[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4147-H4148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      INVESTMENT AND JOB CREATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bilbray). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Bartlett] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in strong 
support of H.R. 1215, because it is an investment and job-creation 
bill.
  Let me talk for just a moment about tax cuts in general and what they 
do. First of all, let me say that tax cuts are not a government 
giveaway. What the Government is doing is simply taking less of your 
hard-earned money.
  The Federal Government has no a priori right to your money. When they 
take less of your money, that is not a Government giveaway. It is 
simply letting you keep more of what is rightfully yours.
  Republicans and small business all across the country, indeed, large 
businesses also recognize that the engine of job growth in America is 
small businesses. The statistics from our recovery from the last 
recession are really very illuminating. If you place the companies 
across our country in categories relative to the number of employees, 
5,000 employees and above, and then smaller and smaller until you get 
down to the smallest companies, and those are with zero to four 
employees, the new jobs that were created in recovery from the last 
recession, a tiny percentage of those were created in the companies 
that had 5,000 employees and more. No company below that, no group of 
companies below that, increased their work force at all. It relied on 
the smallest of these groups of companies, the zero to 4 employees. 
There more than 90 percent of all the new jobs were created. This makes 
it very apparent that capital investment, capital for small businesses 
is very, very important in our job force, particularly so when we are 
trying to recover from a recession.
  I sit on the Small Business Committee, and I have been impressed over 
and over with witnesses there how important, how important venture 
capital is. Regrettably, the Federal Government has in the past, and we 
are correcting that, the Federal Government has been playing the role 
of investment banker. It has been taking the hard-earned dollars from 
American workers and trying to make choices of who will succeed and who 
is not likely to succeed in the business world. They have not done very 
well at that, because it is not a proper function of government.
  We do need money for small business, but this money should not be 
controlled by the Government. Our oppressive tax structure, after a 
business finally even gets enough money to get started, our oppressive 
tax structure penalizes people for success in the business.
  We had one witness in the committee which told of a friend of his who 
had a company of over 100 people. The Government was taking more than 
about half of the money that his company made, and if he was able to 
save the rest of it, when he went to pass it on for his children, the 
Government would take more than another half of it. So his children 
were going to get about 20 cents of each dollar that he earned now. He 
did not need the company and all of the headaches and the Government 
harassment, and so he quit. There were 100 people out of work, because 
there was no incentive for him to continue to work.
  We need to lower this oppressive tax structure.
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I would just like the gentleman to yield on 
the point he is making about Government taking a bigger and bigger bite 
out of people's pockets and a bigger and bigger bite out of national 
income.
  This chart demonstrates, beginning in 1930 when the Government took 
12 percent of national income, to 1940, when the Government consumed 25 
percent of national income, to 1960, when it consumed 32 percent of 
national, all the way up to 1990 when local and Federal Government 
consumed 42 percent of national income.
  What the gentleman is saying correctly and very articulately is that 
this bill is about trying to turn this around so national income is 
consumed less by the Government rather than more each decade, as we see 
is evident on this chart.
  I thank the gentleman for making that point.
  Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Thank you very much. If you continued that, 
last year, May 27 was tax free day. That is more than 42 percent. But 
we were not through yet supporting Government, because between May 27 
and July 10, every person in America who worked spent all of their 
money, all the money they made went to pay for unfunded Federal 
mandates, so the cost of total Government last year took all of the 
income of all working Americans up until July 10.
  This is a tax burden that we cannot bear.
  Just a word, in closing, about the capital gains tax. By statute, CBO 
cannot dynamically score a tax cut. They must statically score it. What 
that 
[[Page H4148]] means is all of those capital gains tax reductions will 
certainly create jobs and increase revenue to the Government. They 
cannot score it that way, but everyone who studies this knows a capital 
gains tax cut is a real winner for everyone.


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