EMERSON PRAISES BUDGET ACCORD; RURAL AMERICA AIDED, SHE SAYS

The bipartisan balanced-budget agreement will make a college education more affordable and provide tax relief, U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said Wednesday.

Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, praised the spending and tax-cut package worked out between congressional leaders and the White House.

"We got a fair amount of good stuff for rural America," she said.

Included is increased Medicare reimbursements for health-care providers and more enterprise zones for rural America.

The package also includes estate-tax relief for family farms and small businesses. Emerson said it is a good starting point. She hopes Congress eventually will abolish the death tax.

"This is really just the beginning of efforts to restructure the entire tax code," said Emerson. "We are already beginning to talk about further tax relief next year."

Lawmakers are expected to give final approval to spending and tax bills by Friday before they start a monthlong vacation.

"I think it is very important that the government have a balanced budget," Emerson said from her Washington office.

"I was a freshman in college when we had the last balanced budget," she said. That was in 1969.

"We are going to have tax credits and we are going to be saving Medicare," she told reporters.

The plan targets tax breaks to families with children, college students and investors. The budget agreement provides tax credits for college tuition and education savings accounts.

"I think it is really good you will be able to deduct the interest on student loans now," Emerson said.

All these provisions should help Americans seeking a college education, she said.

The budget package includes provisions of Emerson's health-care bill that would allow small-business owners and the self-employed to deduct 100 percent of their health-insurance premiums. That would give them the same benefits enjoyed by the nation's largest corporations, Emerson and other lawmakers have said.

The budget accord also includes health coverage for uninsured children and redesigns Medicare to allow the elderly greater flexibility in their health-care choices.

It sets up a bipartisan commission to study Medicare and recommend ways to keep the government program solvent.

Emerson said the budget deal provides tax relief from the capital gains tax on the sale of homes and other investments. A single homeowner could exempt profits up to $250,000 on the sale of his home; a couple up to $500,000.

The budget deal also puts another 4.3-cents-a-gallon gas-tax money directly into the highway trust fund for road improvements. Since 1993, that money had been going toward deficit reduction.

"We are now taking that 4.3 cents back and saying that money belongs in our trust fund," Emerson said.