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Conference Report on H.R. 1, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Floor Speech

Date: Feb. 13, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Taxes


Conference Report on H.R. 1, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- (House of Representatives - February 13, 2009)

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Let me first commend the conferees for putting this legislation together and then to remind our friends on the other side that the operative word here today is ``necessary.'' That is the most important word as we move this legislation forward today, ``necessary.''

Mr. Rangel did a good job negotiating the tax title to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in immediate fiscal stimulus, starting with The Making Work Pay credit, which will cut taxes for 95 percent of all taxpayers, including 2 million families in Massachusetts.

Working families will also benefit from improvements in the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, and a new higher education tax credit.

Businesses across the country will benefit from bonus depreciation allowance and small business expensing provisions, as well as relief for small and medium-sized businesses with net operating losses. Incidentally, I pushed for a larger number there, as the other side knows. And State and local government will see substantial relief for infrastructure and other critical needs through the Recovery Zone bonds and Build America bonds.

As a former mayor, I was happy to lead and take the lead on changes to the bond rules that will allow cities and towns to borrow at lower costs at a time when credit is tight.

The compromise also includes AMT protection for 26 million American families--70,000 families in my district alone.

Now, we're going to hear criticism from some that this legislation is too much, it's too little; it's too fast or it's too slow. By definition, by definition, fiscal stimulus means spending. And with an economy as great as ours, it needs to be significant.

We did move at a very quick pace, and we needed to. There are 10,000 families a day in America slipping into foreclosure. That's 10,000 families a day. Clearly, the policies of the last 8 years did not work, and we need a change.

I hope support for this legislation will move today.

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