[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S1545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WHERE AMERICA IS GOING

  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and my friend from 
Wyoming for his leadership on this freshman focus, a time where 
freshman Members of the Senate have an opportunity to get up and talk 
about issues of importance to the country from a perspective of those 
of us who are relatively new in this body. I think he is right on 
target to talk about the issue of the economy and where this country is 
going.
  We have a President who is running around the country talking about 
how this is the healthiest economy that we have seen and we are doing 
great and everything is fine. It actually reminds me of another 
President in an election year 4 years ago, who was going around the 
country trying to convince the American public that the economy was 
fine and everything is great and this is a healthy economy and we are 
moving forward. The American public, frankly, did not buy it.

  The reaction was very simple: What country is he living in? What 
country is he leading? Does he not have any understanding of what is 
actually going on in the economy, what we are dealing with here, that 
in fact the statistics show that, out of recessionary years, this 
economy is the slowest growing economy since the 1950's? This is not a 
robust economy.
  The Senator from Wyoming was right on target as to why this is not a 
growing economy. It is the same reason that the previous President had 
problems saying it was a growing economy, and that is because this 
President and the previous President raised taxes on the American 
public. They took more money out of their pocket and sent it here to 
Washington. It had a real effect on their take-home pay and had a real 
effect on their ability to be able to provide for themselves and their 
families. That has a ripple effect through the economy, from consumer 
confidence and their willingness to consume to the real issue of just 
paying bills.
  I think we may be seeing a repeat here. I know many of us who are in 
this Chamber now were here as Senators or Representatives during the 
1993 Budget Act, when President Clinton went out and said we have to 
raise taxes and we said this is going to have an effect. It is the same 
type of tax increase that was put forward in 1990. Many Republicans--I 
was in the House at the time--many Republicans fought it and said 
President Bush at that time was making a mistake; it would hurt the 
economy and drag the whole economy down and this country down. A lot of 
us believed it would bring the President down. It did.
  Then 1993 comes around and President Clinton did not learn from the 
mistakes of President Bush and pushed forward through another tax 
increase--and, I might add, more entitlement programs, more regulation, 
more on people's backs. Many of us said, ``Learn your lesson from 1990. 
That is not going to help the economy. That is not, in the long run, 
going to balance this budget.'' He said, ``No, we have to do it.'' They 
did it.
  As a result, coming out of this recession in the early 1990's, we 
have had one of the slowest recoveries in history. Job growth, yes. We 
have had jobs. But I think if you talk to most of the people, the kind 
of jobs being created are not the kind of jobs that will support a 
family. You hear Members on both sides of the aisle talking about that. 
The reason is oppressive regulation, oppressive taxation.

  Almost 25 percent of the income of the average family in America goes 
just to pay taxes to Washington, DC. That is a peace-time high. By the 
way, I like to compare that to what it was back in 1950 when the 
average American family--same family, average-income family--did not 
pay almost 25 percent of their taxes to the Federal Government; they 
paid 2 percent of their income to the Federal Government in taxes. Now 
it is almost 25 percent.
  Do we wonder why people feel squeezed, why they do not feel they have 
the opportunities to provide for a family anymore, why both husband and 
wife have to work? If you are a single parent, what do you do? You work 
two jobs and you struggle to provide for your children.
  What we do here is what they did 3 years ago: Put even more taxes on 
the American public. We believe that is not the answer. We have stood 
up this year and said the answer is not to take the American public for 
more, not to regulate the American public more, but to put Government 
on a diet so we can allow the folks back home to take a little bit more 
out of their paycheck for their own use, not Government use.
  So we proposed this irresponsible thing. People got on the floor and 
said this was such an irresponsible thing to let people keep more of 
their own money to help provide for their families. As the song goes, 
``That's my story and I'm sticking to it.'' My story is that American 
families should keep more of their money.
  We are going to continue to push for a tax cut for American families. 
We will continue to push for a tax cut to create growth and opportunity 
in capital gains and helping small business people, because creating 
jobs is the real answer here. Creating good quality jobs is the real 
answer here. Growth is the answer--not further taxation, but liberating 
people. Money should go out and be invested in capital resources so we 
can create more high-quality jobs in this country. We will continue to 
push for that.
  We will continue to push for regulatory reform so Government does not 
stifle the creativity of Americans by regimenting them into some model 
that we believe in Washington, DC, is the best for everyone. We are 
going to go out and do the things that are necessary to make this 
country prosperous and moving forward.
  I just hope that the President will come to the realization that 
tightening the belt here in Washington ever so slightly--and frankly, 
that is all we are talking about in this balanced budget--tightening 
the belt here in Washington so we can give just a little bit more to 
working families is not cruel. It may be cruel to some bureaucrats in 
town, but it is not cruel to American families. It is not cruel to 
Americans who want good-paying jobs, outside in the private sector, not 
just here in Washington.

  I am hopeful we can somehow come to an agreement that this is not the 
healthiest economy, that the spin doctors of the campaign of 1996 for 
the President are not going to win the day to try to convince the 
American public what they know is not true, that this economy is 
booming and healthy and the best it has ever been. We should get down 
to trying to address the real economic insecurity that American workers 
have, the real problems of raising families in this country, and do 
something about it on a bipartisan basis in this Congress.
  I am hopeful we can do that. We should be able to do that. I am 
looking forward to the opportunity to make that happen. I yield the 
floor.
  Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania. I ask unanimous 
consent that the period for morning business be extended by 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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