Christopher Shays: “Mr. Speaker, I think this motion to instruct is flawed. It could have been made a motion that I could have liked if it…”

“Mr. Speaker, I think this motion to instruct is flawed. It could have been made a motion that I could have liked if it had said to lower some of the taxes, if it had said eliminate one or two of them, if it had said make one or two of them more income-sensitive, particularly the child tax credit. In that case I would have supported it. If it had said 'Make some changes to the Earned Income Tax Credit, but do not do what they are doing,' it would have had some merit. What this does is basically say under no circumstance should we have any reduction in taxes. That is an interesting argument and may have some validity, but let us recognize what we are talking about. We are saying that we should not consider a child tax credit. That is a tax credit of $500 per child. Mr. Speaker, when my mom and dad were raising their four sons, they were allowed to take in today's dollars what amounts to $7,000 per child off the bottom line of their income. If my parents in today's income made $50,000, they would have been able to take $28,000 off their total income. That is what we did for families in the 1940's and in the 1950's. Today what we allow families to deduct are slightly over $2,000 per child, so we are giving a $500 tax credit per child. When I hear the speakers talk about who will benefit, I am thinking that they must think that everyone who pays taxes is wealthy, because they are going to benefit.”