[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 122 (Monday, September 9, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S10064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       AMERICA'S ECONOMIC FUTURE

  Mrs. BOXER. I am going to start off with a few remarks about the 
budget and tax issues which the Senator from Florida and the Senator 
from Wyoming have been talking about. I listened to them carefully. 
When I hear it said that President Clinton is robbing this country of 
its economic future, I have to ask the question, where were we before 
President Clinton was elected and before we passed his budget?
  Well, we were in a very sad state, indeed. We did not see any jobs 
being created. Under this President, we have seen 10 million new jobs 
created. We now have a 5.1-percent unemployment rate which is the 
lowest in many a year. We have people feeling better about themselves, 
about their future. And we have seen for 4 years in a row, Mr. 
President, deficit reduction that has more than cut the deficit in 
half.
  So I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle that this 
deficit reduction for 4 years in a row is the first time since the 
Civil War that we have seen that record, and it is not much of a trick 
to have economic growth when you are priming the pump of Government 
spending. As a former economics major, I learned that very early on in 
Economics 101. That is what happened in the early 1980's. That pump was 
primed and the budget deficit shot up to almost $300 billion, almost $1 
billion a day, and yet under the George Bush administration we 
stagnation.
  So we have come very far. And because I really mostly want to talk 
about the DOMA legislation and the ENDA legislation that is pending, I 
am going to be very brief, but I feel I must respond to the point about 
the tax cuts and the Senator from Florida saying I know we get accused 
of being for tax cuts for the rich. He said he does not agree with 
that. Well, I want to put the facts out here. Under the Dole plan, if 
you earn between $1,000 and $10,000 a year, you are the working poor, 
you do not even get 50 cents back a month from the Dole economic plan 
and his tax cuts. You get $5 a year. If you earn a little more than 
that, between $10,000 and $20,000, you would get back $120 a year--a 
few dollars a month. And I have to tell you that in this country 
between earning a dollar a year and $30,000 a year, you get 8 percent 
of the tax cut benefit. You get 8 percent of the tax cut benefit and 
you are really more than 56 percent of taxpayers.
  So why not be honest about where the breaks go. And let me tell you 
where they go. If you earn approximately $250,000, you get back $25,000 
a year. If you earn $1 million a year, the Donald Trumps of the 
country, you will get back $50,000. So the wealthiest get back $50,000 
and the working poor get back $5. And we have statements on this floor 
that say this Dole plan is fair. The difference between the Clinton 
plan and the Dole plan is that our President is targeting those tax 
cuts to the people who need it and the Dole plan again favors the very 
wealthiest among us. Good people, hard-working people who earn a lot of 
money, I congratulate them for that. It is the American dream. But if 
you were to ask them, I think they would candidly say they are not in 
need of a tax cut because what it means is, if you look at the Dole 
plan, over $500 billion of cuts--and we have looked at this carefully--
it is about a 40-percent cut in education that would be required, a 40-
percent cut in the environment that would be required. Since Senator 
Dole says he will not touch Medicare, that means he has to go in and 
cut cops on the beat and everything else. Forty percent to do what? To 
give a tax break to the wealthiest. I mean this is the deja vu all over 
again theory.

  So I am going to move to the legislation that is before us. Tomorrow 
I am going to make some comments on it. But I really wanted to put some 
of those numbers out on the record as a member of the Budget Committee 
because we have looked at them very, very carefully.

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