More than 125 supporters attended a fundraising breakfast for Congressman Bill Shuster’s campaign at the Lakemont Park Casino yesterday morning and listened to the House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas talk about the accomplishments of the Republican controlled House of Representatives and his support for Shuster.
Following the breakfast, DeLay and Shuster addressed the media.
In his statement, DeLay said, “in his short period of time in Congress, Bill Shuster hit the ground running, working on issues for the ninth district. Infrastructure issues, homeland security issues and support for first responders for the ninth district. I am here to support him and the great work he has done.
“We have an aggressive agenda of the House this year and it is an agenda that provides security for our nation,” DeLay continued. “We’re very proud of our record and look to finish the year with a bang and do great things for the American people.”
In the short question and answer session, the majority leader addressed the child tax credits, death tax, the importance of the ninth district and Iraq.
• Child tax credits: “The house is united on the fact that we all support child tax credits,” said DeLay. “This is an issue that has been driven by the Democrats. What the Democrats don’t tell you is that support for working families in this country and the child tax credit was included in the 2001 tax cuts signed into law by President Bush. This package is to accelerate that tax provision over a two-year period. The fight is over these working families, who are working very hard to support their children and we’re very supportive of them. The point is they (non-working families) get more in benefits than they pay in taxes. We put a package together that is fair to the working families and hope to work through the differences with the Senate.”
• Death Tax: “The most important thing is to allow people to pass their life’s work without it being attacked by the government in an unfair death tax,” said DeLay. “Small business people and farmers ought to be able to leave their business to their children without having to pay a 50 percent tax on it just because they happen to pass away. It is an incredibly unfair tax and it needs to be repealed. The House has voted three times to repeal this unfair tax on business people and farmers. Hopefully, the Senate will agree with us and see it is important to lose this unfair tax.”
• Importance of 9th District: “This District has always been a very important District,” said the Majority Leader. “It has been represented by Republicans for a very long time, but it is a District that isn’t what we call a slam dunk for Republicans. “It is only because of the Shusters ability to bring all people together, by working with unions and working people and business people to provide for the needs of the 9th District. Bill has already shown in the short two years that he has been in the House his great leadership ability. Obviously we want to see more of it and we want to see this District stay in the hands of Bill Shuster and the Republican Party.”
• Iraq: “I am confident that we will find Saddam,” said DeLay. “We will stay as long as it takes to go after terrorists and rebuild the country and bring democracy and freedom to that country. It may take a while. The American people know that. They support what we are doing in Iraq. If we can bring democracy to Iraq, hopefully we can bring democracy to the entire Middle East and see over a period of time peace in the Middle East once and for all.”
