the past few Congresses. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit is boosted to make up for over a decade's worth of inflation, and is indexed to prevent this problem from reoccurring. The First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit for the District of Columbia is extended and the marriage penalty in the credit is eliminated. Section 1706 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which discriminates against high technology workers and the companies that hire them, is repealed. Not-for-hire disaster insurance funds, in my state of Florida and several others, are made tax-exempt entities.
I am most encouraged by the extension of my zero percent capital gains tax rate proposal to businesses in the entire District of Columbia, and to businesses in all empowerment and renewal zones. Although I am concerned that the lengthy, five-year holding period is unwise and undermines the power of the proposal, I am nevertheless pleased that the idea is spreading and people are coming to see capitalism as the only true cure for poverty.
Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, along with Senator MOYNIHAN and the other members of the committee I ask unanimous consent that S. 3152, the Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000 be printed in the RECORD. I also ask unanimous consent that a technical explanation of S. 3152, which has been prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation, be printed in the RECORD, at a cost of $4,290.00, immediately following the text of the bill.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; ETC.
(a) SHORT TITLE.--This Act may be cited as the ``Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000''.
(b) AMENDMENT OF 1986 CODE.--Except as otherwise expressly provided, whenever in this Act an amendment or repeal is expressed in terms of an amendment to, or repeal of, a section or other provision, the reference shall be considered to be made to a section or other provision of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(c) TABLE OF CONTENTS.--
Sec..1..Short title; etc.
TITLE I--INCENTIVES FOR DISTRESSED COMMUNITIES
Subtitle A--Designation and Treatment of Renewal Zones
Sec..101..Designation and treatment of renewal zones.
Subtitle B--Modification of Incentives for Empowerment Zones
Sec..111..Extension of empowerment zone treatment through 2009.
Sec..112..15 percent employment credit for all empowerment zones
Sec..113..Increased expensing under section 179.
Sec..114..Higher limits on tax-exempt empowerment zone facility bonds.
Sec..115..Empowerment zone capital gain.
Sec..116..Funding for Round II empowerment zones.
Subtitle C--Modification of Tax Incentives for DC Zone
Sec..121..Extension of DC zone through 2006.
Sec..122..Extension of DC zero percent capital gains rate.
Sec..123..Gross income test for DC zone businesses.
Sec..124..Expansion of DC homebuyer tax credit.
Subtitle D--New Markets Tax Credit
Sec..131..New markets tax credit.
Subtitle E--Modification of Tax Incentives for Puerto Rico
Sec..141..Modification of Puerto Rico economic activity tax credit.
Subtitle F--Individual Development Accounts
Sec..151..Definitions.
Sec..152..Structure and administration of qualified individual development account programs.
Sec..153..Procedures for opening an individual development account and qualifying for matching funds.
Sec..154..Contributions to individual development accounts.
Sec..155..Deposits by qualified individual development account programs.
Sec..156..Withdrawal procedures.
Sec..157..Certification and termination of qualified individual development account programs.
Sec..158..Reporting, monitoring, and evaluation.
Sec..159..Account funds of program participants disregarded for purposes of certain means-tested Federal programs.
Sec..160..Matching funds for individual development accounts provided through a tax credit for qualified financial institutions.
Sec..161..Designation of earned income tax credit payments for deposit to individual development accounts.
Subtitle G--Additional Incentives
Sec..171..Exclusion of certain amounts received under the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program and the F..Edward Hebert Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship and Financial Assistance Program.
Sec..172..Extension of enhanced deduction for corporate donations of computer technology.
Sec..173..Extension of adoption tax credit.
Sec..174..Tax treatment of Alaska Native Settlement Trusts.
Sec..175..Treatment of Indian tribal governments under Federal Unemployment Tax Act.
Sec..176..Increase in social services block grant for FY 2001.
TITLE II--TAX INCENTIVES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Subtitle A--Low-Income Housing Credit
Sec..201..Modification of State ceiling on low-income housing credit.
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Sec..202..Modification to rules relating to basis of building which is eligible for credit.
Subtitle B--Historic Homes
Sec..211..Tax credit for renovating historic homes.
Subtitle C--Forgiven Mortgage Obligations
Sec..221..Exclusion from gross income for certain forgiven mortgage obligations.
Subtitle D--Mortgage Revenue Bonds
Sec..231..Increase in purchase price limitation under mortgage subsidy bond rules based on median family income.
Sec..232..Mortgage financing for residences located in presidentially declared disaster areas.
Subtitle E--Property and Casualty Insurance
Sec..241..Exemption from income tax for State-created organizations providing property and casualty insurance for property for which such coverage is otherwise unavailable.
TITLE III--TAX INCENTIVES FOR URBAN AND RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Sec..301..Increase in State ceiling on private activity bonds.
Sec..302..Modifications to expensing of environmental remediation costs.
Sec..303..Broadband internet access tax credit.
Sec..304..Credit to holders of qualified Amtrak bonds.
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