[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 108 (Monday, July 22, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H8077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TAXES AND THE WEALTHY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak very briefly about 
two unrelated topics.
  First, a few days ago we passed a resolution here in this House 
designating July 3 as Cost of Government Day. This resolution noted 
that the average person now spends 50.4 percent of his or her income in 
taxes of all types, Federal, State and local, 50.4 percent. In other 
words, the average person now works until July 3 just to pay the cost 
of government at all levels. That is taking into account the taxes of 
all types, like income, Social Security, sales, property, excise, gas, 
all the different types of taxes, and then the taxes that we pay in the 
form of hidden taxes in the form of higher prices and so forth. Even 
worse, President Clinton's 1994 budget said the young people born that 
year would pay average lifetime tax rates of an incredible 82 percent. 
Paul Tsongas, the former Congressman and Senator from Massachusetts who 
was a liberal Democrat when he was in Congress wrote a column about 
that and he said that we were going to turn the young people into 
indentured servants for the government unless dramatic changes were 
made. I do not think we should allow that to happen, Mr. Speaker. But 
the reason I mention this tonight is this: I am not for increasing our 
tax burden at all. In fact, we need to strive to lower our tax burden. 
But I can say that what we need to do is lower the tax burden on the 
average people and on the people of middle and lower incomes and to do 
that and to balance it out, we need to drastically raise the taxes on 
those movie stars and athletes and CEOs who are making these 
multimillion-dollar salaries. I think that would be only fair.
  What really stirred me into this is hearing last week that one 
basketball player had signed a contract for 7 years for $123 million 
and then the Washington Post a few days ago printed what they called a 
Free Agent Tote Board and they have these other contracts for NBA 
players: 5 years for $55 million, 1 year for $30 million, 7 years for 
$98 million, 7 years for $105 million, 6 years for $24 million, 7 years 
for $42 million, 4 years for $28 million, on and on. They reported 
about one player for the Washington Bullets who was a substitute who 
did not even play well last year and he is holding out for $45 million 
for 7 years.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say that things have gotten totally out of 
whack. I remember telling my two sons last December when I heard that 
one baseball player had signed an $18 million 3-year contract that 
could they imagine how much was $6 million a year. In my district, an 
average person makes between 21 and $22,000 a year. A person making 
$25,000 a year would have to work 40 years to make $1 million. To make 
$6 million in 1 year, you would have to average $150,000 a year. This 
is ridiculous. This is sickening how much these athletes are being paid 
for playing a game 6 or 7 months out of the year. It has gotten totally 
ridiculous. I say that we should drastically lower the taxes on the 
lower- and middle-income people and raise them on these people that are 
getting these totally exorbitant, unjustified salaries. I realize it 
will not be done, but we should boycott the NBA and these other leagues 
and organizations that are paying these totally ridiculous salaries and 
totally undeserved.


                            foreign affairs

  The other topic that I wanted to mention tonight, Mr. Speaker, and 
like I say, it is two totally unrelated things but it does pertain to 
the spending of government money. We have spent $4 billion so far in 
Haiti, and the Washington Post a few months ago reported on the front 
page that we have got our troops there picking up garbage and settling 
domestic disputes. We have spent billions more in Rwanda, Somalia, and 
now Bosnia where there is no vital United States interest and no threat 
to our national security.

  Last week Georgie Anne Geyer, the very respected foreign affairs 
columnist, wrote this about Bosnia. She said:

       For 4 years and 2 Presidents, the top military brass in 
     Washington essentially lied about Serb capacities. They built 
     a bunch of thugs and rustic mountain Serbs, dependent on that 
     pitiful weaponry I saw, into super-Serbs.

  She told about seeing this weaponry.
  She said:

       There it stands, all the terror that American and European 
     military men trembled before: old tanks, their sides packed 
     with sand; antique mortars nearly falling off the 
     mountainsides; artillery pieces out in the open, without even 
     trees to hide them. One could be forgiven for thinking 
     oneself back in World War I instead of the nuclear age.

  The military exaggerated the capabilities of Saddam Hussein. Now they 
have exaggerated the capabilities of their opponents in Bosnia, and I 
think back to the time when President Eisenhower warned about the 
military-industrial complex and I wonder if these things are being done 
to somehow justify higher and unjustified appropriations. I think if 
they are, that is very sad and very unfortunate, Mr. Speaker.

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