[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 47 (Tuesday, March 14, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3855-S3859]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             TAX CUT FRENZY

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I certainly thank the senior Senator 
from Illinois for noticing the cartoon and for being one of the first 
people in this body to come to me and say that we do need to prevent 
this tax cut frenzy if we are going to be serious about balancing the 
Federal budget.
  I think, Mr. President, now is the time to put the tax cut proposals 
out of their misery. Let us do it early on so the American people know 
that there is something real to all this rhetoric in 
[[Page S3856]] Washington about balancing the Federal budget.
  It seems to me, ever since the tax cut frenzy started with the 
November 8 election, that I have had a hard time finding anyone who is 
really for it other than a few folks here in Washington.
  I have chosen this cartoon from December at Christmastime to 
illustrate how early the people of America were ahead of the 
politicians on this issue. It is a very simple cartoon. It shows a 
couple of parents holding a nice present, ``The tax cuts.'' But their 
baby holds ``The bill.'' The parents are enjoying this nice present, 
but passing its cost along to the next generation.
  So even before the 104th Congress convened, I feel that the American 
people were way ahead on this and felt that this just did not make 
sense and that it did not add up.
  I sort of felt as if maybe this issue would die pretty quickly, but I 
was wrong. In a way, this frenzy for a tax cut, which nobody supports, 
is the inevitable result of the November 8 election.
  In the Milwaukee Sentinel just yesterday, there was an editorial 
entitled ``Tax Cut Plans--Questions About Both Party Plans.''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this editorial from the 
Milwaukee Sentinel be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Milwaukee Sentinel, Mar. 13, 1995]

            Tax Cuts Plans--Questions About Both Party Plans

       Bill Archer, the new Republican chairman of the House Ways 
     and Means Committee, strode to the microphone in a basement 
     hearing room after being introduced by a young couple from 
     Virginia holding their year-old daughter.
       It was just the common touch the Texas congressman was 
     seeking to announce the committee's plan to cut taxes by 
     nearly $200 billion over the next five years, or about $140 
     billion more than President Clinton has proposed in his plan.
       Trouble is, both plans butt up against growing popular 
     discontent over the federal deficit, which still will grow by 
     $1 trillion over five years under Clinton's irresponsible 
     budget plan. There also is no indication that Republicans 
     have discovered the magic bullet that will slay the deficit 
     dragon.
       The reality is that hardly anyone accepts the current 
     political nostrum that Congress and/or Clinton can cure what 
     ails the nation by advocating spending and tax cuts, all at 
     the same time.
       That even includes prominent Republicans such as Bob 
     Packwood, of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance 
     Committee, and Pete V. Domenici, of New Mexico, who heads the 
     Budget Committee.
       Both have voiced opposition to tax cuts while government 
     continues to spend more than it takes in. The simple truth is 
     that House Republicans have not yet indicated how they would 
     pay for tax cuts in the $200 billion range and still balance 
     the budget.
       Still, the Republican plan has some attractive features.
       A capital gains tax cut, harangued by Democrats as a payoff 
     to the rich, would benefit millions of middle-class investors 
     and, at least in the short term, increase federal revenue as 
     stockholders liquidate some of their holdings. That could 
     help lead to the creation of revenue-producing jobs.
       Similarly, the suggestion that people could withdraw money, 
     free of penalty, from their individual retirement accounts 
     for buying a home or other purposes is another economy 
     booster. For local government, that's a future source of 
     property-tax revenue.
       What's confounding about it all is that while Democrats 
     such as Rep. Sam M. Gibbons, of Florida, ranking Democrat on 
     Ways and Means, say it's ``the wrong time and the wrong tax 
     cut,'' you can bet that if it were Clinton and not Archer 
     making a tax cut proposal, Democrats would rush to his 
     banner.
       The public, however, is far out in front on this issue and 
     can see through both parties' strategies.

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I just want to briefly suggest that this 
editorial points out that there is still a problem with both parties 
going after this tax cut idea.
  The article says:

       Bill Archer, the new Republican chairman of the House Ways 
     and Means Committee, strode to the microphone in a basement 
     hearing room after being introduced by a young couple from 
     Virginia holding their year-old daughter.
       It was just the common touch the Texas Congressman was 
     seeking to announce the committee's plan to cut taxes by 
     nearly $200 billion over the next 5 years, or about $140 
     billion more than President Clinton has proposed in his plan.
       The trouble is [the Milwaukee Sentinel says] both plans 
     [both Republican and Democratic plan] butt up against growing 
     popular discontent over the Federal deficit, which still will 
     grow by $1 trillion over 5 years under Clinton's 
     irresponsible budget plan. There also is no indication that 
     Republicans have discovered the magic bullet that will slay 
     the deficit dragon.

