[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2575-S2577]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WHATEVER BECAME OF THE TAXPAYERS' AGENDA?

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, in November 1994, the American voters sent 
a clear message to Washington that resulted in a watershed election and 
the first Republican Congress in 40 years. That message was to enact a 
taxpayers' agenda of balancing the budget, limiting the size and scope 
of Government, and returning tax dollars and power to the taxpayers.
  Two years ago today, the House of Representatives was marking day 76 
of its unprecedented 100-day effort to carry out the taxpayers' agenda 
reflected in the Contract With America. They kept their promise to the 
American people by bringing all 10 provisions of the contract up for a 
vote and passing almost all of them.
  In 1996, despite an unprecedented assault by the media, hostile 
special interest groups, and the big tax and spenders in Washington, 
the Republican majorities in Congress were preserved, indeed, even 
increased here in the Senate. The voters once again sent the message 
that they wanted the taxpayers' agenda enacted, but they wanted 
Congress and the President to come together in completing the work 
started in the 104th Congress.
  Yet somehow this message has been misinterpreted by a number of my 
Republican colleagues, who seem to have come away from the 1996 
elections with the mistaken notion that the effort to pass the 
taxpayers' agenda should be stalled or delayed. What concerns me most 
is that some of the loudest calls for retreating from that agenda are 
coming from within our own party leadership. This is not the same 
Republican majority that arrived in Washington in January 1995, ready 
to create fundamental change in a government that had enslaved so many 
working families for so many years. It is like the ancient Vikings who 
sometimes burned their boats after arriving in a new land. We stepped 
onto the shore

[[Page S2576]]

and claimed there was no turning back to the era of big Government and 
higher taxes. We were determined that Washington would never be the 
same once we passed the taxpayers' agenda into law.

  Today, it appears some of my colleagues are wishing they had their 
boats back.
  Mr. President, I have tremendous respect and admiration for my friend 
and colleague from Georgia, the Speaker of the House. As a freshman 
Member of the House in the 103d Congress, I worked with Newt Gingrich, 
Tim Hutchinson, and others in making the $500-per-child tax credit the 
centerpiece of the Republican budget alternative in 1994. I was honored 
that Mr. Gingrich included our tax cut in the Contract With America, 
creating a platform on which I ran and won election to the Senate.
  That said, you can imagine how disappointed, and even a little 
saddened, I was to read his comments in the newspapers this week, when 
he was quoted as endorsing the suggestion that plans for a major tax 
cut be temporarily shelved.
  With all due respect to the Speaker, such a retreat would be a 
horrible mistake.
  Mr. President, it was 2 years ago this week that the Speaker wrote a 
commentary for the Wall Street Journal he titled ``The Contract's Crown 
Jewel.'' The crown jewel in this case was our package of tax cuts 
around which our balanced budget legislation was crafted, and the 
Speaker was its most vocal supporter.
  ``The bill proposes fundamental change in the relationship between 
the American government and the American citizenry,'' wrote the 
Speaker, ``and is the plainest assertion we have yet made of the key 
principle underlying the Contract With America.
  ``Simply put,'' he went on to say, ``the bill says this: `The 
American government's money does not belong to the American government. 
That money belongs to Americans, and it's time to give Americans some 
of their own money back.'''
  Mr. President, I realize those words were written before the 
Government shutdowns, before the thrashing the Republicans took in the 
press, before the special interests waged a guerilla war of lies and 
distortions against us. Even so, those words were true in March 1995 
and are no less true in March 1997. The only thing that has changed 
during these past 2 years is that courage has been supplanted by 
timidity and lions have turned into lambs.
  It was disheartening to read in the Washington Times on Tuesday that 
popular radio host Michael Reagan, son of the former President, was 
denouncing his ties to the Republican Party. The Times quoted him as 
saying:

       The Republican Party has forgotten grassroots America, they 
     are not talking to grassroots America, not paying attention 
     to grassroots America. Until the Republican Party remembers 
     it won the election and acts like a winner and not a loser, I 
     find myself as an independent.

