[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4994-S4995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REDUCING THE GASOLINE TAX

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, even though we are in morning business, 
I want to address the issue that was on the floor prior to the vote 
that we just had. That vote on cloture was our attempt, on the majority 
side, to stop a filibuster and to get to a vote on reducing the 
gasoline tax by 4.3 cents.
  Once again we have run up against the minority's unwillingness to 
allow us to have a vote on President Clinton's gas tax. We know it 
would pass overwhelmingly. The President has already said he would sign 
it. It seems to me it is something we ought to do.
  We had 54 votes--I think that is 53 Republicans and one Democrat 
vote--to stop debate so we could get to a vote on final passage. We 
would have more than 51 votes to pass it. So it would pass, but we 
needed six more votes from the Democratic side to make cloture happen. 
We did not get them. So we are at a standstill here on this piece of 
legislation. It is needlessly being held up, and those holding it up 
are needlessly causing the taxpayers of this country, those people who 
drive cars, to pay more tax while the price of gasoline continues at a 
very high level. Consequently, I hope we can bring the repeal of 
President Clinton's gas tax to a vote. I particularly would like to 
repeal it because the repeal is something that can be passed very 
quickly. We know that this is true because it is something that the 
President said he would sign.
  We Republicans strongly feel that President Clinton's gas tax should 
be repealed because we, en bloc, voted against President Clinton's tax 
bill of 1993. We knew it was the biggest tax hike in the history of the 
country, and we felt it would do harm to the economy. We are finding 
out that it is doing harm to the economy. Even though we have had a 
recovery, we could have created 3 million more jobs in this recovery, 
compared to other recoveries, had President Clinton not increased 
taxes. These are jobs that are not being created because of the damper 
on the economy that the biggest tax increase in the history of the 
country has given us, of which the 4-cent gas tax increase was a major 
part.
  I thank the majority leader for calling this bill up that repeals the 
Clinton gas tax, and for his bringing it to the immediate attention of 
the Senate.
  If I can begin by way of conclusion, I believe the Senate should join 
the House Committee on Ways and Means in passing a swift repeal of the 
Clinton gas tax increase of 1993. In 1993 the Committee on Ways and 
Means, then controlled by Democrats, estimated what this bill would 
cost the drivers of the various States. They figured what they think it 
would cost my Iowans, based on the assumption that Iowans drive 12,396 
miles per year. I think that this estimate is probably a number that is 
smaller than what Iowans truly drive. I do not think these estimates by 
the economists for the Ways and Means Committee include the fact that 
farmers and many other people in rural America have to drive long 
distances, not only for their business, but also to get their kids to 
school and back home every day and all the other things associated with 
a family. I think the 12,396 miles that was estimated by the Committee 
on Ways and Means in 1993 is probably too small.
  Nonetheless, the Committee went on to say that if you take that 
12,396 miles that Iowans would drive on average per automobile, and 
multiply that times the Clinton gasoline tax increase of 4.3 cents, it 
is going to cost Iowans an extra $26.66 per year to drive a car. That 
is assuming a one-driver family. Most families are two-driver families 
and then would expend twice that amount of money at $53.32.
  I think families with children have better use for their $53.32 fuel 
tax expense than funding the President's big spending habits that were 
part of his 1993 budget and tax increase. For example, $53.32 for the 
average family would buy any of the following items in a typical Iowa 
farm town: 24 gallons of milk at $2.15 a gallon, 67 pounds of apples at 
79 cents a pound, 71 cans of tomato soup at 75 cents a can, 14 boxes of 
breakfast cereal at $3.69 a box, 44 dozen eggs at $1.19 a dozen, 53 
loaves of bread at 99 cents a loaf, 60 pounds of hot dogs at 89 cents a 
pound, and 106 boxes of macaroni and cheese at 50 cents a box.
  Alternately, if a family wants to have summer activity for children, 
$53.32 will buy either three unlimited summer children's passes at the 
swimming pool or two activity fees for the youth little league baseball 
program.
  These are real opportunity costs affecting real families in my State 
because we have this gas tax increase that has been a damper on the 
economy and families. Because Iowa families have been paying the 
Clinton fuel tax for all of 1993 and all of 1994, you must readily see 
that President Clinton has denied these families some of these 
necessities. He has done so, not only once, but he has done it twice.
  Now, in 1996, Iowa families desperately need Congress to repeal the 
President's 1993 fuel tax increase. The American Farm Bureau 
Federation, which speaks for a lot of people in rural America, agrees 
with the need for the repeal of the tax. The American Farm Bureau notes 
that President Clinton's gas tax increase is the first time in which 
fuel taxes have ever been used for anything other than transportation 
funding.
  The highway trust funds are important to farmers because Iowa farmers 
need someone to improve rural bridges and roads, not only for getting a 
family back and forth to town, but also to get their inputs into their 
farming operations as well as the grain and other products that they 
produce to market. We find in our State that many of our roads and 
bridges used by farmers do not currently meet safety engineering 
standards.
  If we need to have a gas tax, then I say let it be spent on roads and 
highways and bridges to move people. It is a user fee. It ought to be 
used for that purpose.
  This 4.3-cent gas tax increase in 1993 went into the general fund. As 
Senator Ashcroft, of Missouri, said better than any of us can say, it 
is a Clinton gas tax increase paid for by people going to work. It goes 
into a fund that is going to go to programs for those people that do 
not go to work.
  If we are going to tax working people 4 more cents for gas, it ought 
to go into the road fund so that it is going for the people that are 
using the roads. So if we take this 4 cents out, and President Clinton 
still feels that this money ought to be spent on some of these programs 
with the general fund as their source of revenue, then the President 
should agree to cut spending elsewhere in the budget rather than taking 
money that ought to go to build better roads, safer roads, and safer 
bridges. But his act of 1993 does not build any roads or bridges with 
his fuel tax.
  So the President had an opportunity to cut spending when we passed 
the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. I like to remind people that because 
some are cynical about Congress' ability to pass legislation to balance 
the budget that the Republican Congress succeeded in doing it.
  Mr. President, if I am running out of time, I ask unanimous consent 
for 5 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I am sorry that I went over time, but I 
will make this last point.
  The President in December vetoed the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. 
This

