[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 59 (Thursday, March 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              TAX BENEFITS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Baker] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BAKER of California. Mr. Speaker, I am from California, the wine 
country, but we celebrate Wente Brothers and we celebrate Concannon and 
Stoney Ridge and Sebastiani. But the whine you hear around here is 
spelled with an ``H,'' and it is the whine that the rich are getting 
more than they are entitled to and that we have to create another 
program for the poor, and we have to transfer money from this group to 
that group.
  We have all of the whines and when we return Government to the 
people, the very people that gave us this Government, this democracy, 
we hear the whines. ``Oh, we are with you, but. We would be with you on 
the balanced budget, but there is no safeguard for Social Security.''
  Where does Social Security go today? It goes to the U.S. Government, 
every cent of it. If we were going to steal it, we would steal it 
today. If we reduce the deficit, do we have more likely a need for 
Social Security or less likely? The answer is, if we balance this 
budget, we are less likely to impose on Social Security, but the ifs 
and the buts and the whining are endless.
  Yesterday, we heard the fabulous whine, ``Oh, we are for term limits 
if you will make them retroactive.'' This was coauthored by a gentleman 
who has only served here 40 years, and he did it with a straight face.
  Last week, ``We want to reform welfare but not if you consolidate the 
bureaucracies of the 16 different administrative arms serving food.'' 
But, ``Oh, you are going to cut food to the poor children and to the 
elderly.''
  Well, we finally found out that the COLA is 4.3 percent rather than 
the 3.1 in the Clinton budget, and there is actually going to be more 
money down there to feed the poor people, but the starving bureaucrats 
will get a little thinner if welfare reform goes through, and it will.
  Today, the Democrats, who had 40 years to fix the Tax Code, have 
discovered that people are going overseas to avoid the taxes, these 
same taxes that they spent 40 years creating. They have driven 
manufacturing overseas, and then they found out people are actually 
expatriating to avoid taxes.
  In a bill which was created to extend the tax break for self-employed 
so they could buy health insurance, they wanted to tack on a tax on 
expatriates.
  Well, folks, this was not the Omnibus Tax Bill of 1995. This was a 
bill to extend tax credits of 25 percent to the self-employed for last 
year so they can do their taxes by April 15 and to extend it to 30 
percent next year.
  Thanks to a great gentlewoman of this House, Nancy Johnson, we are 
going to go all the way to 100 percent by the time we are through, 
because people who own their own business ought to be able to do the 
same thing a large corporation can do and that is write off all of 
their health care.
  Do not forget this came from the same gang that last year wanted to 
nationalize health care. They wanted the Government to take it over 
because it would become more efficient, because Government in 
Washington knows best.
  No, folks, the whining continues. Next week, we are going to hear 
about the tax cuts of $500 per child are going to benefit the rich.
  Now, we have got to use a little common sense
   here. Do all of the children belong to the rich? Did I miss 
something here or could we logically think to ourselves, without the 
help of Washington, that maybe it is young families that are having 
children, people on their way up, people who do not have all of the 
income in the world and have not a whole lot of savings because they 
are young? That is when we have our children.

  This great financial institution known as Gannett published in their 
newspaper the following chart, and, lo and behold, just as you might 
have surmised, the young are having children, and they only make 
between $15,000 and $30,000. Twenty-eight percent of children and, 
therefore, 28 percent of the benefits are going to go to people under 
$30,000; 34.9 percent in addition to the 29 percent are going to those 
who make less than $50,000. That is with both parents working. Then 
under $75,000 add on another 23.1 percent and up to $100,000, 7.4 
percent.
  In other words, if you want to soak the rich and reduce the tax 
benefit to $95,000 and below, you are going to stick it to 5.3 percent 
of the people. That is the tax the rich folks that everybody is talking 
about and that leads us into the capital gains tax.
  The capital gains tax, of course, is for the rich. Have you ever 
heard of a capital gains tax for the poor? People who have savings by 
buying a duplex may want to pass it on to their kids. They will not pay 
the capital gains tax because it is too high. They will wait to die.
  According to the Wall Street Journal, there is over $7 trillion 
waiting for people to pass on, $7 trillion that would be unlocked if we 
reduced the capital gains tax.
  That is what President John F. Kennedy did. That is what Ronald 
Reagan did. This tax cut for children is their own money, not a 
transfer from somebody else. We are giving them a credit to keep their 
own money.
  We will see you next week for this debate, and we will help the 
families of America with the capital gains tax.

                          ____________________