Louise Slaughter: “Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, President Bush signed a huge tax cut into law giving billions and billions…”

“Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, President Bush signed a huge tax cut into law giving billions and billions of dollars in tax cuts to the very, very wealthy. Of course, in the dead of night, the Republicans stripped out the child tax credit to help low- and middle- income American families. But those families do not go to the fund-raisers at the Hilton, so the leadership does not care about them. The other body acted quickly and responsibly to fix the child tax problem. The leadership of this House, however, dragged their feet and then acted irresponsibly. Finally, last week, after a drumbeat of public pressure, we saw a child tax credit bill, sort of. What we actually saw was a sham, a distraction, a way to kill the issue with one hand while sending out a press release with the other. Since the House bill is vastly different and vastly more expensive than the Senate bill, the differences have to be worked out in a conference committee. Conferees have been appointed, but has the conference committee met? No. Now, it is clear that the leadership of the Committee on Ways and Means is not too busy, since they had time to bring up this week's installment of Tax Cut Bonanza, a bill to eliminate the sunset on the estate tax. Mr. Speaker, the current sunset does not even expire until the year 2010, 7 years from now.”