[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AGAINST LATEST TAX INCREASE PROPOSAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997 the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, throughout the long march of history, 
the story of civilization is replete with examples of how individuals 
have been burdened by an overbearing Government whose onerous tax 
systems have destroyed individuals, communities and, indeed, entire 
civilizations.

                              {time}  1245

  Yet in the midst of such oppression, individuals have fought back to 
defend their right to keep a significant portion of what they earned by 
their own toil.
  We know about the peasants' revolts in the Middle Ages, where 
peasants revolted against a system that required them to give one-third 
of what they raised in the fields to their landlords. Of course all 
Americans know about the Boston Tea Party, where American 
revolutionaries said no taxation without representation. That led to a 
glorious American Revolution led by such men as Thomas Jefferson and 
George Washington, who talked about the power of the individual over 
the power of the State.
  Indeed, for the entire 20th century, this battle has continued. It 
has continued against those that believe in the free enterprise system 
and those that believe that the scourge of socialism should sweep 
across the world. It is a battle that America has been fighting and a 
battle that we thought we won. But unfortunately we turn around to find 
out, in 1997, that we may not have been as successful as we thought. 
For while the peasants were revolting against paying one-third of 
everything they earned to their landlords, we turn around and find out, 
in 1997, from the National Taxpayers Union and other independent 
groups, that the average American pays 50.2 percent of everything they 
earn to the Government.
  Mr. Speaker, that is obscene and that is as un-American as anything 
that I have ever heard. Yet the same radicals that stormed the streets 
in the 1960s advocating that America lurks toward socialism, attacked 
those of us who came in 1994 from their positions of authority when we 
tried to pass tax relief on to the American people. They called it, in 
classic class warfare, socialistic lingo, tax cuts for the rich. But 
that was OK. This Congress passed tax cuts, 90 percent of which would 
go to American families earning less than $70,000. Ninety percent. I 
was proud to be part of an institution, proud to be part of a party 
that would stand up against the march of socialism in America and say 
enough is enough, let Americans keep more of what they earn. Yet when I 
returned to Washington yesterday, I found out regrettably that this 
very Congress who had the courage 2 years ago to stand up against the 
big taxers in Washington, DC, are actually trying to pass a $3 billion 
tax increase on to the American people, and it is wrong.
  Americans are already paying 50.2 percent to the Government. That 
means, when you go to work on Monday morning, you are going to work for 
the Government, and everything you earn on Monday goes to the Federal 
Government. And when you work on Tuesday, the same thing occurs. You 
work all day Tuesday, and all of your earnings go to the Government. In 
fact, it is not until you return from work on Wednesday each workweek 
that you can start putting aside money for yourself, for your family, 
for your children's education, for your own retirement, and possibly 
even for your own mortgage payment. So how we can justify another $3 
billion tax increase is beyond me.
  It is not tax cuts for the rich that we were advocating. It was tax 
cuts for middle-class Americans. And how shocking it is for me to hear 
some of the very same Democrats who 2 years ago were calling our tax 
cuts tax cuts for the rich, now coming up and discussing tax cuts for 
middle-class Americans for the issue of education, when these tax cuts 
go roughly to the same people that they called the rich 2 years ago.
  I will oppose the tax increase that we are supposed to vote on 
tomorrow because a lot of my fellow conservative friends and people 
like the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens Against Government Waste 
call it a tax increase plain and simple. So I ask other Members to go 
to the Republican leadership and say no to this tax increase.

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