[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 8, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4876-S4877]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THE WELL-BEING OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, while our leaders are deciding the outcome 
of the evening and, more important, the outcome of a most important 
vote on the repeal of the gas tax, I guess I am surprised that the 
minority would not allow us to go forward to consider H.R. 2137.
  We talk about the lack of security within the American family today, 
be it income security or job security. I know one thing that the 
American family is extremely concerned about, and that is the security 
and well-being of their own children. The House overwhelmingly has just 
voted on a law that will deal with the issue of sexual predators, 
Megan's law. I am amazed that we could not move swiftly, as the House 
has moved, to deal with this issue. I hope that we can deal with it.
  I hope that the minority will not block us from dealing with it in 
the future. Clearly, it is something that has to be dealt with. The 
American people need to know that when these kinds of problems arise, 
and there are glitches within the legal system that allow young people 
like Megan to be destroyed, their lives to be taken by people who 
clearly never should have been let out of incarceration, that this 
Congress will deal with it.
  Mr. President, on Monday of this week, I was reading in USA Today an 
article by Tony Snowe, where he was talking about the concern and 
uneasiness of the American family, whether it is the issue of sexual 
predators, or the loss of a job, or working a multiple of jobs to get 
ahead, or whether it is the fact that in his article the American 
family was experiencing income stagnation.
  I thought it was interesting when he pointed out that prior to 
President Clinton being elected, the average family was looking at 
about 31.3 percent of the gross national product of this country being 
taken away in taxes. Now, that is up 1\1/2\ to 2 percent in this 
administration. And one of the greatest bites out of that, which 
dragged down the ability of the family to use their income or to use 
their salary increases, was the gas tax increase.
  In my State of Idaho, with 1.3 million people, it is a big bite. This 
gas tax hike that, for the first time in our Nation's history, goes to 
welfare programs instead of roads, bridges and transportation systems, 
costs $32.1 million. And, boy, anybody who serves large rural States 
like mine knows that it strikes right at the heart of the productive 
sector of my State, whether it is the farmer, rancher, or the people 
who commute long distances, as nearly everybody in my State does, to 
the supermarket, to the business center, to visit, and to work. Those 
who are the working people of our society are the ones that are now 
paying even more.
  I am amazed that our administration keeps talking about sticking it 
to the rich, soaking it to the rich. I am amazed they do not say, ``And 
we soaked it to the worker, to the wage earner because we are sucking 
away from them at the gas pump an ever increasing amount of their 
income.''
  I also find it uniquely ironic that while taxes have ticked up 
aggressively in this administration from 30 percent of GDP to 31.3, 
that candidate Clinton in 1992 said he opposed increasing a gas tax, 
that he opposed increasing those kinds of taxes, he said they were 
regressive and unfair to working families, I am amazed that he somehow 
through what he may think is slight of hand or subterfuge created an 
omnibus tax bill and then, of course, says the way you pay them back is 
to force everybody to pay higher wages.
  In my State of Idaho, that does not work because most of the people 
did not get higher wages, and a minimum wage increase would affect few 
of these kinds of people who are our farmers and ranchers and small 
business people and commuters who travel hundreds of miles daily, not 
20 or 30, not down the street in the commuter bus, not on the 
Metrorail, but 50 miles one way to work and 50 miles home at night. And 
when it starts costing $20 or more, or $25 to fill the gas tank a 
couple of times a week, that is one very large bite out of the 
pocketbook of the American family.
  I am amazed that this administration would even begin to drag its 
feet on that kind of reality. And while this Congress should be holding 
oversight hearings on the ramp up in gas prices, we ought to be 
responding immediately in the areas that we can respond in, and that is 
in the area of bringing this tax down and doing it in a way that makes 
sense.
  I respect highly the move that our majority leader has made. That is 
the kind of responsiveness and leadership that we ought to be hearing 
from this Congress, and now we are locked up again, blocked, if you 
will, by the minority because they want it their way when the American 
people are saying: Wait a moment. Your way was to increase our taxes. 
Your way was not to give us economic opportunity. Your way was to 
create through the 1993 tax act and the budget an economy that did not 
produce like it should, that could have produced billions of dollars 
more, that lost 1.2 million jobs it otherwise would have created if the 
tax act pushed by, endorsed by, recommended by President Clinton had 
not gone through.
  Now, that is from 1993 to 1996 that I use that figure. Those are real 
figures just being brought out by the Heritage Foundation. Absent the 
tax increase in 1993, this economy would have created 1.2 million more 
jobs. Last month, we did not create a job. Something is wrong in an 
economy, a growth economy like ours when our President says that the 
economy is good and we create no jobs, zero jobs.

  I am sorry; I do not figure it the way you figure it, Mr. President. 
I look at these kinds of figures and while they may be statistics, in 
my State of Idaho they are real jobs; they are food on the family 
table; they are a little more gas in the gas tank; they are a few more 
dollars in savings; it is the new house purchased or the clothes bought 
for the kids. That is what job creation and economic vitality is all 
about.
  When I mentioned 1.2 million jobs lost, not created by the tax 
increase, when we carry that through next year, that will be an 
estimated 1.4 million jobs. That is 40,400 new business starts that did 
not start, that did not happen. Those are real figures in this country. 
Why? Because the risk of taking that opportunity just was not there, 
the money was not available because it was drained into the public 
sector to go out in ways that some of us would question

[[Page S4877]]

whether it was productive or not. That is a loss of $138 billion in 
personal savings or maybe 1.3 million new cars and light truck sales. 
If you sell the cars, you have to produce the cars.
  That is what the economy now tells us could have happened had we had 
not taxed it at the rate that Bill Clinton and the Democrats taxed it 
in the 1993 tax act. That is $42.5 billion in durable goods orders that 
were not ordered. The list goes on and on.
  We have always known that the way you get out of the financial 
troubles our Government is in is to expand the economic pie, create new 
jobs and from that take a reasonable tax to pay for the largesse of 
Government while at the same time trying to reduce the growth rate, 
trying to control it. You do not continue to tax or you get the kind of 
uneasiness that I think is now being experienced by the American people 
when they say: Well, yes, I still have my job but the reality is I did 
not get a pay increase. More importantly, I still have my job but I am 
paying higher taxes with no pay increase. So what I have is less buying 
power, less ability to provide for my children, and in this instance 
for working women in our society they took the greater hit once again 
in a slow, flat economy of the kind that was produced by this tax 
increase.
  So let us move on. Let us repeal the gas tax. Let us return billions 
of dollars to the American consumers, to the American entrepreneur, to 
the American small business person, to the job creators and to the 
workers of our society. That is where productivity comes from. That is 
what will grow us out of our problems.

  I urge this Senate, most importantly I urge my colleagues on the 
other side to work with us to solve this problem, not to block us, not 
to force us into stagnation and not to say to the American people once 
again we hear you but we just do not feel your pain.
  I yield back the remainder of my time, Mr. President.
  Mr. FORD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I will not take but just a moment.

                          ____________________