[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 64 (Thursday, May 9, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H4656-H4657]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           REPEAL THE GAS TAX

  (Mrs. SEASTRAND asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. Mr. Speaker, in 1993 President Clinton imposed the 
largest tax increase in American history on the citizens of this 
country. As

[[Page H4657]]

part of that increase, he raised the Federal gas tax 30 percent to pay 
for social programs and Washington bureaucracy.
  This is the first time the gas tax had been raised to pay for these 
kinds of programs. It was to help improve our Nation's highways and 
mass transit systems, instead, President Clinton used it to finance his 
massive, ineffective, status quo social bureaucracy.
  This is not only bad policy, it is wrong! While Republicans are 
fighting to lift the oppressive tax burden from America's shoulders, 
President Clinton and his congressional Democrats are adding to the 
weight. Yesterday, Republicans in the Senate tried to repeal the gas 
tax, but Democrats blocked their attempt. This is just another example 
of the Democrat attempt to protect their wasteful status quo social 
programs by bleeding the American people dry. Mr. Speaker, this must 
stop and we must start by repealing the gas tax.

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