  I wonder how many other Americans are feeling equally abandoned?
  The Washington Post this week carried the comments of a senior 
Republican aide in the House who suggested we were, quote, ```just 
drifting' on budget and tax issues because many Republican leaders were 
unwilling to stick their necks out.'' Well, that is how it feels here 
some days. Imagine how it must feel to the millions of American 
taxpayers who are outside the insulation of the Washington Beltway.
  Two years ago, we promised them tax relief. Congress delivered, but 
our hard work fell victim to a Presidential veto. So the American 
people were denied the tax relief that we promised in 1995--enacted and 
passed in our legislation; vetoed by the President. They were again 
denied tax relief in 1996. And now, the leaders of our party--our 
majority party, the party of the taxpayers, of families, the working 
class--are suggesting that the American people will not get tax cuts 
this year, either. And I say to them, you ought to be ashamed.
  Believe it or not, Mr. President, when I am back home in Minnesota, 
people do not stop me on the street to tell me how grateful they are we 
failed to enact the $500-per-child tax credit, or how grateful they are 
we cut the capital gains tax, or that we were unable to enact estate 
tax relief. No, the Minnesotans who stop me are angry and they are 
disappointed, because when they ask, ``Where are the tax cuts you 
promised?'' They are really asking ``when are you going to do what you 
were elected to do?''
  The folks here in Washington seem to have forgotten there are two 
parts to every promise: the making, and the keeping. The politicians 
have never had a problem with the making, but they have a great deal to 
learn about the keeping. And Mr. President, this is one issue that all 
comes down to keeping promises.
  To go back on our promises now would deprive average American 
taxpayers of the leadership they voted for in 1994 and 1996, and say we 
were wrong in staking our claim on the side of the taxpayers and 
against big government. More importantly, it will deprive us of our 
biggest and most important constituency--and that is the hardworking, 
middle-class voters who cannot pay for the high-priced lobbyists, who 
cannot afford to take time off from work or take a break from caring 
for their kids to fly out to Washington to lobby us on a moment's 
notice for more money from taxpayers.
  Let us not forget the people we represent. Our constituents are not 
the Washington talking heads who chant and babble as if they can read 
the minds of the family farmers in Winona, MN, or the senior citizen 
working the counter at the Brainerd hardware store. And our 
constituents are certainly not the big spenders who have used and 
abused the people's tax dollars for decades.
  No, our constituents are the American taxpayers who sent us here to 
Washington to fight for them, because if we do not, who else will? If 
we do not stand beside them today, what reason do the taxpayers have to 
stand beside us, if all they will get in return are empty promises 
without any action or leadership to back them up?
  If we retreat from the taxpayers' agenda now, then who really won the 
1996 elections, despite our majority in Congress? If we do not carry 
out the taxpayers' agenda, we may as well pack up our bags and go home, 
because we will have failed. And the price of that failure will fall on 
the backs of those we were elected to represent.
  We should make a good-faith effort to work with the President, 
present him with our plan to balance the budget and cut taxes this 
year, and if he cannot accept it, let the voters decide who is right 
and who is wrong. Bipartisan action should not translate into inaction, 
and trying to cooperate should not involve being coopted.
  If Congress and the President find the courage to move forward, the 
rewards can be immense. Let me tell you what has happened in my home 
State of Minnesota, where the headlines focus on a budget surplus, not 
a deficit, and our taxpayers finally have something to smile about on 
the State level in Minnesota. It is an example of what can be achieved 
when leaders make a promise and stick to it, even when it is not the 
politically easy thing to do.
  When Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson was elected to office in 1990, he 
inherited a deficit greater than $1.8 billion and a government that was 
spending 15 percent faster than the rate of inflation. The Governor and 
the State legislature cut spending by making the tough choices elected 
officials are supposed to make, decisions that met the needs of our 
residents and left no one behind. Thanks to that dedication, Minnesota 
today finds itself with a stronger economy, more jobs, an unemployment 
rate of just 3.5 percent, well below the national average, and a $2.3 
billion budget surplus.
  So now the Governor has now presented a plan of tax relief that will 
cut income taxes in the State by an amazing 22 percent, offer $900 
million in property tax relief, $150 million in education tax credits, 
and eliminate the sales tax on all capital equipment replacement. It 
has been an amazing turnaround for Minnesotans.
  Tax relief and fiscal discipline have worked in Minnesota. It is a 
combination that can work for the rest of the country as well. We need 
to remember, however, that Rome was not built in 1 day and neither was 
big government. The problem will not be fixed in 1 day, one year, or 
even 2 years. But every journey begins with one step--it is our

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job to ensure it is one step forward, not backward.
  In less than a month, Tax Day will arrive, and in preparation, the 
American taxpayers will once again gather around their kitchen tables 
to take stock of their finances. One can almost hear the collective 
groan. Unfortunately, it is too late for Congress to make any changes 
to lighten the tax load this year. It is not too late to enact the tax 
relief that will fundamentally transform the next.
  Mr. President, I did not come to the floor today to draw a line in 
the sand--at least not at this time. I must admit that I will be hard 
pressed to support any budget, any budget, that does not call for 
significant tax relief for the working families of Minnesota and each 
of the other 50 States. If we, as the majority, cannot deliver on this 
one, fundamental promise we made to the voters, we will have abandoned 
the taxpayers. And in doing so, we, the Republican majority, and this 
Congress as a whole, will have raised significant questions about our 
desire, and ability, to lead this Nation. It will be hard for us or 
this generation to explain to our children and to our grandchildren how 
we failed to provide them with a future as bright as the future that 
our parents and 200 years of generations left to us.

  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, 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. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous-consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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