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1,800-page bill that we sent to the President was the product of about 
8 months of work by the Senate and the House. It was the product of 13 
different committees. Every committee had to change the programs that 
are under its jurisdiction to fit into the effort. That effort was the 
policy to balance the budget. Our bill did that.
  So, once in awhile, I like to reconsider our now vetoed Balanced 
Budget Act of 1995, because I have been working with other people in 
the Congress for a long time and we said that we could balance the 
budget. But, quite frankly, until last year we never delivered on that 
promise.
  We tend to overpromise in Congress which can be wrong. We should be 
careful not to overpromise. We should perform in office commensurate 
with the rhetoric of our campaign.
  We had promised to balance the budget over so many years in the 
1970's and 1980's and early 1990's--the last time we had a balanced 
budget was in 1969--but we did not succeed, and yet we had promised it. 
That is why some people are so cynical about some of us in public 
office.
  I suppose if you would have asked me 12 months ago, would we ever 
have gotten to a balanced budget, I would have been cynical myself 
about our ability to succeed. I would have said, ``Well, no. It's a 
good goal, but we'll never get it done.'' I never said that at the 
time, but that is what I thought. Yet, I am on the committees that have 
to deliver on it. We were able to produce a budget that the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office declared balanced. And the President vetoed 
it.
  We are going to be able to start, maybe tomorrow morning, to put 
together another balanced budget act. This will be the balanced budget 
act of 1996. We will still have a lot of tough decisions to make, but 
at least now we have the President on record as saying that he was for 
a balanced budget. He said he was for a balanced budget, only he would 
do it in 10 years even though our's did it in 7 years. The new one to 
be taken up soon will do it in 6 years. It will ultimately balance 
because we said 12 months ago we were going to balance it. At least now 
we have the President saying he is for a balanced budget. I hope he 
really is. After June of last year, he said he was for a balanced 
budget. We passed it, and he still vetoed it.
  So the process starts over again. I am not cynical about whether or 
not we can balance the budget now because we proved to the public we 
could do it. Most importantly, we had to prove it to ourselves that we 
could do it, and we did.
  So I think that the President has an opportunity now to hopefully 
reject this business that you can tax people with a gas tax for money 
that ought to go into the road fund to build safer highways. Currently, 
President Clinton's gas tax is going to fund a bunch of programs with 
gasoline user fees that have nothing to do with the people that are 
using the highways. Here is a way that he could help repeal that. He 
said he would do it. I hope he sends a message to the minority party up 
here on the Hill that he will do it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

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