[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H10982]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page H10982]]



                 A QUESTION FOR MIDDLE-CLASS AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, to the middle class in America, there is 
one question now: Are you working longer and harder and have less to 
show for it? Are you concerned that, while you may be better off than 
your parents were, will your children be better off than you are? Are 
you concerned that your children will not be able to share in the 
American dream; or has big government, irresponsible bureaucratic 
policies, command and control Washington politics, stolen the American 
dream from our children?
  I believe that it has. I am not going to say it is the only cause, 
the only threat to the American dream, but it certainly is a 
significant one. As Washington grows, our own personal freedoms 
contract. We lose freedom with every new regulation, with every new 
law, with every new tax, with every new bureaucracy.
  In the 1950's, the average American family paid 5 percent Federal 
income tax. Today it is 24 percent. That means that the average family 
is a two-income family, with 38 percent of the family income going to 
pay the Federal Government.
  What does that mean? Mom and dad wake up in the morning all over 
America at 6:30 a.m., run downstairs, put Pop Tarts in the toaster, 
wake up Junior and little Sally, say, ``It is time to get ready for 
school. I know you are tired because you stayed up last night doing 
your homework and playing soccer, and so forth.''
  Then they try to give them a quick breakfast, hoping everybody 
remembers to make his or her bed, brush his or her teeth. They rush 
them out the door. Dad kisses mom good-bye, she runs off to her job, he 
runs off to his job, they see each other again at 6 o'clock at night.
  At 6 o'clock at night it is car pool time, it is quick dinnertime, it 
is bath time, it is homework, and it is bedtime at 8:30 to 9, and then 
they start all over again. It is a doggoned rat race. The problem is, 
the Federal Government is as guilty of creating it as everything that 
has ever happened inside the homeplace.
  The reason why, as much as anything else, is this huge, growing 
bureaucracy that has to feed upon the taxes of the middle-class members 
of society. The people who are out there busting their tail, day in and 
day out, are feeding the Washington bureaucracy. It is time to say 
enough is enough.

  In the early 1960's when President Kennedy cut taxes, with the top 
rate from 91 percent to 70 percent, the economy grew by over 42 
percent. In the 1980's Reagan cut the top tax rate from 70 percent to 
28 percent. As a result, the economy grew by 32 percent. Even in the 
1920's, when income taxes were cut from 73 percent to 25 percent, the 
economy grew by 59 percent.
  What does that mean? That means that businesses grow and, as 
businesses grow, jobs are created. Jobs are created, more revenue comes 
into the folks in Washington, DC, so you can balance the budget and 
lower the deficit by cutting taxes.
  Just look at the tax cut that Dole and Kemp have proposed. If you are 
making $30,000 a year, if that is your family income, under the current 
tax plan, you are paying $1,700 in taxes. With this, you would be 
paying $500. The savings to families are $1,200.
  I ask the middle class in America today, what would you do if you had 
$1,200 more today in spendable income? Maybe a little bit for college 
education accounts, maybe a few more shoes, a few more hamburgers, a 
few more CD's, maybe fixing your car up from that dent you got 6 months 
ago that you cannot quite fix. That is what it means. This is the real 
world.
  In Washington, the elitists up here in the bureaucracy and the press 
always say, how are you going to pay for it? I do not remember any of 
them asking in 1993 when President Clinton passed the largest tax 
increase in the history of America, I do not remember anybody going 
back to the middle class of America and saying, how are you going to 
pay for this? You know, the President is about to stick it to you. He 
is going to get another $500 or $600 from you. How are you going to pay 
for it? Because they know the answer.

                              {time}  2300

  Mom and dad are going to continue working hard and busting their tail 
and doing the right thing, and the fat cat bureaucrats in Washington 
are going to continue to lap it up and enjoy it.
  Think about what this tax cut means to a single mother with two 
children making $30,000 a year. Under the current tax system, under 
President Clinton, that lady pays $2,300 a year. Under the Dole plan 
she would pay $1,000 a year. That means to that single woman with two 
children, she would have another $1,300 in her wallet. Do you not think 
she can spend that money a lot better than the Department of Human 
Resources or the Department of Education, or the Department of the 
Interior up here in Washington?
  Let us give the middle class in America a break. Let us return to 
them the freedom that they have earned that has been handed down from 
the previous generation, and let us not kill them and choke them off 
with excessive taxes the way we are going now.

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