  The editorial goes on to say, ``The reality is that hardly anyone 
accepts the current political nostrum that Congress and/or Clinton can 
cure what ails the Nation by advocating spending and tax cuts all at 
the same time.''
  So, Mr. President, what the public knew in December has apparently 
not completely reached the Halls of Congress. Day after day I see 
evidence, whether at a Wisconsin town meeting, or reading the major 
national newspapers, that in general the American people and the 
opinion makers outside of Washington do not want to do this, and thinks 
it is a foolish way to handle our budgetary problems.
  This last night I had a chance to see a few minutes of a C-SPAN 
program on which two of our colleagues were appearing in front of the 
National League of Cities, and what they pointed out was that they had 
different views exactly on what should happen in the Federal budget.
  I was intrigued by the different responses on what they said about 
the tax cut issue. The junior Senator from New Hampshire, Senator 
Gregg, indicated to the audience he was interested in a $500 billion 
deficit reduction package, to be passed by the 104th Congress.
  I was struck by that figure, because that is exactly what we have 
already accomplished in the 103d Congress under President Clinton and 
the Democratic leadership. I am glad to hear that kind of figure is 
being thrown around. What the Senator from New Hampshire then said was 
perhaps as a part of the $500 billion--he would not go with the overall 
Republican contract idea of a $200 billion tax cut, I believe I am 
correctly characterizing his statement that that was too much--but he 
said, ``Maybe we would look at the President's $63 billion level, and 
perhaps have that included in the $500 billion.''
  That got applause. People seemed to feel that was more sensible that 
a $200 billion tax cut. But then the Senator from Nebraska, the junior 
Senator from Nebraska, Senator Kerrey, took the microphone and said to 
Senator Gregg, ``Now, how much will it take to balance the budget by 
the year 2002? What is the total figure?'' And the indication was that 
it was well over $1 trillion.
  So Senator Kerrey indicated that even if we do the $500 billion, we 
are less than half the way there. Senator Kerrey said to this audience 
of people involved in city government that he was against tax cuts in 
any form.
  I would think people would maybe nod or maybe even disagree. Instead 
it got a rousing applause. Everyone in the audience gave him a similar 
strong applause in saying he would fight any of the tax cuts, because 
they are not consistent with the notion of dealing with the deficit and 
caring about our children and our grandchildren.
  So the common sense is out there. The common sense view that frankly 
helped fuel the debate on the balanced budget amendment and had a lot 
to do with that month-long debate. That common sense is out there.
  If this institution is willing to listen, the first thing we will do 
is say we cannot afford either the Clinton tax cut or the Republican 
contract tax cut. Of course, I believe the American public would like 
to have a tax cut if they possibly could. But what they are saying 
clearly is, we cannot afford it until we get our house in order.
  Mr. President, it is not easy to slay the tax cut dragon. I have 
noticed the allure of a tax cut to politicians, just as the allure of 
the balanced budget amendment has been very strong. I would have to 
say, compared to the first time I had a chance to oppose this in 
December, things look a lot better, especially here in the Senate.
  Between November 8 and now I have gone from being the lone voice, 
according to the Los Angeles Times, against this to being one of many 
people who are criticizing the tax cut. In fact, I would call it now 
sort of a healthy competition between a lot of the leading Senators who 
are saying that they will oppose this.
  I even think there is a good strong competition going on to see who 
can be 
[[Page S3857]] the toughest on opposing the tax cuts. I think that is 
very healthy. We do not get anything done around here by being 1 out of 
535. I am extremely happy that so many of the leading Senators, 
especially on the Finance Committee, have openly stated their 
opposition to either all or part of the tax cuts.
  Mr. President, as Senators recall, we did have our test vote on this 
issue during the balanced budget amendment. The proposition, that we 
ought to put the tax cut below deficit reduction, got 32 votes, 
including some of the leading Republicans in the Senate. That was 
amazing, because it was 32 Senators saying up front they are not for a 
tax cut.
  A couple months ago, people would have said nobody would take that 
position. It was also very striking because a number of Senators told 
me they wanted to vote for the amendment, but they were not going to 
support any amendments to the balanced budget amendment. My guess is we 
are a lot closer to 50 or even higher than anyone would have imagined 
at this point.
  For example, Mr. President, if we take a look at the reaction, we see 
in the Washington Post even today an editorial called ``Greasing the 
Tax Cut Rules,'' and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       Greasing the Tax Cut Rules

