[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 88 (Friday, June 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6257-S6258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      INTERNATIONAL DEPARTURE TAX

  Mr. GRAMM. Now, I want to turn to another subject. The President has 
put out a new list of savings measures, and among the savings measures 
is an international departure tax increase--$2.3 billion of savings. 
Now, you might ask, what does a tax increase have to do with savings? 
The answer is, nothing. We have, in this administration, a new language 
where everyday words are changed into new words and they have nothing 
to do with each other. But this is basically a proposal to raise taxes 
on international travel by imposing a $10 per passenger tax on 
everybody buying a round-trip ticket in international travel, coming to 
the United States and going back, or leaving the United States and 
coming back. Now, if you have Americans traveling, some people assume 
they must be rich. So you want to tax them. So I am not going to get 
into that argument. I think it is absurd. We know that not everybody 
who travels internationally is rich.
  Let me talk about the 42,983,000 foreigners who come to the United 
States. Well, you might say, why not tax them? They cannot vote here, 
so why not tax their money while we have them? What do they come here 
for? Well, they come here to invest, to create jobs, and to be 
tourists. In fact, as tourists, they spent $76.485 billion last year. 
Why, I ask, should we be trying to raise barriers against people who 
want to come to Atlanta, or who want to come to Houston or who want to 
go to San Antonio to see the Alamo? Why should we want to raise 
barriers to people who want to come and see where great Americans come 
from, like South Carolina, and who came to the Alamo to defend 
freedom--especially when they are spending $76.485 billion on the trip? 
To save my life, I do not understand that.
  We did a little check in asking just one hotel manager that we 
happened to be having a conversation with, who works for Marriott 
Hotels in Houston, what percentage of the people staying in his hotels, 
on an average night, are foreign nationals. He estimated that 40 
percent of the people staying in Marriott Hotels in Houston are foreign 
nationals. Now, why would we want to discourage all these people from 
coming to America to spend money? Well, it is interesting that by a 
fairly conservative estimate, in international tourism alone, this tax 
would cost us twice as much as the Government is claiming to collect. I 
know some people will make an argument that these people who would make 
this money from international tourism will squander it. They will spend 
it on their children, they might go to Disneyland, they might invest in 
some private business; and that the Government, collecting half as much 
money from this tax as these private citizens would earn, will spend it 
wisely--on the National Endowment for the Arts or the Legal Services 
Corporation--but not getting into those arguments, I am opposed to this 
departure tax increase.

  I want people to come to America. I want people from all over the 
world to come here and see the Alamo and see the Capitol and get to 
know our country and understand, personally, its greatness, get to know 
Texans and Americans, and bring that $76 billion a year with them and 
spend it here.
  This is a poorly designed tax that will cost us jobs. It is a bad 
idea. I just want to remind people that taking the whole travel 
industry in America, we have almost a million people employed--about 
960,000 people--because of international travelers. In fact, hundreds 
of thousands of people are going to come, for example, to Atlanta to 
the Olympics. People are coming to many different places around our 
country. My view is, let them come, let them spend their money when 
they get here. But the idea of erecting barriers to them coming, to 
collect a tax, it seems to me, is foolhardy and should be rejected.
  This is part of something bigger. The Securities and Exchange 
Commission now collects twice as much in their taxes on securities as 
it spends to run the SEC. None of this money the President calls 
savings through this new tax would go to support the Federal Aviation 
Administration--not one penny of it. It would go to fund Government 
programs in general. We have fees on the transportation of hazardous 
materials that began as a relatively low figure. It is now $300. It was 
initially applied to trucks, railroads, and barges hauling things like 
crude petroleum. It is now being applied in Texas to 10,000 independent 
oil producers, who do not even transport the crude oil themselves. The 
administration has proposed to raise it to as much as $5,000 a year and 
collect as much as $50 million out of my State just from independent 
oil producers. Why? Because these increased fees could be used as taxes 
to fund Government in general. They would not be used for the purposes 
they were set out for. Just like this gasoline tax we have been trying 
to repeal, which is not going to build roads, it is going to general 
revenue.
  My view is--and I will conclude on this--when you collect taxes on 
gasoline, motor fuel, it ought to go to roads. When you collect taxes 
on airline tickets, it ought to go to the FAA to build airports, to 
support the infrastructure. What is happening in this administration is 
all these fees are being raised because they want to spend the money 
and they want to hide the tax. This departure tax increase on airline 
tickets is wrong. I wanted to come down today to say I am opposed to 
it, and I do not intend to see it become the law of the land.
  I thank my colleague from Georgia. When all those millions of 
tourists coming through Atlanta and spend all that money, remember, I 
did not want to erect the barrier.
  (Mr. INHOFE assumed the chair.)
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Missouri appears 
to be requesting up to 5 minutes. I yield up to 5 minutes to the 
Senator from Missouri.

[[Page S6258]]

  Mr. BOND. I thank my colleague from Georgia. I particularly commend 
my good friend from Texas for pointing out what we in the Midwest, as 
well as the Southwest, feel so strongly about, which is that when you 
raise fees on people who use highways, it is not pleasant. But when 
they go to highways, we can understand what they are being used for. If 
you raise fees on people who generate hazardous waste, if it goes to 
clean up hazardous waste, that is a reasonable argument. But when it 
goes to the general revenue fund, permits spending and overspending in 
many areas, it is a real problem.

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