[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 5, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4188-H4189]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         TAXING FEDERAL WORKERS

  (Mr. WYNN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  [[Page H4189]] Mr. WYNN. Mr. Speaker, I am confused. I thought the 
Republicans were trying to cut taxes. So why are they raising taxes, 
raising taxes on 2 million Federal employees? To finance their tax bill 
they have to raise $12 billion. So what do they do? They ask Federal 
employees to increase their contribution for their retirement program 
by 2.5 percent.
  What does that mean? It means that for the average Federal employee 
making about $30,000, it is a tax of $750 a year. Why?
  The program is not insolvent. The program is not overly generous. 
People in the private sector do not pay anything toward their 
retirement programs.
  So it works out like this: In order to get a $500-per-child tax 
credit, Federal employees, whether they have a child or not, have to 
pay a tax of $750. It does not make sense.
  Moreover, today's Washington Post points out that fully 50 percent of 
the tax benefits to go to the top 10 percent of Americans, not the Ma 
and Pa stores and not your average American citizen, and fully 10 
percent of these so-called tax benefits for the middle class go to the 
top 1 percent of wage earners in this country. There is something wrong 
with this tax bill.
  On the subject of Federal employees, before my Republican colleagues 
vote, I urge them to check to see the number of Federal employees in 
their district, because you are raising taxes on a lot of very good, 
average American citizens.


                          ____________________