       The President and Congressional Republicans keep saying 
     that to get control of the deficit they have to cut the cost 
     of entitlements. They're right, but even as they've been 
     making the speeches again this year, they're also preparing 
     to change the budget rules to let entitlements partly off the 
     hook.
       The president and Republicans both want to cut taxes. It's 
     a terrible competition for them to be engaged in; the 
     government is in no position to give up the revenue. As a way 
     of driving home the cost of tax cuts and creating a political 
     barrier to their enactment, the budget rules used to provide 
     that they be paid for either by offsetting tax increases or 
     by entitlement cuts.
       The administration relished neither alternative, and in its 
     budget suggested a third. It proposed a change--it would say 
     careful rereading--of the rules under which tax cuts could 
     also be paid for by cuts in non-entitlement spending or 
     appropriations. The House Republicans, far from objecting, 
     have adopted the idea with enthusiasm. It sounds as if only 
     accountants should care. If the dollars all come from the 
     same Treasury, as they do, what difference does it make which 
     category of programs is trimmed to produce them? A dollar 
     saved one way is surely as good as another.
       That's true, and an evasion at the same time. The easing of 
     pressure on the entitlement side of the budget, where cuts 
     are hardest to make because so many people are affected, 
     represented a weakening of budget discipline. The tax cuts 
     the House Republicans propose would cost about $200 billion 
     their first five years and $500 billion the five after that. 
     The Republicans would have found it hard to extract that much 
     from entitlements without getting into the giant programs for 
     the middle class, Social Security and Medicare. As it is, 
     they'll propose to pay half the first-year cost by lowering--
     again--the caps that the budget rules also impose on 
     appropriations.
       The pressure will fall on domestic appropriations only, not 
     defense. Most of the programs the government runs fall into 
     this category--everything from Head Start and highway grants 
     to the costs of operating the national parks and 
     administering the Immigration and Naturalization Service--but 
     together they make up only about a sixth of the budget and as 
     a group have already been much cut in recent years. It's 
     relatively easy, of course, to lower appropriations caps. 
     They're an abstraction. The effect will be felt only later 
     and be spread across enough programs so as to leave few clear 
     political fingerprints. The Republicans say not to worry, 
     that sooner or later they're going to have to cut the major 
     entitlements too in order to balance the budget, as they've 
     also promised. But the old rules would have forced the tax 
     and entitlement cuts to be made at the same time. The new 
     ones make it easier to blur the cost of an irresponsible 
     policy.

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the point of that editorial is that 
although there is this opposition growing in the Senate, there is an 
effort going on to change the budget rules in such a way that would 
allow these tax cuts in a way that would immunize, in effect, both 
entitlements and the defense budget, causing any cuts that might be 
made to pay for the tax cuts to come, essentially, out of the 
appropriations areas, out of discretionary funding.
  The Washington Post does a good job of criticizing this move, 
pointing out that it does not bode well for the future of deficit 
reduction. They commented on what it would mean, given the need for 
further cuts in discretionary spending, on top of the fair amount we 
did in the 103d Congress. And they noted that not all of those cuts are 
going to be applied to reducing the Federal deficit, but instead would 
be used to promote this tax cut that I am having a hard time finding 
anyone favoring other than those in Washington.
  So, Mr. President, despite the growing criticism of the tax cut 
around the country and in this body, the skids are being greased for a 
have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach, when it comes to balancing the 
budget and fixing the tax cut problem.
  Mr. President, I turn again to a cartoon that I think describes the 
problem we have here in Washington. This cartoon refers to a new 
illness called deficit attention disorder. We talk about the balanced 
budget amendment, run around the country saying that a balanced budget 
is the top priority, and we come out here every day and say bringing 
the deficit under control is our top priority. But this cartoon shows 
the contrast of those words with the possible actions here. It shows 
folks running in and out of offices saying, ``$50 billion tax cut, $60 
billion tax cut, $75 billion tax cut, $100 billion tax cut, $120 
billion tax cut.''
  The cartoon suggests a serious illness in this place. That is, the 
deficit attention disorder from which institution suffers. Mr. 
President, I think the worst example of this deficit attention disorder 
is the very document that the Republican Party says they campaigned and 
won on--the Republican contract, which calls for increased defense 
spending, balancing the budget, and tax cuts that dwarf what this 
cartoon suggests. Notice all the little people in the cartoon talking 
about tax cuts from $50 billion to $120 billion.
  What the Republican contract calls for over the next 10 years is a 
$700 billion tax cut. What Congressman Archer proposed last week would 
cost $200 billion over the next 5 years. This includes the $500 tax 
credit for families making up to $200,000 per year, including changes 
in IRA's and a variety of other provisions.
  Mr. President, this is a very serious example of how, even today, 
despite all the criticism and all the concern in the other House, the 
other body especially is continuing to move forward as if not only we 
do not have a deficit problem, but that we have a giant surplus that 
can be used for all these cuts.
  Mr. President, on March 10, the Washington Post commented on these 
proposals in an editorial entitled ``The Tax Cuts and the Deficit,'' 
and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 10, 1995]

