[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1290-H1291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   THE $50,000 TAX DEDUCTIBLE DINNERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well to speak about 
something that troubles me a lot. I spent 3 years of my life, and I 
must say they were miserable years, studying the Tax Code when I was in 
law school. And the one thing that was very clear in our Tax Code was 
you did not get a charitable deduction for political donations. If you 
gave to charity, fine, you got a charitable deduction. But if you gave 
to politics, you did not get one.
  I think most of us as Americans think that that is the way it should 
be. But we are in interesting times, very interesting times. We have a 
new Speaker who has found ways to stretch these things, and tonight we 
have a very interesting occasion going on, showing how these bright 
lines are being blurred more and more.
  If you saw the Chicago Tribune today, they are mentioning the 
Speaker's dinner tonight, which will cost $50,000 a plate--$50,000 a 
plate. But unlike a normal political contribution, $19,800 will be tax 
deductible.
  Now, what is this dinner about and how do you get the tax deduction? 
Well, you get the tax deduction because they are saying it goes to a 
nonprofit organization. But that organization happens to be the 
Speaker's television network called National Empowerment Television. 
And what is it? It does not even pretend to have balance. It does not 
even pretend to present both sides. It presents Newt's views 24 hours a 
day. I do not think Newt's views qualifies as news all the time, and I 
do not think that is what the Tax Code was meant to back.
  So you see, now really an indirect taxpayer subsidy is going to this 
television thing that is absolutely nothing but broadcasts of whatever 
they want to put on. That looks terribly political, and I think is 
terribly political.
  At the very same time you see them taking on public television, which 
is a different kind of direct subsidy which does attempt to be balanced 
and does let everybody on.
  Now, is it not interesting? While you hear they don't want taxpayer 
subsidies of that, they are perfectly willing to craft these dinners 
that only let in people from a certain strata of society. Believe me, 
to pay $50,000 for a dinner you have got to come from a lot wealthier 
background than I do in my district. You get a House for $50,000. 
Nobody would ever think of paying $50,000 for a dinner.
  Also think about if you are an average tipper like I am and you did a 
20-percent tip. A tip on that $50,000 dinner would equal what the 
average minimum wage earner earns in a year. Just think, one tip on one 
dinner, one night, equals what a minimum wage earner makes for a year.
  I mean, what is going on here? This is one of the things that many of 
us on this side are very troubled about. I was pleased to see that Time 
magazine is also getting troubled about it. Time magazine has an 
excellent article this week called ``Newt, Inc.'' I hope everybody 
reads it, because it lays out many of the interesting ways the Speaker 
has been able to spread his tentacles out to control all these 
different ways of access to public information, shut off those who are 
not with him, find novel ways for people to be able to deduct it, and 
really march forward.
  That does not look like the democracy I knew. The democracy I knew 
was one where everybody had an equal weighted voice and everybody's 
vote counted equally. I just do not see why we should be doing taxpayer 
subsidies of this type of occasion, and I do not see how in the world 
you can ever pretend that everybody's voice is going to be weighted 
equally, if you cannot get access to the TV stations that the taxpayers 
indirectly subsidize, nor can you buy the ticket to the dinner which 
 [[Page H1291]] the taxpayers are indirectly subsidizing.
  So I think we have to pose some very serious questions to the 
Internal Revenue Service, and we have to look at all these different 
stretchings of the law. There is absolutely no question what the spirit 
of the law is. I think that we should not be stretching the spirit, but 
instead we should be upholding the spirit of the law in this body.


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