[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 13 (Wednesday, January 31, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S580-S582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BALANCING THE BUDGET

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the reason I wanted to address the Senate at 
this time is that having spent a few days in Arizona recently visiting 
with constituents, I think that I have learned something that is 
important for us to share as we continue this debate about the budget 
impasse and whether we are going to be able to reach an agreement on a 
balanced budget.
  What I have heard from my constituents is, they are as concerned 
about the other side of the equation, namely, the income side of the 
equation, as they are about the balancing of the budget by the saving 
money side of the equation. Specifically, in the context of the new 
report issued a couple of weeks ago by the so-called Kemp Commission, 
they are suggesting that we should turn more of our attention to how we 
raise our revenue as much as we do to how we save our revenue. The 
report, entitled ``Unleashing America's Potential,'' is the official 
name of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform 
Report, the so-called Kemp Commission Report that was issued about 2 
weeks ago of this past month.
  Jack Kemp, who is the chairman of that commission, traveled to 
Phoenix and gave a couple presentations to constituents of mine talking 
about this, and combined with other meetings I have attended, as I have 
said, the conclusion I have come to is that while my constituents are 
very interested in balancing the budget--and they have encouraged me to 
stay the course and continue to try to press the President to reach a 
meaningful balanced budget over 7 years--they have also concluded, as I 
have, that that may not be practicable right now, the President just 
may not be ready to make a budget deal, that the incentives are not 
there for him to reach an agreement.
  If that is so, what they are saying is, look at the other side of the 
equation, because there is another debate that is starting in this 
country about how to raise tax revenues, and that debate could have as 
much to do not only with how we balance the budget but also how we 
promote economic growth in this country.
  Today, very briefly, I want to talk about those two subjects. When a 
family sits down at the table and figures up how they can do better 
economically to send their child to college or to buy the new car they 
have to buy because the old one is pretty much on its last legs, or any 
other way try to figure how they will do better economically, they 
generally look at both sides of the equation.
  They say, ``Well, first of all, are we spending too much money? Can 
we save money? Are we going out to dinner too much? Are we going out to 
the movies too much? We can save some money. We can pinch some 
pennies.'' And they figure out how much they can save.
  That is what we are trying to do with our balanced budget. We are 
trying to say the Government can save a lot of money. Republicans are 
talking about saving hundreds of billions of dollars over a 7-year 
period, thus being able to balance our budget. The President would like 
to spend about $400 to $500 billion more than we would. That is why we 
have not been able to reach agreement with him on a balanced budget. 
Clearly, we ought to be looking at the side of the equation that tells 
us whether we are spending too much money.
  But the other side of the equation is how can we cause the economy to 
grow so that not only will families be better off, so that they will 
not have to rely upon the Government so much, but that they will 
actually be producing more in terms of productivity and therefore more 
revenue to the Federal Government with existing tax policy? We can 
actually talk just like a family talks about getting a raise or doing 
something in business so they can make more money, which is the other 
half of their fiscal health, I guess you can call it.
  The Federal Government can be doing the same thing. There are two 
ways to do that. There is a wrong way and a right way. The wrong way 
says let us raise tax rates. That will bring in more money to the 
Federal Treasury. We know the last tax increase, the biggest in this 
country's history, promoted by the President, did not raise income 
nearly as much as the administration projected because, of course, 
people changed their behavior. The most graphic example of that was the 
1990 tax increase which included a much higher tax on luxury items, 
such as expensive cars and yachts and furs. And what happened to the 
people that were building the yachts? They went out of business, 
because people could not afford to pay the high tax so they stopped 
buying the yachts, as a result of which not only did the Federal 
Government not get the revenue but it actually had to pay money in 
terms of unemployment compensation because a lot of people lost their 
jobs because the yachts were not being made. Of course those people did 
not pay income taxes.
  So the bottom line was that even though the income tax rate was 
increased, the revenues did not increase at all. That is what we found 
in this last tax increase. Revenues to the Treasury have not increased 
nearly as much as the administration predicted. So we know that raising 
tax rates does not necessarily mean an increase in income.

  We also know that lowering tax rates can sometimes mean an increase 
in revenues to the Treasury. It is a little bit like the person who 
puts goods on sale about Christmastime. He does not do that to lose 
money. The retailer knows you can more than make up in volume what you 
lose in terms of the price cut. The same thing in taxes. You can reduce 
taxes and make more revenue for the Treasury because you have promoted 
commercial activity.
  As a matter of fact, in the preamble to this report, ``Unleashing 
America's Potential,'' former HUD Secretary and Representative, Jack 
Kemp, quotes John F. Kennedy who gave a speech before the Economic Club 
of New York in December 1962 and said this:

       In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too 
     high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way 
     to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates 
     now. . . . The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a 
     budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding 
     economy which can bring a budget surplus.