                      The Tax Cuts and the Deficit

       The tax cuts from the House Republican ``Contract With 
     America'' have been reduced to legislative form. The process 
     hasn't improved them a bit. They remain a bad idea, the 
     revenue loss from which would be more than the sponsors have 
     acknowledged, and more than a government running a deficit of 
     a fifth of a trillion dollars a year can afford to give up.
       The cuts would make it harder to reduce the deficit even if 
     the Republicans do come up with a way to pay for them, which 
     despite their pledges they haven't yet. The stated purpose of 
     several of them is to increase savings and investment, but by 
     leaving the deficit larger than otherwise they would reduce 
     the national savings rate. They are also poorly targeted, and 
     the long-term effect of their enactment would likely be to 
     widen the income gap between the better-off and the rest of 
     society.
       The last time the Republicans cut taxes, in 1981, they 
     failed to make the spending cuts to match, and the deficit 
     soared. This time they've said the spending cuts will come 
     first; they're still saying that. But the only specific 
     spending cuts of any size that they've advanced thus far have 
     been in welfare and other programs for the poor; that's not 
     the way to finance tax cuts. It is said they may next propose 
     some generalized entitlement and appropriations cuts, lump 
     sums that they will commit themselves to saving over time 
     without spelling out how. That's not the way to do it either, 
     the more so because they've promised that in cutting they 
     won't touch defense or Social Security and can't touch 
     interest on the debt. They've left themselves less than half 
     the budget in which to work. Nor is it just their tax cuts 
     that they have to finance. They've said they'll balance the 
     budget as well. But the more spending cuts they dedicate to 
     the first purpose, the fewer they'll have left for the 
     second. That's the problem.
       [[Page S3858]] The Republicans keep saying they want to get 
     at the cost of entitlements. The last Congress, at the 
     administration's behest, did put a dent in the net cost of 
     the largest entitlement, Social Security, by subjecting a 
     larger share of benefits to the income tax. The bill that the 
     House Ways and Means Committee will begin marking up next 
     week would repeal that modest step in the right direction. In 
     the name of capital formation, it would also cut the capital 
     gains tax, create a new stream of wholly tax exempt 
     investment income by expanding the individual retirement 
     account or IRA provisions in current law, and enact a 
     roundabout cut of as much as a third in the corporate income 
     tax by liberalizing depreciation rules. All three of these 
     provisions would be late bloomers. Two are set up in such a 
     way that they look as if they would even raise revenue in the 
     first years. That masks the full effect that they would have 
     in terms of revenue lost; it wouldn't be felt until after the 
     five-year estimating period. Who will pay for that?
       These are damaging proposals--and unfortunately, the 
     administration has already weakly concurred in some of them. 
     We suppose they're likely to pass the House. In the Senate, 
     however, some Republicans as well as some Democrats are 
     saying that spending and the deficit should be cut first. 
     They're right.

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, that article commented on the Contract 
With America, and specifically the Archer proposal, by saying the 
following:

       The tax cuts from the House Republican ``Contract With 
     America'' have been reduced to legislative form. The process 
     hasn't improved them a bit. They remain a bad idea, the 
     revenue loss from which would be more than the sponsors have 
     acknowledged, and more than a government running a deficit of 
     a fifth of a trillion dollars a year can afford it give up.
       The cuts would make it harder to reduce the deficit even if 
     the Republicans do come up with a way to pay for them, which 
     despite their pledges, they haven't yet. The stated purpose 
     of several of them is to increase savings and investment, but 
     by leaving the deficit larger than otherwise, they would 
     reduce the national savings rate.

