Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “speaking from the center, it is an issue of priorities. We have to ask ourselves in this House, who do we stand for? Who…”

“speaking from the center, it is an issue of priorities. We have to ask ourselves in this House, who do we stand for? Who do we stand for in this House? Mr. Speaker, as we are well aware by now, last month the other body voted 94 to 2 to immediately give an increased child tax credit to the 12 million children of 6.5 million working families. They voted to do that immediately. The time is long overdue for the House to likewise pass the language included in the bill passed by the Senate. As the nearly unanimous vote in the other body indicates, this issue enjoys broad bipartisan support. Leave it to the House Republican leadership to turn a popular, bipartisan effort benefiting children into an unnecessary, nasty battle. It is not difficult to figure out the priorities of the Republican Party. All you have to do is follow the money. The Republicans somehow managed to find room in their tax bill for people with an income over $1 million. Now, is that not special? Tax filers who make over $1 million per year will receive an average tax cut in 2003 in that 1 year, an average tax cut of $93,500 for the year. We have plenty of money for the millionaires. At the same time, during conference committee negotiations between the House and Senate, House conferees intentionally and knowingly dropped child tax credit relief at the last minute, for working families who earn between $10,500 and $26,625 per year.”