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There is no better savings incentive than a match on a contribution. As

[Page: H6447]  GPO's PDF

   Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to be sure I am clear. The same House leadership that said we could afford to give Bill Gates a massive tax cut this year, said that we cannot afford to provide tax incentives for middle and lower income working families to save for their retirement; is that correct?

   Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Speaker, that is precisely the sorry circumstance that this issue presents. They said we could not afford it. We could not afford to take a family making $30,000 trying to save for retirement, we could not give them a tax cut. So that if they get $2,000 into an IRA, we give them a tax credit of $1,000, representing essentially a 50 percent match on their contribution. There is no better savings incentive than an employer match through this tax cut to middle income families. We could essentially give them an Uncle Sam match, helping them save for retirement. They said we could not afford it.

   I cannot think of anything more important than helping middle income families save for retirement. That is what ought to be the priority. We need to help people save for their later years before we get around to aiding Bill Gates with his estate dilemma.

   Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comment. The question is, if we have a certain amount of tax cuts to provide, who are we going to give them to? I think the American people ought to ask, whose side is Congress on? Are we going to be on the side of the working folks that are struggling or the wealthiest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans who have already gotten a substantial tax cut over the last several years?

   I again yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. THURMAN).

[Time: 19:45]

   Mrs. THURMAN. In my former life I was a math teacher, so we could play a little game here, if Members would like to. I think it would be very advantageous, because I think it can show really significantly that we are not against tax cuts, and that we have offered to the other side to negotiate and participate in these issues, but the question is as to how it is going to happen.

   Let me say to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. POMEROY), we had the marriage tax penalty on the floor here today, $182 billion, the alternative is $90 billion, somewhere around there, that would have really taken away the tax penalty for marriage, okay?

   If my numbers are right and we did this tax credit that the gentleman is talking about for folks, $30,000, $40,000.

   Mr. POMEROY. All the way up to $80,000 on the Committee on Ways and Means bill.

   Mrs. THURMAN. If I remember correctly, the number that was given as kind of the estimate without being scored was about $50 billion. So if I take 50 from 184 that leaves me 134, so I still now have $44 billion. I could pay for this pension part, and I still have $44 billion to kind of work with here. Because if I really just want to take care of the marriage tax penalty, I only really need $90 billion.

   So what is the next issue? Well, we could only squeeze out of this surplus $50 billion, or I am sorry, $40 billion for prescription drugs. Right? That is it. We are going to send it to those HMOs that are pulling out of all of our districts. We are going to give subsidies to insurance companies who do not even want to give a drug bill. Correct?

   So if we took that $44 billion and transferred it over to the $40 billion that we already have, we could potentially get to a negotiation. That is just the marriage tax. That is compromise. That is looking at numbers. That is understanding that we can do both. We do not have to just do one.

   All we have said to them, and have reached over there and said is, give us a chance to talk about this. But no, we come to this floor just before convention time, just before everybody wants to go home and talk about these tax cuts. The fact of the matter is, we could do it for a lot of people.

   So I now have $90 billion in marriage tax, I now have $88 billion for the prescription drug, and we have another $50 billion to help people have security in their paychecks when they retire, and we have not even talked about the estate tax. But there is a compromise.

   Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for making the point, which is our third question tonight. That is, does the Republican proposal for tax cuts this year, does that actually crowd out other major national priorities?

   I think the answer to that question is yes, just as the answer to our other question, are their proposed tax cuts irresponsible fiscally and are they unfair to average working families, is yes.

   Let me talk as a member of the Committee on Appropriations about the values reflected by the choices made in this House, because it is not a free lunch. As they have proposed their massive tax cuts, they have proposed to tighten the belts of a few folks as we try to enhance Bill Gates' and Ted Turner's and Steve Forbes' substantial wealth.

   Let us look at who has been asked to tighten their belts.

   First, Republicans on my Committee on Appropriations suggest a 60 percent cut in the Legal Services Corporation . So while we come to this House floor and put our hands over our hearts and say pledge of allegiance to the flag every day when we are in session, and finish with ``liberty and justice for all,'' we are giving some liberty enhancing the wealth of Bill Gates, but we are denying justice for the lower-income woman who has been the victim of abuse by her husband, who walked out and left her trying to support her children. They wanted to cut the Legal Services Corporation .

   In the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development in the Committee on Appropriations on which I serve, we had to make an arbitrary decision of no new flood construction projects anywhere in the country. If one's community is at risk for massive flooding, because of these massive proposed tax cuts, we cannot offer that community a national responsibility, and that is to prevent flood damage and perhaps even injury and death in the community.

   They proposed that we kill the President's program to bring in 100,000 new teachers, so we can have qualified teachers and smaller classrooms throughout America. That went out the window because of the cost of these massive tax cuts.

   For example, the estate tax, 100 percent of the benefits go to only 2 percent of American families.

   We have had to cut back on the President's proposal for school modernization, to bring our public elementary schools up to safe standards that local communities would require for safety for people of any age, much less children. We have reduced funding for basic science research.

   As someone who cares deeply, along with Members of the Republican and Democratic Caucus in this House, cares deeply about our national defense and our men and women serving in uniform, this House, which originates or has the responsibility for originating spending bills, could not find the money to get soldiers and airmen and Marines off of food stamps, but we could give Bill Gates a tax cut.

   It goes on and on and on. One in 13 seniors throughout America, including in my district, have to make a decision sometime during this year whether to adequately purchase food or their prescription drugs their doctors say they need for health. Yet the Republican leadership says, no, we can afford these tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of families, but we cannot afford that expensive old Democratic prescription Medicare drug program that is going to help seniors not have to choose between eating properly or taking their medicine properly.

   So my point is that it is not a free lunch. These proposed tax cuts not only are fiscally irresponsible, they are not only skewed to the wealthiest Americans and not average working families, they end up costing average working families. They are also crowding out our opportunity with today's budget surplus, our opportunity to help folks like senior citizens who need help with prescription drugs.

[Page: H6448]  GPO's PDF

   Their proposals crowd out our ability to protect the solvency of the social security and Medicare trust fund.

   So there is a tremendous cost for these proposals. I think when the American people recognize the cost of these so-called free lunch tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, I think they are going to be outraged by it.

   Mr. POMEROY. If the gentleman will yield further, Mr. Speaker, for my final participation tonight in the special order, and I still commend the gentleman for hosting it, as we look at this in context we can only conclude that the totality of what they are doing is not responsible, does not pay down the debt as its first priority, and depends upon 10-year projections. Who knows whether we are going to hit those projections or not?

   It is not fair and is hopelessly skewed to the wealthiest families, leaving the rest getting pennies while the wealthiest few come out like bandits under this proposal.

   Finally, it crowds out doing what we ought to do for middle American families.

   Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. POMEROY) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. THURMAN) for their participation on this vital national issue.

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