[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 51 (Friday, April 19, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S3717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AMERICANS ARE ON MY MIND

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Tennessee. I thank 
the Chair. I have Americans on my mind today, and I am concerned that 
maybe some of us are not listening, especially the President and the 
Democrats, to America as closely as they should.
  One stark realization, when I was home over the Easter break a few 
days ago, is that I filed and paid my taxes, like 115 million other 
Americans did. I imagine that most of them were a little bit upset 
after they paid the taxes. More than two-thirds of all taxpaying 
Americans, in a recent poll, think taxes are too high. Well, that is 
not a very revealing thing, because we know two-thirds of them probably 
pay taxes and they probably think they are too high. A third think they 
are about right, and just 1 percent think they are too low.
  Americans are a little upset--the people I talked to--and they have 
good reason to be. The Federal Government demands more and more of 
their hard-earned money and gives less and less in return. But there 
may be a blessing in that. Maybe we are lucky we are not getting all 
the Government that we pay for.
  But I believe that this President, in the 1993 tax bill or the budget 
that at that time would put the biggest tax increase on the American 
people that this country had ever seen, was wrong on taxes and was also 
wrong on spending--both ends of the spectrum.

  I think it is time that we extended the debate on the role of the 
Federal Government. In fact, if 1994 taught us anything, it is to say, 
``Let's reexamine the role of Government at all levels, State, local, 
and Federal, and identify what we are supposed to be doing.''
  Americans are on my mind, because the average hard-working American 
now works 2 hours 47 minutes of every single day just to pay their 
taxes. The average family pays 38.2 percent of the total income in 
taxes paid each year. This means that he or she will work 128 days, 
until May 7 of this year, just to pay its taxes.
  A typical family pays the Federal Government before it pays its 
mortgage, before it puts food on the table, before it puts clothes on 
their kids' back. We must change the direction that the curve is 
headed. We must change and we must stop that curve. Government is hard 
put because taxes are easy to raise. Most Americans may be astonished 
to know that their taxes have been raised 16 times in the past 30 
years, as opposed to being lowered only once. With only a simple 
majority required to raise taxes, it is easier to pass a tax hike than 
it is to cut runaway entitlement programs.
  President Clinton proved this in 1993 when he pushed through the 
Democratic Congress the largest tax increase in Congress, and I alluded 
to that before. Even today, the Federal debt continues to skyrocket 
because President Clinton refuses to sign a budget that brings down the 
yearly deficit. Not only has the President blocked passage of a 
balanced budget, but he has also taken away the middle class tax cut 
that Republicans promised in 1994 and that he also promised in 1992.
  I want to bring up one figure, too, that a lot of folks do not 
realize. Here is how important this is. Forty percent of the income 
taxes you paid this year to the Federal Government just went to service 
the national debt, to pay the interest on the national debt--40 
percent. We cannot allow that to happen if our children and their 
children are to have the same opportunities that we had in our growing 
up and the opportunities to live in a great and free country.
  Americans are on my mind today because of high taxes on American 
families, businesses are strangling, the economy is hurting, and they 
are hurting our children's future. They have to come down.
  So, as Americans are on my mind, and I think they are on the minds of 
many of my distinguished colleagues who represent real people in a real 
world, we must demand this Government to tighten its belt first rather 
than making you tighten yours. It is a problem that is magnified every 
day in the private sector. All one has to do is go home and just go 
down that path. Before we ever become Senators or Representatives, 
before we ever have anything to do with Government, in our private 
life, we should talk to the real folks that make America great.

                          ____________________