Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007

TEMPORARY TAX RELIEF ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - November 09, 2007)

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Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I'm going to do today after listening to my friend, Mr. McCrery, is to go back to my office and call Citigroup, that holds my mortgage, and I'm going to apply that logic when I tell them that I'm no longer going to bother paying the principal, because I just want to forget about the bill; that the bill is just gone. And I expect them to say to me, we're going to use the logic that Congress uses when it comes to paying the Nation's bills.

I'm in full support of this legislation, and I think we need to stand up to theology today and address it with fact. Without the extension of these important tax provisions, there's going to be a real impact back home. Ninety-four thousand Massachusetts teachers who took the deduction for out-of-pocket classroom supplies totaling $23 million in expenditures, they're going to lose that deduction.

Without this bill, 121,000 Massachusetts families who took the tuition deduction for higher education costs, totaling $317 million in expenditures, they're going to lose their incentive for higher learning.

If we don't pass this bill, 1,000 businesses in Massachusetts that took the research and development tax credit totaling $10 million, they're going to lose this credit.

We have to pass that bill so that 192 low-income military families in Massachusetts who claimed the earned income tax credit while in the combat zone, totaling $2 million in earnings, are going to keep that credit.

And further, Massachusetts school districts which receive $6.5 million in bond authority for school construction, they're going to lose their assistance without this bill.

And let me speak briefly to the issue of AMT. For a decade and more, I've been at this issue. The Republicans have said to me time and again, you're absolutely right in what you're trying to do. We're quibbling over the solution today. But there's a reality, and the reality is that if we don't do this, 125,684 taxpayers subject to AMT in Massachusetts will increase to, listen to this number, 770,336 people for the 2007 tax year. This means in my district alone 7,000 families to 67,612 will begin to pay AMT if we don't undertake this action today. And half of those 60,000 paying AMT this year will earn between 100 and $200,000. And another third will earn between 75 and $100,000.

This legislation is middle-class tax relief. These are the people that need our help.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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