[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 10, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7624-S7625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            WORKING FAMILIES DESERVE SOLUTIONS, NOT SLOGANS

  Mr. GRAMS. Madam President, we have heard a lot of talk from 
Washington recently about the hardships that are facing working 
Americans. Tax rates are up, job opportunities are down, interest rates 
are rising while paychecks are shrinking and take-home pay is not going 
anywhere at all. But the families trapped on this economic seesaw are 
feeling anxious and unsure about the future, and they are looking to 
the Federal Government for some change.
  Most everyone agrees that a fundamental responsibility of Congress 
and the President is to try to help ensure greater opportunities for 
working Americans, so men and women can seek better jobs that will lift 
their standard of living, and the real debate going on in Washington 
today centers around just how that should be accomplished.
  The Democrats in Congress are saying the answer is to simply raise 
the minimum wage. But that is a political

[[Page S7625]]

smokescreen that flies in the face of reality, an attempt to mask a 40-
year record of voting for policies that have actually lowered family 
incomes.
  The truth is that most minimum wage positions are either part-time 
jobs that are held by students, entry-level jobs for young people who 
are just trying to get into the work force, or second jobs held by men 
or women whose spouse is the primary breadwinner.

  Raising the cost of doing business by raising the minimum wage is 
probably going to mean even fewer of those jobs. Some statistics say as 
many as 600,000 of those jobs will be lost, killing work opportunities 
for young people and those families who depend on that second income.
  Besides artificially inflating salaries by hiking the minimum wage, 
it ignores the real concerns of many working Americans, working 
Minnesotans. Yes, they want better jobs that pay better salaries, but 
they have told me repeatedly that what matters most is not how much you 
earn but how much of your own paycheck you are allowed to keep after 
the Federal Government has deducted its taxes.
  We have debated the issue and put the issue of minimum wage to rest 
by passing that legislation yesterday. Yet, the issue of tax relief for 
families has been virtually ignored in the Democrats' ideas recently in 
their recently released blueprint for their 1996 campaign season that 
they have entitled ``Families First.''
  They are billing their plan as a roadmap for the future of their 
party. Congressional Democrats have not created an agenda for change 
but have instead produced a byproduct of some ambitious political 
polling. They say that they are in favor of education, in support of 
welfare recipients working, and helping families and helping children. 
In other words, if a majority of Americans told the pollsters they 
liked it, then according to the Democrats, they like it, too. ``Some 
people say it is a tiny agenda, it is too modest or too bland * * * and 
my answer is that whatever it is, it is what people told us is their 
concern now.'' And these are the words of House Minority Leader Richard 
Gephardt, in what really was a surprisingly forthright nod to the power 
of election-year polls.
  Let me say again what Richard Gephardt said. He said, ``Some people 
say it's a tiny agenda, it's too modest or too bland * * *'' Mr. 
Gephardt went on to say, ``and my answer is that whatever it is, it's 
what people told us is their concern now.''
  Again, the results of their polling.
  This tiny agenda, however, comes with a massive price tag. Paying for 
the families-first promises could cost American taxpayers an additional 
$500 billion over the next 6 years. While the document is so 
intentionally vague that computing a precise cost estimate is next to 
impossible, it is clear that the cost would be enormous, especially if 
you add that new cost onto the $265 billion tax hike imposed by 
President Clinton and the Democrat-controlled Congress in 1993.
  If the families first title sounds familiar, well, it ought to 
because back in 1994, Republicans in the U.S. House championed a 
proposal we called ``Putting Families First,'' which I introduced along 
with Congressman Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas.
  We introduced the families-first bill in 1993; and in 1994 it became 
the Republican alternative; and in 1995 we worked it into our first 
balanced budget that we sent to the President last year. So the 
families first title is not new.
  Unlike the Democrats' families first, however, it was not a political 
statement, it was not a statement that we conjured up to coax voters in 
an election year. Our plan, our families-first version, was a well-
reasoned alternative budget proposal that was specifically crafted to 
create new opportunities for working Americans, to give them those job 
opportunities and the better pay that they are talking about.
  The heart of our plan was a $500 per-child tax credit that would 
benefit 529,000 Minnesota families. Nearly $50 million a year in tax 
savings would go just to the residents in my State of Minnesota. That 
is far more than the 12,000 heads of households in Minnesota who would 
be eligible for the boost in the minimum wage, according to data 
compiled by the Joint Economic Committee.
  So what would have done more good? It would have been better to pass 
some of the tax relief that we have advocated and called for rather 
than a smokescreen of just a small portion in the minimum wage. Putting 
families first sought to further strengthen families by reforming the 
broken welfare system, combating crime through new get-tough 
initiatives, by offering sensible health care reform while reducing the 
deficit by $150 billion. Republicans in both the House and the Senate 
embraced it as our alternative to the big taxing, big spending budgets 
of the past.
  As a potent prescription for dramatic change, putting families first 
offered a strong defense of the American family. The Democrats' version 
of families first is a placebo, a lackluster concoction that will 
masquerade as some new medicine, but in reality it offers no cures.
  Republicans followed through on putting families first by passing 
budgets in 1995 and 1996, balanced budgets, that built on that strong 
foundation. We have pledged to continue to fight for the $500 per-child 
tax credit, for additional tax relief to make it easier for businesses 
to be able to create those better paying jobs, and a balanced budget 
that will reduce interest rates and the amount that a family has to pay 
on their mortgage, on their car loans and student loans.
  Minnesota families deserve solutions, not a lot of empty slogans. If 
the Democrats are serious, if they are serious about trying to ease the 
tremendous burden faced by American workers, then they will drop the 
campaign theatrics and they will help join the Republicans in truly 
putting families first by turning our promises into law. I think they 
deserve nothing less than that.
  I thank you, Madam President, and I yield the floor. If there are no 
other speakers, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, as I understand, morning business has 
expired.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I will use my leader time and only take so much time as 
may be required prior to the time we are prepared to go to the DOD 
bill, which I understand is imminent.

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