Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I would add also, Mr. Speaker, that Senator Lott in his Republican plan early this year, just like the Contract With America, also promised that child credit to that Georgia policeman. So now all of a sudden the Republican leadership has changed its mind, because they want to give that money to the fat cats, to their wealthy contributors.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely. The gentlewoman pointed out, we were only talking about Federal taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes. That Georgia policeman is probably paying property taxes. He may be paying other State or local taxes. They are saying he is on welfare.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I voted for the balanced budget resolution, and I know that both Democrats and Republicans in this House believe strongly in a balanced budget. But this proposal the Republicans have put forward today is not fair to working class, middle-class, people; it is not fair to seniors, and it is not fair to children, and I want to tell my colleagues why. These tax cuts that the Republicans have proposed, they are for the wealthy, wealthy individuals and corporations. They are not helping the working middle class person. The person who needs that child tax credit in many cases is not going to get it even though they are working, sometimes two parents working. The person who needs that college credit, either a tuition tax deduction or a hope scholarship program, that money is not going to be fulfilled. What the President promised is not in this. The Republicans have broken the deal, and they are not giving middle-class and working-class people that college tuition break that they were expecting as part of this deal. And Medicare, Medicare for seniors, we were promised this was going to be solvent and we were going to work toward the solvency. They have put in, the Republicans, provisions that will break the Medicare Program.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for what he said about the reason we need to propose this Democratic alternative is because the Republicans have offered just a straight block grant. It does not mandate that these funds go to the children who need it. It gives too much discretion to the Governors who might use this money to fund other huge gaps created by this bill, like the unfair cuts to disproportionate share hospitals also known as DSH hospitals. The Democratic Health Care Task Force has a plan, an alternative that contains four elements: First, incentives for States to cover children under 19 years of age in families with less than $24,000 in income and pregnant women and infants in families with incomes up to $30,000 through an enhanced Medicaid match. Second, we have a Medikids grant for States to help middle- and low- income families to purchase private insurance or participate in a State-sponsored expanded Medicaid package. Third, we improve outreach efforts to ensure that nearly 3 million children eligible for Medicaid that are not enrolled in the program sign up for health insurance coverage. And, fourth, insurance reforms to require private insurance companies to provide health care policies for children at reasonable premiums. This four-pronged approach takes what we feel are the most positive aspects in Medicaid matching grants and private insurance reforms. It assists middle- and low-income families by providing affordable health insurance for their children. It assures that children are covered by an adequate benefits package and it provides that proper balance of State flexibility with public accountability. I urge my colleagues to support the motion to recommit so that this House has a real opportunity to address the needs of the 10 million uninsured children in our country.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee]. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Eshoo].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Furse].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Berry], one of my colleagues on the Democratic Health Care Task Force which put together a very comprehensive program to reach and cover the 10 million children that are uninsured.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy]. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, the best way for me to illustrate the flaws that are contained in this bill is to focus on the harm it does to our Nation's children. Beginning with children's health care, a majority of this House, myself included, voted for the balanced budget resolution which promised $16 billion to cover five million of the 10 million uninsured children in America today. But even though most of us wanted to cover all 10 million, we felt that acting in good faith we could get to 5 million now and then address the remaining later on. Well, guess what, Mr. Speaker, this bill does not even cover 1 million children. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Republican leadership's proposal would provide coverage for about half a million children. The CBO assumes that much of the 16 billion will be passed on to hospitals and other providers who get shafted under this plan and basically not to purchase health insurance for children. The Republican leadership, in effect, which is purporting to be the party of fiscal conservatism, takes $16 billion and, in my opinion, throws it away. The Democrats offered several alternatives to this impotent policy. First we sought to plug up the so-called direct services loophole that lets a State spend its money on purposes other than insuring kids. The Republicans defeated that amendment in the Committee on Commerce. Then Democrats proposed to expand Medicaid and outreach to cover more kids with an existing health insurance program that already works. We know that Medicaid works, but the Republicans said no to that too in the Committee on Commerce. And finally we put forward a proposal by the Democratic Caucus Health Care Task Force, a comprehensive approach to expand Medicaid, give States matching grants to cover kids above the income levels that qualify for Medicaid and require private insurance companies to provide kids only policies at reasonable costs, and the Republicans shot that down too in the Committee on Commerce and again in the Committee on Rules when we proposed it the other day. We are considering a bill today which violates the balanced budget agreement and which I supported as did most of my colleagues here. The bill we are considering today takes health care money away from children, it does not expand health care, it takes it away from children. This is not what we intended when we supported the balanced budget agreement, so we will not support this bill today. It is just another Republican attempt to cost shift, and unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the cost shift is right on the backs of our Nation's children. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Levin]. (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, based on what was said before, it appears that the Republicans have significantly more time, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, sometimes a cartoon says it all, and over the weekend a cartoon appeared in the Home News and Tribune and the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey and its message was right on target. It shows two characters from the TV show ``The Simpsons" both reading the newspaper with the headline, ``GOP Tax Plan''; but Mr. Burns, as a representative of the rich, says, ``Excellent,'' while Homer Simpson, as the symbol for the middle class, can only respond by saying ``Duh.'' This really sums up the way the American people will react to the tax bill being pushed by our Republican colleagues. If taxpayers happen to be wealthy, if they are somebody who does not have to worry too much about making ends meet or paying for their kids's education, then this plan is for them. If, on the other hand, they are part of the vast majority of the American people in the middle class or the lower end of the income scale and they could use a little help, well, under the GOP plan they are just out of luck. Another generalistic analysis appeared in yesterday's New York Times under the headline ``Study Shows Tax Proposal Would Benefit the Wealthy,'' with the subhead, ``Wider gap is seen between rich and poor.'' The Times reports that the 5 million wealthiest families in our country would gain thousands of dollars, while the 40 million families with the lowest incomes would actually lose money, with the effect of widening the already growing gap between the richest and the poorest families as a result of the Republican tax plan. The Times article cites a study that was conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities of the tax plan approved by the Republicans last month in the House Committee on Ways and Means. And although the Committee on Ways and Means' Republican staff disputes the Center's study, the Republican staff calculations conveniently cover only the first 5 years before the big tax breaks for the wealthy start to kick in well into the next century. The rapid growth of these provisions favoring the wealthy, phased in later to hide their true extent, indicates that the revenue cost for this Republican tax scheme will explode in the outyears threatening not only the balanced budget that the Republicans claim to support, but also threatening vulnerable programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that far more outrageous than these tax breaks for the wealthy is what the Republican tax plan does to the least affluent working families, those struggling just to get in or stay in the middle class. The Republican bill denies a $500 child tax credit to more than 15 million working families because it does not let them count the credit against their payroll taxes. Those are the taxes that are deducted from a worker's paycheck. Some of our Republican colleagues have claimed that working families who qualify for the earned income tax credit are welfare recipients and, Mr. Speaker, this is an outrage. The people who qualify for the earned income tax credit are working people, as the words ``earned income'' attest. No less a conservative than Ronald Reagan himself praised the EITC as a great incentive for helping people make the transition from welfare to work. And I have to say, Mr. Speaker, this week we are trying to illustrate, as Democrats, in human terms the implications of the Republican tax scheme. I have in New Jersey a woman named Debra Hammarstrom, a resident of Toms River, New Jersey. She is the divorced mother of two children. I am going to continue this later, Mr. Speaker, because I am very opposed to this tax plan.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our Democratic leader for saying it so well. I think we only have another minute or so left. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Strickland].

