[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 108 (Monday, August 8, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     CLINTON THROWS A GARDEN PARTY BUT TAX BILL DOESN'T DESERVE IT

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                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, August 8, 1994

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member commends to his colleagues an 
editorial which appeared in the Omaha World-Herald on August 8, 1994.

     Clinton Throws a Garden Party, But Tax Bill Doesn't Deserve It

       President Clinton threw a party at the White House Friday 
     to celebrate his 1993 tax bill.
       He thanked Democratic congressmen and senators who helped 
     him pass the measure, whose sponsors promoted it as a five-
     year, $496 billion reduction of the federal budget deficit.
       The president claimed Friday that the package of tax 
     increases and spending controls had, in less than a year, 
     reduced the federal budget deficit, created jobs, kept 
     interest rates low and given the nation economic growth with 
     low inflation.
       No one denies that the American economy has improved since 
     the recession that followed the Persian Gulf war. But Clinton 
     didn't bring about the improvement. It started before he took 
     office. As Allen Sinai, a widely respected Boston economist, 
     told the Associated Press, the nation's current economic 
     well-being ``should not and can not be solely attributed to 
     the deficit-reduction act.'' (That's the name Clinton's 
     people gave the tax increase measure, ignoring the fact that 
     any reductions in the budget deficit were projected to be 
     temporary.)
       Michael Evans, an economic forecaster from Florida, said 
     the number of new jobs is about what it would have been 
     without the tax increase. Other analysts said deficit 
     spending has come down temporarily because interest rates 
     dropped--and those rates were dropping long before Clinton 
     signed the tax bill into law.
       Also bringing down deficit spending is the fact that the 
     government is spending less than projected on the savings and 
     loan bailout. Clinton's policies had nothing to do with that, 
     either. They couldn't have. About 60 percent of the 
     legislation's modest attempts to slow the growth rate of 
     federal spending were pushed back until 1996 and 1997. The 
     president depended on a huge retroactive income tax increase 
     to give his package most of its initial impact.
       Clinton defenders now contend that the president has been 
     vindicated and that critics of the measure have been proven 
     shortsighted.
       But it's still a bad law. Its defenders are still 
     misrepresenting it. Clinton still pretends that only 1.4 
     million rich Americans were hit with higher income tax rates. 
     He thereby ignored the two-income professional families whose 
     combined incomes boosted them into one of the new, higher tax 
     brackets. He also ignored as estimated 5.5 million Social 
     Security recipients, most of them middle-income, who are 
     having to come up with an additional $25 billion in income 
     taxes over the five-year cycle.
       The 1993 legislation is not a solution to deficit spending. 
     As Norwest Corp. economists noted recently, borrowing by the 
     federal government is projected to rise sharply again after 
     1996. Federal spending on entitlements is projected to rise, 
     they said, nothing that ``health care reform will create new 
     and uncapped entitlements.'' The Minneapolis-based banking 
     company's chief economist, Dr. Sung Won Sohn, said pent-up 
     demand for houses and cars played a role in the economic 
     recovery. That demand wasn't caused by anything Clinton did.
       Yes, the president deserves credit for passing free-trade 
     legislation. But throwing a party to celebrate the August 
     1993 tax increase is another matter entirely. The Rose Garden 
     ceremony Friday came off as political posturing.

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