[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 10, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7245-H7246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2200
                        THE FORGOTTEN AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Campbell). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Manzullo] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Mr. Speaker, every day in this country men and women 
get up at the crack of dawn, pack their lunches, send their kids off to 
school, go to work and work harder than ever in their lives, and then 
realize they are taking home less money. The reason they are taking 
home less money is that Government is taking more of their money, and 
Government is taking more of their money because Government is too big. 
It is too big at all levels, at the local, at the State and the Federal 
level. These people, who are laboring in the fields and working harder 
than ever in their entire lives and taking home less money because 
Government is too big, are the forgotten Americans.
  In 1950 the average family in America paid 2 percent of their income 
for Federal income taxes. Today it is 26 percent. If we add State and 
local taxes, it is around 40 percent. Just think of that. Forty cents 
of their dollar earned goes for taxes.
  While taxes increase, your take home pay decreases. The more 
Government takes, the more Government taxes, the less freedom we have. 
We work from January 1 through May 7 just to earn enough to pay taxes. 
Just think of that. The American worker has to work more than 4 months 
just to pay taxes. In fact, if a husband and wife are working, one of 
them is working almost solely to pay for taxes.
  If Government taxes you 10 percent, then it controls 10 percent of 
your life. If Government taxes you 20 percent, then it controls 20 
percent of your life. If Government taxes you 30 percent, it controls 
30 percent of your life. If Government taxes you 50 percent, it 
controls 50 percent of your life.
  How does Government control our lives by taxes? It does so by making 
choices for you that you cannot afford to make for yourself. Big 
Government chooses to spend money on welfare for immigrants while you 
worry where you are going to get money to pay for your kid's braces.
  At the same time President Clinton claimed that the era of big 
Government was over, he increased your taxes in 1993 with the biggest 
tax increase in American history. The American family is hurting 
because taxes are too high.
  The Republican-controlled Congress set out to free the American 
family from this tremendous tax burden. The Republican Congress passed 
the $500-per-child tax credit so that American families could decide 
how to spend their own hard-earned dollars, as opposed to Washington, 
but it was vetoed by President Clinton.
  If President Clinton had not vetoed this bill, 1.3 million families 
in Ohio and the same number in Illinois would have been eligible. That 
means that these households in Illinois and Ohio would have had an 
extra $1,000 per year to spend on clothing, education, food and 
shelter. But people who like big Government do not trust Americans to 
make those decisions because they want Government to spend money that 
rightfully belongs to the hard-working Americans.
  The Republican Congress passed the $2,500 interest deduction on 
student loans so that families could better afford to send their kids 
to college, but President Clinton vetoed that, also. The Republican 
Congress passed a meaningful welfare bill so that the

[[Page H7246]]

hard-working Americans could take home more of their money, and the 
President vetoed that bill, also.
  So who is the friend of the working person in America, the forgotten 
American, the one who is lost in the shuffle of big taxes, the one who 
is lost in the cloud of big Government? Certainly the friend of the 
working person is not the ones who insist on taxing more and more. The 
friend of the working people insists that Government is too big, it is 
too intrusive, it is too invasive, it takes too much money, it is 
robbing the American family of the ability to support themselves.
  Mr. Speaker, we have reached a point in American history where the 
debt is so big because of a runaway liberal big Government mentality, 
with a $5 trillion debt that, according to a chapter in the budget 
called Generational Forecasts, if we do not put a rein on Government, 
by the time children born after 1993 go into the work force, they will 
pay between 84 and 94 percent of their income in taxes. That is no 
future for Americans. That is no future for our children.
  This Government is too big. It has to shrink. This Government has to 
lower the taxes on the working people. This Government has to allow 
working people to keep more of their money. The message is this: The 
forgotten American, the one who works hard, the one who asks for 
nothing but freedom, the one who wants to raise his children in a 
society where he can afford to send them to college, the forgotten 
American covered by a sea of redtape and taxes, deserves a break. He 
deserves freedom in government, he deserves freedom from government, he 
deserves these Republican proposals to allow him to keep more of his 
hard-earned dollars.

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