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and yield again to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], the Democratic leader.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. I yield to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Millender-McDonald].

Mr. PALLONE. It could, in effect, result in the budget, the deficit, ballooning, once again. So we would actually defeat the very purpose of this bill, which is to balance the budget. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Strickland].

Mr. PALLONE. I just wanted to stress again, all this is in the context of balancing the budget. We have very limited resources here because we are trying to balance the budget. It is a question of fairness. We have to be helping the middle class. We have to be helping working people, not primarily the wealthy, because we have limited resources.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Texas, and particularly because she really is pointing out the distinction between these two plans. I think it is important to stress that Democrats want tax cuts, but we want them to benefit the working middle class. That is what this debate is all about, because the Republican tax cuts are mainly going to the wealthy. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Olver]. Mr. Olver. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate that very much. I wanted to follow, because my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas, has raised some issues here on the fairness aspect. It has to be stressed again and again, people do not understand here that this debate is not about whether we are going to have a tax cut or not going to have a tax cut. It is a debate about who it is that is going to get the tax cut. The balanced budget agreement, the agreement, that has been reached. The two alternatives that will be before us in the next couple of days have equal amounts in terms of tax cuts over a 5- year period. It comes to roughly $100 billion of tax cuts available for roughly 100 million families in total. The charts that the gentlewoman from Texas has show 110 million, but that is in roughly the right form. We are both for the tax cuts, the size of the tax cuts, but not as to exactly where it goes. We need to stress again, though, that of that 19 million families that have over $100,000 a year, that represents one out of every six families in this country. Every one of us, and everyone who is watching here tonight and everyone who is in the gallery still at this hour, knows families whose incomes fall across the scale, families who have over a $100,000 income available, and families who have, at the other end of the scale, between $25,000 and that $100,000, and families who are below the $25,000 of income. What is hidden in that Republican chart there is that while one out of six families get two-thirds of the tax break that would come, among the 91 million families, and the gentlewoman from Texas has already mentioned it, there are 40 million families among those 91 million families who get zero, they get no tax cut at all, and in many cases they are going to end up with a tax increase. Mr. Speaker, those are working Americans, in most instances. They are families that are headed by women, with a single parent. They are young families starting out at early jobs with relatively low wages who would like to raise a family, who would like to have children, and give those children the best of everything that America has to offer. They are blue collar families. They are families with under $25,000 of income a year. They get exactly zero.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].