Ranking Member Doggett: We must address problems to encourage and help people move into the middle class and acheive the American dream

[Remarks as delivered follow below]

Certainly if we can perfect our tax system so thatit does more to reward work, we should do it. And, if we can ferret outany abuse of existing preferences or tax credits that are not being properlyused in accordance with the law, we should do that and we should take correctivesteps. But I must say respectfully that it is my belief that the focus of thishearing and the focus of the overall work this year and last year of the Waysand Means Committee in this area is misdirected.

Let's look at the facts: The richest 1/5 of Americans are reported to own 84percent of the wealth of this country. While the bottom 40 percent areestimated to own about 3 or 4 percent of the wealth of this country. TheCongressional Budget Office reports that over the last three decades after taxincome for the top 1 percent soared by 277 percent, while 2/3 of the incomegains from 2002-2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of households.

The focus of this hearing is not on the 1,500 millionaires who paid zero incometax in a recent year. It is not on those corporations who not only paidzero, such as in some years General Electric, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and in somecases, actually received money back in credits from the government. It isnot on the area where revenues are not flowing to our government. It isnot about those at the top. It is all focused on whether those who havean ownership interest in 3 percent or less of our nation's wealth—whether theyare getting too much.

The overall concept of this hearing seems to follow closely the report lastyear of the House Republican Study Committee concerning the disincentives ofour current system. This is the same group and same set of reports thatcondemned as welfare— and seemed to call for reductions in— Pell Grants, TitleI grants to disadvantaged schools, Head Start, the School Lunch Program and theSchool Breakfast Program. I believe that is a mischaracterization ofthose important initiatives that help those who are struggling to become partof the middle class and to share in the American dream, to help themadvance. It is wrong to continue to deny those opportunities.

When a mother with a couple of children who lives in Austin or San Marcosor San Antonio leaves the Welfare program for a full-time, minimum wage job,the Earned Income tax credit and the Child tax credit are available to help herand other working families—it increases the value of her work in a significantway and is an incentive to advance.

During the same period of time through the recent recession, there were reportsby the PEW Research Center that Hispanics particularly represented the hardesthit by the recession—a 66 percent drop in wealth from 2005-2009, a widening ofthe gap in our country that has not been seen in the last quarter-of-a-centuryduring the time that data was collected.

These are serious problems that need to be addressed to encourage and helppeople move into the middle class and to see that our nation has the revenuesthat it needs in order to sustain those programs.

We need more focus on those real problems rather than on the small issue thatis raised by today's hearing.