  That is John F. Kennedy in 1962, who also said ``A rising tide lifts 
all boats,'' meaning if we can get the economy growing again everyone 
will benefit, the entrepreneur who has had his tax rates cut as well as 
the person looking for a job who finds that there are jobs available 
because there is increased economic activity. It all has to do with 
injecting more capital into the private sector. John F. Kennedy made 
the point.
  Ronald Reagan made the point 20 years later. When tax rates were 
reduced in the Reagan administration, tax revenues for the Treasury 
were increased. That is what we are talking about here in the Kemp 
economic report, a fairer, simpler, single-rate tax that would promote 
economic growth and opportunity and job creation because it would 
provide the incentive for investment and savings rather than the 
incentive which we have today which is get as many deductions as you 
can by borrowing, because that is how you can, in effect, work the Tax 
Code.
  Some of our friends on the other side of the aisle say, ``A tax cut 
for the rich is what you are talking about. Capital gains are enjoyed 
by rich people, so if you cut the capital gains tax that helps them.''
  You know, nothing can be further from the truth. As Jack Kemp has 
pointed out, a capital gains tax cut benefits the poor more than the 
rich. The rich people do not have to sell their assets. What they can 
do is use their assets as collateral to borrow money and take an income 
tax deduction on the interest costs of borrowing and they still have 
their capital assets. So the rich people do not have to have a capital 
gains tax cut. They can use the capital as the equity to borrow money 
and then write off the interest on their income taxes.

  It is the poorer people in our society, who are looking for a job, or 
a better job, who can benefit by a capital gains 

[[Page S581]]
tax cut. Not only do many families have small assets tied up that they 
would like to sell so they could utilize that money to send a child to 
school or invest or for whatever purpose--on rates now they are paying 
28 percent if they sell that asset--but it is also the entrepreneurs 
who can free those assets up, take the money and invest it in something 
more productive, thus creating jobs, thus providing more opportunities 
for people at all levels of the economic spectrum in our society. So a 
tax cut can be beneficial, and it can benefit everybody in society, not 
simply those who are more well off.
  We are going to be introducing a constitutional amendment in the next 
day or two, a resolution which would provide that a two-thirds vote in 
each House of the Congress would be required to approve a tax rate 
increase. Representatives Barton and Shadegg are introducing a similar 
initiative on the House side. This is similar to constitutional 
amendments that have been proposed and sometimes passed in States 
around the country. As a matter of fact, my own State of Arizona has 
had such a proposition.
  The idea here is that tax increases have almost always been 
antithetical to growth, both in the private sector and to revenues of 
the Government. At least they have not been helpful. What the Kemp 
Commission suggested is that if we are going to have a single-rate, 
simple-income Tax Code--scrapping all of the existing code and going to 
a new, simpler, fairer single-rate code--we also need to have a 
mechanism in there to prevent the Congress from raising the rates after 
we get it into effect. I do not know whether the rate will be 17 or 19 
percent or if it has to be 20 percent. But wherever that rate is set, 
it ought to stay there and it should not be going up over time. Of 
course that is the experience with Congress, because there are some, 
and some Presidents, who thought they could raise revenues by raising 
tax rates.
  I think I have demonstrated that is not true, but it has not stopped 
them from trying. So we would like to build in a two-thirds requirement 
to approve any tax rate increase. I think that resolution should be 
debated and considered, along with the recommendations of the Kemp 
Commission, as they are introduced as legislation in force over the 
next several months. So we are going to be introducing that legislation 
and I will be looking for support to get that moving.

  Mr. President, in the time I have remaining let me just note a couple 
of statistical things of interest, I think. I made the point that the 
tax cuts of the early 1980's demonstrated that we can increase revenues 
by cutting rates. The figures are as follows. Revenues increased from 
$599 billion in fiscal year 1981 to over $990 billion in fiscal year 
1989, an increase of about 65 percent. High tax rates, on the other 
hand, of course we know discourage work, discourage production, savings 
and investment, so there is ultimately less economic activity to tax. 
Revenues amounted to about 19 percent of the gross national product 
when the top marginal income tax rate was in the 90 percent range in 
the 1950's. They amounted to just about the same 19 percent of GNP when 
the top marginal rate was in the 28 percent range in the 1980's, and 
again we are at about 19 percent of GNP in the 1970's, one of the 
longest postwar economic contractions in our history, and also at about 
19 percent during the longest peacetime expansion, the 1980's.
  The point is, as a percentage of GNP, the tax revenues have been 
almost constant at 19 percent. You cannot increase revenues as a 
percent of GNP by increasing tax rates.
  But what you can do is decrease tax rates, increase the size of the 
GNP, and still be at 19 percent of GNP in terms of Federal revenues. 
But the total dollar amount, of course, is much higher because you have 
increased the size of the GNP.
  So the question is not just the percentage but a percentage of what? 
And a percentage of a much more vibrant and larger GNP at 19 percent 
obviously represents more tax dollars than 19 percent of a contracting 
and lower gross national product.
  So that is why we need to focus not just on the question of how much 
taxes are raised, or cut, but how they are raised. Of course, that is 
why we think it is important to have a very firm consensus in the 
Congress. In this case, we would like to have a two-thirds vote to 
approve any kind of tax increase. But more importantly, as the Kemp 
Commission recommends, we would like to have a reduction in tax rates, 
which we think will then produce a higher GNP and at least the same 
percent of revenues to the Federal Treasury.
  Let me just read one quotation. Then I will conclude this point from 
the Kemp Commission report.