  The editorial also goes into a bit of a history:

       The last time the Republicans cut taxes, in 1981, they 
     failed to make the spending cuts to match, and the deficit 
     soared. This time they've said the spending cuts will come 
     first; they're still saying that. But the only specific 
     spending cuts of any size that they've advanced thus far have 
     been in welfare and other programs for the poor; that's not 
     the way to finance tax cuts. It is said they next proposed 
     some generalized entitlement and appropriations cuts, lump 
     sums they will commit themselves to saving over time without 
     spelling out how. That's not how to do it either, the more so 
     because they've promised that in cutting they won't touch 
     defense or Social Security and can't touch interest on the 
     debt. They've left themselves less than half the budget in 
     which to work. Nor is it just their tax cuts that they have 
     to finance. They've said they'll balance the budget as well. 
     But the more spending cuts they dedicate to the first 
     purpose, the fewer they'll have left for the second. That's 
     the problem.

  Again, it is the harsh reality that the numbers cannot possibly add 
up, it cannot possibly be true that we can do all of these things laid 
out in the Archer proposal and then come up with a balanced budget, 
even in the long term, let alone doing it in the short term.
  So, Mr. President, not only do we have a deficit attention disorder 
with regard to the Archer plan and the Republican contract, but time 
and again, whether it be the President's plan, the plan of the minority 
leader in the House, the plan of the senior Senator from Texas, in each 
case we have a plan for tax cuts that is not paid for.
  I realize that there will be many opportunities to speak on this 
issue on the floor. I will not take the time today to outline all the 
opposition from different places in the country, whether it be 
editorials or polls or statements of economists. All I can say is that, 
although the news is troubling to me, although the tax cut keeps coming 
back and coming back, I see reason for optimism in the U.S. Senate. It 
appears that it is going to be up to the U.S. Senate to stop this 
fiscal irresponsibility.
  I was very heartened to see the article in the Washington Post of 
last week on March 9 entitled ``Tax Cutters Lose Steam in Senate.''
  I ask unanimous consent that article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Mar. 9, 1995]

  Tax Cutters Lose Steam In Senate; House Panel To Unveil GOP Revenue 
                                  Plan

                            (By Eric Pianin)

       Republican and Democratic opposition in the Senate to major 
     tax cut legislation stiffened yesterday, while Ways and Means 
     Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R-Tex.) prepared to unveil 
     the details of a House GOP tax plan that could cost as much 
     as $700 billion over 10 years.
       Archer's plan, modeled after proposals within the House GOP 
     ``Contract With America,'' includes a $500-per-child tax 
     credit for families earning up to $200,000 a year, a 50 
     percent reduction in the capital gains tax, massive write-
     offs and tax breaks for businesses and a new Individual 
     Retirement Account (IRA) for middle- and upper-income 
     families.
       The Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to vote on the 
     proposal early next week. House leaders have pledged to make 
     offsetting cuts in the 1995 budget and to alter welfare 
     programs and Medicare to pay for the package. But in the wake 
     of the defeat of the constitutional balanced budget 
     amendment, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood 
     (Ore.) and other deficit-conscious Republican tax writers 
     warned yesterday that the tax package would take a back seat 
     to further efforts to reduce the deficit.
       ``Almost every witness we've had has indicated the deficit 
     is the biggest problem we face,'' Packwood said, ``and if we 
     want to do more for the economy, then reducing the deficit is 
     the most important thing to do.''
       Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), a Finance Committee member, 
     declared: ``Basically, I'm opposed to tax cuts * * * as much 
     as we love to parcel them out.''
       Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-N.Y.), another committee member, 
     said the House GOP tax cut proposals ``all sound good,'' but 
     Congress would accomplish far more by reducing the deficit 
     and indirectly helping to lower interest rates and spur 
     economic activity.
       ``Cut spending and get the deficit under control that's 
     number one,'' D'Amato said. ``That's what people want. 
     Otherwise, [the economy will falter and] we're going to end 
     up Mexico II.''
       President Clinton and liberal House Democrats also have 
     proposed middle-class tax relief, including tax credits for 
     families and other breaks to help cover educational costs. 
     But the tax-cut fever that swept Washington shortly after the 
     Republican takeover of Congress last November has begun to 
     dissipate, as GOP leaders confront the harsh realities of 
     trying to simultaneously eliminate the deficit and make good 
     on their promise of generous tax cuts.
       For their part, Senate Democratic leaders feel obliged to 
     emphasize deficit reduction over tax relief after helping to 
     defeat the popular balanced budget amendment last week. 
     Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) told 
     reporters yesterday he would not rule out passage of some 
     type of tax reform this year, but members had little 
     enthusiasm for proposed tax cuts that ``would compound our 
     problems'' in reducing the deficit.
       ``It's apparent to all of us we have a big job ahead of us 
     in deficit reduction, and we want to make everyone understand 
     that that's our first priority,'' Daschle said.
       House Republican leaders have cited little empirical 
     evidence that a major tax cut is needed at a time when the 
     economy is strongly rebounding, inflation is under control 
     and the deficit is declining for the third year in a row.
       Earlier this week, three prominent economists--Roger E. 
     Brinner, Stephen S. Roach and Barry Bosworth--told the House 
     Budget Committee that Congress would do little for the 
     economy while complicating its deficit-reduction efforts if 
     it cuts taxes.
       Brinner, the chief economist for DRI/McGraw-Hill, described 
     the $500-a-child tax credit, the most expensive measure in 
     the Republican tax package, as ``possibly mediocre politics 
     but definitely bad economics.''
       House GOP leaders concede that the tax credit would do 
     little, if anything, to stimulate the economy. But they 
     insist the tax credit for children 18 and younger is 
     important to providing relief to the middle class and 
     ``strengthening'' the family unit.
       Archer is scheduled to announce the details of the GOP tax 
     plan this morning in an address to the conservative Family 
     Research Council. According to committee sources, the package 
     will approximate the Contract With America plan, which 
     according to the Joint Committee on Taxation would cost $200 
     billion over five years but then balloon to $704.4 billion 
     over a decade.
       House GOP leaders, including Archer, have said the Contract 
     With America plan was not ``written in stone'' and 
     acknowledge that it may undergo substantial changes once it 
     reaches the Senate. However, House leaders are more concerned 
     about honoring the terms of the contract than developing a 
     plan that is palatable to the Senate.
       ``We're committed to the contract,'' Archer told the 
     Associated Press. ``We ran on it, we all signed it, and we'll 
     do what we said we were going to do.''
       Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), a senior member of the Ways 
     and Means Committee, said that it doesn't make sense for the 
     committee to put together a package that might pass muster in 
     the Senate ``but that can't get out of the House.''

