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


                     TAX CUTS AND THE NATIONAL DEBT

  (Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in response to my good 
friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke], who quoted John Kennedy, I 
would like to remind him, I reminded him privately, I will remind him 
publicly, at the time John Kennedy said that, the Nation's annual 
operating deficit was $10 billion a year, Now it is $200 billion a 
year. At the time that John Kennedy said that, our Nation's total debt 
was about $500 billion. Today it is almost $5 trillion.
  Now, we have a very strange situation with the tax cutters who, as my 
good friend, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], pointed out, 
should be for deficit reduction. I am one of those people, Mr. Solomon. 
I am for deficit reduction.
  So I am going to say that whatever we save go toward the deficit, 
because it does not make any sense at all for this Nation to borrow 
$200 billion this year and pay the interest on it for the next 10 years 
just to give people a very miniscule break today and to give the 
wealthiest Americans, whose maximum tax rate went from 66 percent in 
1981 down to about 35 percent today, an even bigger tax break.




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