[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 30 (Thursday, March 7, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1615-S1616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        SEARCHING FOR PROSPERITY

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, when Minnesotans gather to talk about the 
issues that matter to them most, as they did on Tuesday at their 
precinct caucuses, there is a common theme that weaves between nearly 
all of them, especially when they are speaking directly from their 
hearts.
  They are looking for a better life.
  They want a good job that pays a decent wage. They want to put enough 
food on the table. They want a strong roof over their heads, for many, 
a place they can call their own.
  And after the bills have been paid, they would like a little extra at 
the end of the month to squirrel away in a savings account.
  The most striking truth about seeking that better life is that most 
folks aren't doing it just for themselves. They are pursuing it for 
their children, too, in the hopes of offering them the best 
opportunities for success.
  In other words, they are searching for prosperity.
  It is interesting that prosperity and the struggle to achieve it has 
spread across the Nation to become a major theme of the 1996 
presidential campaigns. The media have just begun to focus on the 
troubles facing working people, and the stagnating wages and high taxes 
that have pushed prosperity out of reach for many middle-class 
families.
  But where have the media been? Working families have been feeling the 
pinch for a long time.
  ``Our economy is the healthiest is has been in three decades,'' 
announced President Clinton in his State of the Union Address.
  Is it really? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary--and four 
areas are especially troublesome:
  First, the economy itself has dropped to a sluggish pace. The Federal 
Government released new numbers just last week confirming that economic 
growth has slowed to a trickle, up by only nine-tenths of a percent 
during the last 3 months of 1995.
  Second, job growth has slowed as well, to about half the rate we'd 
expect to see in a normal recovery.
  The U.S. Labor Department says that pay and benefit increases last 
year saw their lowest climb in about 14 years, since the Government 
first began tracking these statistics.
  They could, in fact, be the leanest increases since before World War 
II, an unfortunate trend analysts say could easily continue.
  Third, wages continue to slip as Americans take home fewer and fewer 
dollars.
  Real weekly earnings for an average worker dropped three-tenths of a 
percent in 1995. That means families are taking home almost $800 a year 
less than they did before President Clinton was elected in 1992.
  That is $800 they no longer have to spend on necessities such as 
groceries, medical expenses, or insurance.
  Fourth, while the economy is slowing down, taxes have accelerated.
  Americans have never paid a higher percentage of their income in 
taxes than they are paying today.
  In 1950, an average worker paid about 2 percent of his earnings to 
support our Federal Government. Today, an average family sends 25 
percent or more of its earnings to Washington, and that does not 
include the additional tax burden once State and local taxes are heaped 
on top of that.
  Now if the economy itself was not blocking the road toward 
prosperity, the record high taxes alone would have done it. Together, 
they have proven to be a lethal combination for American families and 
American workers.
  None of this will come as any surprise to middle-class, working 
Americans.
  After all, they are the ones paying the taxes at the same time they 
watch their paychecks shrink.
  But they can find some comfort in the fact that it is their 
anxieties--that is, the anxieties of parents hoping to eke out a better 
life for themselves and their children in the face of tremendous 
obstacles--that will perhaps become the defining issues of the 1996 
elections.
  It all comes down to economic growth, income, and jobs.
  We know what is blocking the way, but how did the roadblock get there 
in the first place?
  Do you remember the prank we used to pull when we were kids, when we 
would attach a dollar bill to the end of a fishing line and plant it in 
the middle of a sidewalk?
  As soon as someone spied the bill and reached down to grab it, we 
would yank on the string, moving that dollar out of reach and leaving 
the poor victim embarrassed and empty-handed.
  That is what the Clinton administration is doing to the middle class. 
They tempt working Americans with a dollar bill and the prosperity it 
represents, but they yank it away just as soon as somebody begins to 
get close to it.
  Rather than offering opportunities for success, the Government has 
allowed working people to become trapped between falling incomes and 
rising taxes. Whatever you call it--the ``middle-class squeeze'' or the 
``Clinton crunch''--it is cheating the middle class out of their hard-
earned dollars.
  Just look at your paycheck, look at your tax forms, look at what you 
are paying for government, who is spending your money, and how they are 
spending it. In most cases, the bureaucrats have your credit card and 
are spending it, I believe, without any real accountability.
  It should make Americans angry that much of the money they work so 
hard for is being wasted on programs that do not work, or plainly just 
cost too much.
  Unfortunately, past discussions about issues like wage stagnation and 
economic growth have too often centered around the minimum wage or 
corporate profits, and that is not what working men and women care 
about, though.
  They are interested in their net income--what is left after you take 
out Federal taxes, State taxes, payroll taxes. And under the Clinton 
administration, there has been less and less left over in your pay 
envelope, thanks in part to the President's tax increases and the 
Federal mandates that are sapping the precious resources of our job 
providers, businesses have been forced to keep wages lower.