  (Mr. ABRAHAM assumed the chair.)
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, as we move into the period where we 
actually take up issues such as the line-item veto and then the budget 
resolution and then the reconciliation package, there will be the 
opportunities to actually make this happen, to actually 
[[Page S3859]] force this institution through the work of the U.S. 
Senate to not waste the funds that could be used for deficit reduction.
  I suggest that as we move into the budget resolution, either at the 
committee level or at the level of the entire Senate, if necessary, 
that an amendment be offered to the fiscal year 1996 budget resolution 
to change the revenue assumption to exclude or reject a major tax cut 
and instead to explicitly allocate the spending cuts that would offset 
such a tax cut to deficit reduction, to make sure that every dollar 
that was identified for spending cuts be immediately transferred into 
an account to reduce the Federal deficit.
  I think that is the only way we avoid the kind of losses and deficit 
reduction that are the inevitable result of the President's plan and 
especially the result of the Republican contract and the Archer plan.
  So I hope we can return to the wisdom that was indicated by the 
American people ever since the proposals were made, and I return to 
what is my favorite cartoon on the issue, which is the somewhat bizarre 
but rather effective portrayal of a giant deficit monster that is 
constantly calling out for more and more, in this case more fruit cake 
in the form of ``Tax Cuts R Us.'' The American people are onto the 
foolishness of this. They are onto it in the form of cartoons that 
ridicule a Congress that stands up and talks about fiscal 
responsibility but cannot resist the temptation to get some quick 
political gain by handing out a tax cut that will both hurt the economy 
and severely damage, if not permanently ruin, the possibility of ever 
having a balanced budget, whether it be in the next few years or by the 
year 2002.
  Mr. President, we will be coming back to this, but I notice in this 
institution, if you do not keep bringing something up like this, it has 
a way of getting resolved in the middle of the night and, all of a 
sudden, you have an up-or-down vote on the whole package. Somehow, 
whether it be $10 billion or $100 billion or $700 billion, it could be 
lost instead of actually being used to almost eliminate the Federal 
deficit. I think that is the opportunity we have. Instead of feeding 
this monster, reject the tax cuts and take the next big step to 
eliminate the Federal deficit.
  So, Mr. President, as I yield the floor, I urge my colleagues to 
cosponsor the sense-of-the-Senate resolution which Senator Bumpers, of 
Arkansas, and I have offered to specifically go on record as a body 
saying the tax cuts have to take second place to this historic 
opportunity to eliminate the Federal deficit.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.

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