[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 47 (Monday, April 15, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3324-S3326]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DAY OF RECKONING

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today is April 15, the day of 
reckoning for millions of Americans. After a year on the job, and hours 
and hours of paperwork, today American moms and dads must file their 
income tax return, and send a check to Uncle Sam.
  The IRS's favorite day of the year is everyone else's least favorite. 
Working families in America are getting squeezed between ever-rising 
expenses for necessities and higher taxes.
  Last year the Republican Congress tried to do something unusual for 
taxpayers--we tried to let them keep their own money.

[[Page S3325]]

  We cut taxes for families with children by providing a $500 tax 
credit for each child, to help parents raise children and to offset the 
erosion of the personal exemption from inflation. With this tax cut, 
3.5 million families wouldn't have to pay taxes any more. In Texas, it 
would save 285,000 families over $167 million.
  Some big-city liberals don't think $500 is real money--they say 
``it's only pennies a day.'' But with the children's tax credit, a 
parent with two children would be much better off today. Instead of 
writing a $500 check to the IRS, she could be getting a $500 check 
back--that's real money for families with kids.
  We also encouraged families to save for retirement--with my homemaker 
IRA proposal, and with expanded individual retirement accounts.
  The homemaker IRA would allow women who work at home to get the same 
opportunity to save for retirement that all other workers do. The 
current tax code prevents married couples that rely on one income from 
equitably providing for their retirement security by limiting the 
homemaker's deductible IRA contribution to $250.
  To end this unequal treatment of women and men that work inside the 
home, and to promote retirement savings, we would have permitted 
deductible IRA contributions of up to $2,000 by spouses that work 
inside the home.
  What would this mean for homemakers? Under current law, a single-
income married couple saving $2,250 each year for 30 years would have 
$188,000 for retirement. With the bill's $4,000 annual contribution 
limit, after 30 years they would have $335,000--an increase in savings 
of almost $150,000.
  We also helped families by permitting tax-deferred savings in IRA's 
for education costs, medical expenses, and first-time home purchases, 
and allowing penalty free withdrawals during times of unemployment.
  We stopped penalizing young couples for getting married. We increased 
the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly. By 2005, the 
marriage penalty would have been eliminated for couples that don't 
itemize their deductions.
  We cut capital gains taxes to encourage and reward investment, and to 
create new businesses and new jobs.
  And we cut estate taxes, so that years of hard work and success won't 
be wiped out in a generation.
  Our tax cuts reduce the tax burden on the people who actually pay 
taxes. More than three-quarters of the cuts in the first year go to the 
middle class, those making $75,000 a year or less. Who are those 
people?
  They are mothers and fathers, who will get help raising their 
children with a $500 tax credit.
  They are homemakers who will have the opportunity to contribute the 
maximum amount to an IRA for retirement security for the first time.
  They are married couples, who will have the Tax Code's marriage 
penalty reduced.
  They are savers, who are trying to buy a first home, pay for college 
for their kids, or retirement for themselves.
  They are small business owners who have spent their lives building a 
business, and want to pass it on to their children.
  They are investors who have provided the capital to start new 
businesses and create jobs.
  Our tax cut helped all Americans--it would put more money in people's 
pockets, and would increase jobs. Together with a balanced budget, it 
would lower interest rates and increase the standard of living for 
millions of Americans.
  So why do I keep saying here is what our proposals would have done? 
Because President Clinton vetoed it. He vetoed tax relief for all of us 
paying taxes today to the IRS. Instead of getting a refund, many are 
writing a check to the Treasury.
  After running for President in 1992 on a middle class tax cut, in 
1993 President Clinton raised taxes on middle class Americans while 
claiming he was only hitting the rich. He overlooked his tax increase 
on seniors, which raised taxes on Social Security benefits from 50 to 
85 percent for seniors earning more than $34,000--for marrieds, it's 
$44,000, and his gas tax on everyone. His taxes took what could have 
been a robust period of economic growth and made it a weak, lackluster 
recovery.
  I cannot remember any time in America when our economy was growing, 
but people have had more reason to worry about their jobs. Big 
government is one of the big reasons. Big government regulation costs 
jobs, too. A report from the Rochester Institute of Technology 
estimates the direct cost of complying with Federal regulations to be 
about $668 billion in 1995. That's about $6,000 for every American 
family in higher prices, diminished wages, and increased taxes.

