[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H477]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TAX REVENUE BELONGS TO THE TAXPAYER, NOT TO GOVERNMENT

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday's Washington Post carried a story 
bemoaning all the benefits and grants that States receive from the 
Federal Government which will supposedly be taken away under a balanced 
budget amendment. Members ought to read this article. Included in these 
grants, according to this writer, are the Federal tax exemptions of 
State and municipal bonds, and the deductibility of State and local 
taxes.
  The fact that we do not tax people on their property taxes is a grant 
to the States? Under this way of thinking, anything somebody is able to 
keep of their hard-earned paychecks would be grants or gifts from the 
Government.
  Did Members ever hear anything so outrageous in their lives? When, oh 
when, will the inside the beltway, anti-family, tax-increasing, and 
bureaucratic-spending intellectuals in this city finally realize that 
tax breaks and lower taxes for the people back home are not grants and 
subsidies from the Government that we give them from the graciousness 
of our hearts?
  It is preposterous to call a tax exemption for an
   individual or a family a grant or subsidy from the State. Taxed 
revenues belong to the taxpayers, not to this or any other part of the 
government. It is about time we realize that.

  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SOLOMON. I am glad to yield to my good friend, the gentlewoman 
from Colorado.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to ask the gentleman about 
the other point they made in that article that I read with interest, 
too. That was about the fact that one of the Governors that is beating 
up on us the most also has not paid that State's 10 percent toward 
disaster relief, and is back here with his tin cup asking for the next 
round of disaster relief.
  I think it pointed out that Governor Wilson of California took all 
the disaster relief last year without putting up the State's 10 percent 
that it was supposed to, it is a deadbeat on that, and that they also 
were giving back taxes at the State level.
  I just thought maybe, since the gentleman is on this side of the 
aisle, maybe that is one thing he and I could agree on, that the State 
of California certainly should pay its old debts before it comes back 
here with its tin cup for the next time around.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, California certainly has their problems. I 
come from the Adirondack Mountains in the Northeast and, you know, we 
have our own disasters up there with bad weather. We have never come 
asking for help.
  However, that is beside the point. The point I was making is just 
because we do not tax people does not mean it is a grant or that it is 
a gift that we are giving to the American people. That in no way is any 
kind of a grant.
  They say in this article that we give $230 billion in grants to the 
States, and they include about $80 billion in this. The gentlewoman I 
think agrees with me that is not a grant from this Congress.


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