[[Page S1616]]

  They would like to invest their dollars improving salaries and 
benefits, but any additional dollars that might have been available to 
improve the lives of employees have been confiscated by the Federal 
Government.
  Even when job providers find the means to offer wage and benefit 
increases, tax hikes mean families do not see much of a difference in 
their paychecks after it is done.
  And so family incomes--the amount of dollars they have left to spend 
on food, transportation, clothing, housing, et cetera--have actually 
dropped every year of the Clinton Presidency.
  A Government-mandated increase in the minimum wage is not the only 
solution--although many argue that is all we have to do and many 
problems would be cured--because low wages alone are not the problem.
  The Clinton administration simply cannot stop spending, and requiring 
more and more tax dollars to feed that spending, taking away most of 
the money that could be used for better salaries, or new jobs.
  If the Government would reform itself, if it would curb its spending 
and cut taxes, middle-class families would not need a hike in the 
minimum wage or risk losing their jobs because of it.
  In our current economic climate, it is the working folks who have the 
most to lose. The wealthy do not need our help. The poor already have 
the safety net of welfare and the hundreds of Federal programs it opens 
up to them. But who is watching out for the working people? They are 
the ones being squeezed.
  Yet the Clinton administration just does not get it, despite all the 
talk from the White House about the need to reform Government and 
balance the budget.
  Just last week, President Clinton requested an additional $8 billion 
from Congress for increased domestic discretionary spending.
  How can you go on national television one week to declare that ``the 
era of big Government is over,'' and then come to Congress just a few 
weeks later, hat in hand, asking for another 8 billion dollars' worth 
of even bigger Federal Government?
  Where do we get the money--higher taxes, or borrow it and make our 
kids pay?
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle still do not get it, 
either.
  They staked out a new agenda of their own last week as part of a 
campaign to portray themselves as the soul of the working class. 
Incredibly, their proposal includes more job-killing taxes on the 
Nation's job providers.
  That, of course, comes after they spent months trying to delay and 
derail our efforts to balance the budget and offer meaningful tax 
relief to American families.
  Republicans have put on the table a balanced budget, welfare reform 
and Medicare reform. But who has stood in the way of getting that 
passed so the American people can begin to enjoy the benefits? It has 
been the Democratic leaders in this Congress and the President who have 
kept that from happening.
  Mr. President, too many years of big Government have proven it: more 
taxes, more spending, more regulations, and more Government programs 
will not lead to more jobs and higher pay. We will never tax our way to 
prosperity or spend our way to economic success.
  Unlike those Johnny-come-latelys in the White House and here on 
Capitol Hill who talk a good game about serving the middle class but 
never step up to the plate on their behalf, the taxpayers' agenda 
Republicans are fighting for has always been focused on the working 
class.
  We have heard their calls for tax relief--and we delivered.
  We have heard their calls for opening the economy to more jobs, 
better paying jobs--and we delivered.
  We have heard their calls for balancing the budget and putting an end 
to the legacy of debt we have imposed on our children and 
grandchildren--and we delivered.
  We have heard the pleas of working Americans who ask for nothing more 
than a chance to reach prosperity--and again we delivered.
  In the name of America's working class, we shipped each one of those 
proposals to the White House--and the President sent each of them back 
stamped ``Return to Sender.''
  Mr. President, the balanced budget passed by this Congress, with its 
tax cuts and incentives to help stimulate growth and create jobs, is 
the best way we can help average Americans troubled by an economy that 
is heading down.
  We agree that the key to creating economic prosperity and good jobs 
is a healthy business climate.
  We understand that those jobs can help instill independence and 
dignity, and create more opportunities for anyone trying to get ahead.
  And we know that the key to empowering families to reach that better 
life, however they may define it, is to cut taxes and let them keep 
more of their own dollars.
  Mr. President, for the working-class people of this Nation who have 
built their own success and today lead the lives they have always 
wanted, prosperity is not defined by the size of their last Federal 
handout or how much something they got for nothing.
  It is oftentimes about building something out of nothing, which, 
after all, is the definition of the American dream.
  I urge the President to put aside the election-year politicking and 
take a real stand on the side of the working class by working with 
Congress to right the economic wrongs created by his administration.
  It is not too late to give prosperity a chance, but it would be 
irresponsible to make Americans wait until the November elections have 
come and gone before we really try.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized to 
speak for up to 30 minutes.

                          ____________________