Bill Archer: “Mr. Speaker, in September of last year, we promised in our Contract With America that we would vote on tax relief for…”

“Mr. Speaker, in September of last year, we promised in our Contract With America that we would vote on tax relief for families and on incentives to create new jobs. We also promised to pay for these tax cuts by slowing down the growth of Federal spending, and today we fulfill that pledge. But we do more. This package nets out with a $30 billion greater reduction in deficit than the President's budget proposal. We have heard some Democrats say the taxpayers do not need or deserve tax cuts right now, and I disagree. The American family is overworked and it is overtaxed. So as promised, this bill provides a $500 per child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, tax credits for adoption of children and for the care of elderly family members. It also provides tax incentives for long-term care insurance and for tax-free distributions of life insurance for the terminally and chronically ill. This bill will repeal current laws that penalize seniors. It repeals the punitive 5-percent tax on Social Security benefits imposed by President Clinton in 1993, and it gives senior citizens greater opportunity to continue to work without suffering the loss of their benefits. Americans do not save enough. High taxes are a big reason why. So we include incentives for savings and investment. We create a new type of individual retirement account, IRA, the American Dream Savings Account, and we permit homemakers to build their own IRA's.”