[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 61 (Monday, April 3, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S5027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               PRIORITIES

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, 4 minutes is not a lot of time, but let 
me just rise to support the powerful words of my colleague from 
Massachusetts.
  We are talking about capital gains over $600,000, that is the only 
real tax we are talking about. And we are talking about expatriates 
with incomes over $5 million. We are just simply saying that if you are 
going to be making these gains over $600,000 a year and you are going 
to renounce your citizenship as a tax dodge, then, in fact, you are 
going to have to pay above and beyond that $600,000.
  It just seems to me that that does meet some standard of fairness, 
and my colleague has pointed out the juxtaposition of these proposed 
cuts in drug-free schools, the Women, Infants, and Children Program, 
the Head Start Program, Child Care Program.
  Mr. President, I have been on the floor over and over and over again 
with an amendment that speaks to the concerns and circumstances of 
children's lives. If we are going to be talking about cuts that 
dramatically affect the quality of life for children in America, quite 
often the most vulnerable citizens, and at the same time we are going 
to be talking about trying to let this kind of tax dodge go through, I 
just think that people in the country ought to understand what, in 
fact, really is going on.
  I do not think anybody intended to filibuster. None of us did. So it 
will be an overwhelming cloture vote. I do not think there is any 
question about that. But I do think that a little bit of sunshine is 
important, and I do think people in the country do need to understand 
the significance of what the Senator from Massachusetts has had to say.
  I think the significance of it--and we will have time this week as we 
get into what I think is a real important debate for the country--has 
to do with priorities. What in the world are we doing enabling people 
to have this huge tax dodge that really runs up into the billions of 
dollars for people who make over $5 million and, at the same time that 
we have this tax dodge going on, we are willing to be so generous with 
all too often the suffering of children in this country.
  That seems a little bit like just a speech on the floor. I probably 
have less than 20 seconds now, but we are going to have a debate on all 
of these programs. When the language, I say to my colleague from 
Massachusetts, is programs, it seems abstract. But we are going to talk 
about what all this means in personal terms, in human terms to our 
communities, working families, and children. That will be the debate 
that we will get to. I look forward to that debate.




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