       The roller coaster ride of tax policy in the past few 
     decades has spent citizens' cynicism about the possibility of 
     real long-term reform while fueling frustration with 
     Washington. The initial optimism inspired by the low tax rate 
     of the 1986 Tax Reform Act soured into disillusionment and 
     anger when taxes subsequently were hiked two times in less 
     than 7 years. The commission concludes that a two-thirds 
     supermajority vote of Congress will earn American's 
     confidence in the longevity, predictability, and stability of 
     any new tax system.

  That is why, Mr. President, we think it is important to introduce 
this constitutional amendment to require two-thirds of Congress to 
support a tax increase for stability and for predictability so the 
American people have confidence that, if we go to a single rate, a 
simpler and fairer tax system, as the Kemp Commission recommends and we 
set a rate to produce the revenues that we are gathering today to the 
Federal Treasury, that Congress is not going to come along later and 
begin increasing that rate, because clearly, once most of the 
deductions and exemptions are eliminated, then taxpayers will no longer 
have those areas in which to retreat when rates are raised, which has 
been historically what has happened. Americans adjust their behavior in 
order not to pay taxes. They will buy municipal bonds so they do not 
have to pay taxes, for example.
  What we are saying, if we eliminate most of, or many of, those 
reductions, or exemptions, or credits, we do not want Congress and the 
President then to come along and raise the rates of income tax. That is 
why we think it is important to have a two-thirds majority. The Kemp 
Commission made the recommendations to eliminate the estate tax, to 
provide full deductibility of payroll taxes so that working Americans 
are not taxed on a tax. I think that would be a good idea. They 
encourage us to consider deductibility of charitable contributions and 
mortgage interest deductions. I think that debate needs to occur 
because that will affect the rate at which we end up having to set 
income tax, if we are going to have a single rate. The higher the 
deduction for mortgage interest, for example, the higher the single 
rate will have to be. We will have to consider what that tradeoff tells 
us in terms of actual tax policy.

  I am hopeful during this Presidential campaign that, armed with the 
Kemp Commission report, the candidates will get out there and debate 
this concept thoroughly, and that the American people will evaluate the 
different proposals. I am not an advocate of any specific proposal, but 
I think each of them has some merit. What we ought to be focusing on is 
the end result here of a simpler, fairer, predictable tax structure. If 
we can do that, then I am sure the specific decisions we make will fall 
into line. But the American people need to focus on that during the 
campaign, need to question the candidates, and need to come to some 
kind of conclusion as to what they want us to do.
  I am hoping that the next election will result in a mandate of sorts 
that in 1997 will cause us to come together and conclude that the 
American people have spoken in the election, they have supported 
candidates who generally believe in a certain approach to income tax 
reform, and then in 1997 we will begin the legislative process of 
fundamentally reforming our Tax Code.
  What I would like to do beginning this week is to begin the debate on 
the two-thirds supermajority because it would be the only 
constitutional amendment that would accompany the Kemp Commission 
recommendations. It is going to take longer to put into effect. We know 
by historical reference that constitutional amendments do not pass very 
quickly around here, and they should not. That is why we want to begin 
the debate now so that by the time we debate legislative changes in the 
Tax Code we will have been able to 

[[Page S582]]
thoroughly air this constitutional proposal as well as perhaps pass the 
bill at the same time because clearly we would want to be able to 
restrict future Congresses' ability to raise taxes.
  Mr. President, the bottom line here is, yes, we need to focus on 
balancing the budget, on pinching pennies, and on saving in every way 
we can so we are not spending taxpayer dollars unwisely. That has been 
our focus all this year. We came close to getting a balanced budget 
agreement, but we did not quite do it. It would still be nice, if we 
could. Since we have not been able to, I think we have to focus equally 
on the other side. How do we get the economy growing again, moving 
forward, providing opportunity for growth, for job creation, for 
entrepreneurship, and for capital infusion for the economy. And the 
best way to do that is to follow the recommendations of the Kemp 
Commission--to give everybody a better opportunity by having a simpler, 
fairer, single-rate Tax Code.

  I look forward to this debate in the ensuing weeks and months. I hope 
many of my colleagues will join me in sponsorship of the constitutional 
amendment to require a two-thirds vote to approve any income tax rate 
increases.
  Mr. INHOFE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized to speak as if 
in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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