  Another way to look at it: The cost of regulation is about the same 
as the entire amount of individual income taxes! So when you're writing 
your check today, double the check you write to get the real cost of 
big government.
  Last year, when the Republican Congress was preparing our tax cut 
bill, President Clinton admitted that he and the Democratic Congress 
had made a mistake in 1993 by raising taxes. Nice talk--but then he 
vetoed the bill that would have cut taxes for Americans today.
  If he hadn't vetoed the bill, instead of turning your money over to 
Uncle Sam today, you would be keeping your money in your own pocket. 
With the tax cuts and balanced budget, we would get 1.2 million new 
jobs, $75 billion in new investment, and lower interest rates, lower 
mortgage rates, and higher disposal income. Everyone in America would 
have been better off.
  I don't think most Americans object to taxes in principle; we all 
know some taxes must be paid to provide for a national defense, for 
health regulations, for police and schools, and for other services. But 
its how much we pay and what we get in return that bothers us.
  President Clinton's new budget will spend $1.572 trillion--with a 
$146 billion deficit. The problem with the deficit isn't that we aren't 
paying taxes--its that we're spending too much. The problem has always 
been spending. If Congress in the 1980's had just limited the growth of 
domestic spending to the rate of inflation--if Congress had just 
restrained spending the way that every American household does--we 
would have ended the last decade with a budget surplus.
  What happened? Where is that surplus? It is buried in the huge 
buildings all over Washington. Instead of limiting spending increases 
to the rate of inflation, Congress went on an unprecedented spending 
binge. And when the decade of the 1980's ended, there was no surplus, 
there was not even a balanced budget--there was more debt to pay 
interest on.
  This administration refuses to abandon the irresponsible policies of 
past Congresses. This administration has dealt itself out of the fight 
to save American's future.
  The majority in Congress will not change our principles for a few 
inside-the-beltway bureaucrats and editorial writers who don't want the 
era of big government to end. We will not offer a Band-Aid to past the 
next election. We promised to offer real, long-term solutions for the 
next generation and we did.
  The people know they don't get the money's worth from Washington; we 
waste money foolishly all the time--on small things like the Tea 
Tasting Board, and on big ones like the Davis-Bacon law, which adds 
millions of dollars to every government construction project, while 
leaving entry-level workers unemployed.
  We must go through the budget, line by line, agency by agency, and 
ask, ``Is this worth it? Do we need it? Should the Federal Government 
do it? ``Last year we cut outdated or duplicate programs, like the 
Interstate Commerce Commission, the Office of Technology Assessment, 
and the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, and cut our own 
budget, too.
  Finally, we will make fundamental changes to prevent us from the old 
tax and spend ways. Today, in the other body, they will consider for 
the first time an amendment to the Constitution that will change the 
balance of power between taxes and spending. Right now, when Congress 
cuts spending, it only lasts for a year. We have annual appropriations, 
so its easy to replace old spending with new spending. But when we 
increase taxes, they are permanent changes to the Tax Code. Taxes are 
paid year after year, until we repeal them.
  Not only that, it takes only half the body plus one vote to increase 
taxes. In

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1993, President Clinton's tax increases were passed by one vote in the 
House, and a tie was broken in the Senate by Vice President Gore. 
Despite the fact that half the Senate opposed the taxes, they were 
imposed on the public.
  I believe that this was wrong. We shouldn't be able to make such a 
fundamental change in how Americans are governed by their 
representatives in Congress without the support in Congress that a 
super majority vote for a tax increase requires. It should be hard to 
increase taxes. It should be harder to increase taxes--to take the 
people's money from them--than it is to cut taxes.
  Mr. President, what the public is asking for is leadership.
  It is not leadership to increase taxes on the elderly and everyone 
who drives a car, and claim you only hit the rich--which the Democrats 
did in 1993 without one Republican vote.
  It is not leadership to veto tax cuts for American families, and then 
propose tax cuts again in the next election year.
  It is not leadership to propose a budget with a $200 billion deficit, 
and then veto a balanced budget.
  And it is not leadership to propose a budget in the following year 
that balances only with huge spending cuts after the year 2000, when 
the President is sure to have moved back to Arkansas.
  It is leadership to confront our fiscal problems head on, to show the 
people what we must do to preserve Medicare, to help families, to 
create jobs, to reform welfare, and to balance the budget. That is what 
the Republican Congress did.
  America has led the world through the most tumultuous century of all 
time--from the age of horse power to the age of atomic power. Now that 
the threat to our liberty from communism is gone, and freedom is 
spreading throughout the world, it's time to return the government's 
power to the people. We can start by giving them their money 
back.

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