[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 15, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3190-S3192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--SENATE RESOLUTION 74

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of a resolution I will send to 
the desk submitted by myself and on behalf of Senator Daschle regarding 
the sense of the Senate relating to the budget deficit reduction and 
tax relief for working families.
  I further ask there be 10 minutes for debate on the resolution 
equally divided in the usual form, and, following that debate, without 
intervening action, the Senate proceed to vote on the adoption of the 
resolution, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be 
laid upon the table.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate majority leader.
  Mr. LOTT. Also, I must say it is regrettable that the objection was 
heard on the earlier unanimous-consent request for a sense-of-the-
Senate resolution in this area. I had hoped the Senate would be able to 
adopt the resolution in a timely manner, considering this is April 15, 
tax day, the day that most Americans have the worst feeling about in 
the entire year. This is a

[[Page S3191]]

sense-of-the-Senate resolution, and as a matter of fact I would assume 
that we could probably come together on language that would make it 
clear we feel that working Americans should have and deserve some tax 
relief and we need to do it today, not May 9, which is how long the 
American people have to work to pay their taxes for the year. Until May 
the 9th we all work for the Government, and then after that we get to 
keep the money we have been earning because we have paid off the tax 
burden that the American people are saddled with.
  I know of examples of young Americans who are working making $30,000 
a year and their tax burden, when you add it all up, is probably 40 
percent. Others, like my own young son who is a young entrepreneur, 
creating jobs, trying to help people get a job, keep a job, make a 
living, get some basic training, move on, are paying over 50 percent. 
We now have probably the highest tax burden on working Americans in 
history. It is very high. It is oppressive.
  With regard to the budget itself, as a matter of fact, Congress has 
only met the April 15 deadline for budget resolutions once in 15 years. 
That is not to say we should not do it. I had hoped we would meet that 
deadline this year, and I will work toward that goal in the future. One 
of the reasons we have not is because we have been working in good 
faith with the administration to see if we could come together on 
agreement of a package that would take us to balance by the year 2002 
with tax relief for working Americans.
  I remind Senators, as a matter of fact, that there has been 
bipartisan support for tax relief for working Americans. Senator Breaux 
and Senator Lieberman have supported capital gains tax rate cuts. I 
think maybe the Senator from North Dakota was referring to that a 
moment ago. Senator Torricelli joined Senators Breaux, Nickles, Craig, 
and I in saying the estate tax, the death tax, clearly is one of the 
worst things we have in the Tax Code because it undermines the American 
dream of working and saving up something, producing something and 
leaving something to your children but now the tax law takes 44 
percent, minimum, of a life's work above certain levels, once you get 
above the exemption, and up to 55 percent under certain conditions.
  We should raise that exemption for individuals, for small businesses, 
farmers, and ranchers, in the Senator's State, in the North Dakota 
area, in my State and all across America.
  So we should come up with a sense-of-the-Senate resolution today, 
April 15, that makes a commitment to reducing the burden. As a matter 
of fact, one of the reasons why we need to do it, the Senator will 
recall we had the largest tax increase in history that was passed in 
the first year of the Clinton administration, 1993. We need to give 
back a little bit of that to families with children, and to the capital 
gains area where a lot of people are not selling or not being able to 
get the benefit of their lands or stocks or what they own because they 
do not want to have to pay the excessive capital gains tax rate.
  But without saying OK, you did it, we did it, they did it, what I am 
advocating this afternoon is we get a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in 
a bipartisan way in which we agree that the American people deserve 
some relief. And that is what the title says here--declare the need for 
tax relief for the American people and condemn the abuses of power and 
authority committed by the Internal Revenue Service. We have already 
done that today. We have already said that their snooping around 
through files is wrong, and we put some penalties in the law for that. 
We worked together on that one.
  So it seems that while there has been objection heard on both sides I 
guess so far this afternoon, I think we ought to see if we cannot come 
to an agreement on something where the American people can say, yes, 
look, they really are committed to doing their job in controlling the 
rate of growth in the Federal Government and giving some tax relief to 
the American people. So I would be constrained at this point to object 
to that unanimous-consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Without belaboring this at great length, the Senator from 
Mississippi said we will not go through ``you said, they said, we 
said,'' having already done that. The fact is I would not have 
objected, nor would other Members on this side of the aisle have 
objected to this resolution except this is not a resolution you bring 
to the floor and say, by the way, let us be bipartisan.
  Let me give you an example. This is a resolution that says page 1, 
sub 5, ``President proposed and Democratic-controlled Congress enacted 
a $241 billion tax increase on the American people in 1993, the largest 
in history,'' and on and on and on. It was not the largest in history. 
The largest in history came during the Reagan administration in 1982, 
the largest tax increase in history documented by the Congressional 
Budget Office and Joint Tax Committee, but that is beside the point.
  In 1993, a provision that I voted for was a deficit reduction 
provision, and guess what happened as a result of that? Yes, the 
deficit was reduced. Contest that? Well, even Alan Greenspan says it 
was reduced as a result of that action. The deficit was reduced because 
we had the courage to reduce spending and increase some revenue. The 
deficit has been reduced over 60 percent since 1993. We have had 
economic growth. We have had job creation. We have had lower interest 
rates. And the fact is this country was put back on track because the 
deficits were being reduced and we were moving in the right direction.
  Now, was it controversial to do that? Yes, of course, it was. Why was 
it controversial? Because it lends itself to this sort of nonsense, 
someone coming to the floor of the Senate and saying, well, gee, look 
at the Democrats over on the other side of the aisle. This resolution 
says, well, the Democrats did it. The Democrats passed the largest tax 
increase in history.
  Some of what the majority leader said I agree with, and we can draft 
a bipartisan resolution that talks about the common interests here. 
Should we try to do some tax relief for working families? Of course, we 
should. Let us do that in the context of a balanced budget. Can we do 
something that allows people to pass businesses and family farms from 
one generation to the other without inheriting the business and the 
farm and the estate tax obligation? Yes, let us do that. Should we, 
however, agree to some of the other proposals on the other side that 
say let's have a zero tax on estates, exempt all estates and have no 
estate tax, and, by the way, let us decide there be a zero tax for the 
capital gains that someone has?
  Kevin Phillips, a Republican commentator, today on NPR talked about 
that issue, and I will read it again in the Chamber tomorrow. I read it 
today. It makes no sense to decide we are going to have a tax system, 
and there are four streams of income in this country and we decide to 
treat a couple streams of income by exempting them and the other 
streams will bear a tax burden. So we will create a situation where 
someone would propose, let's tax those people who are recipients of 
income from investments and decide then, all right, we have taxed them 
at half the rate they used to be taxed. Now we will exempt them 
altogether. Let us just have a total tax exemption for people who have 
their income from investments, but people who get their income by 
working, let's go ahead and keep taxing those folks.
  Guess what. It is like squeezing a balloon. When you exempt a class 
of income over here from any tax obligation, the people who are over 
here remaining to pay the tax are going to pay a higher burden. It is 
saying let's exempt people who are investors and we will ask people who 
work to pay a higher tax.
  Does that make any sense? Tax work but exempt investment? Capital 
gains tax--I proposed a capital gains tax proposal that says if you 
hold a capital asset for 10 years, maybe you should be able to take 
$250,000 with a zero tax rate during your lifetime; tax free $250,000 
during your lifetime. But should we go back to the good old days where 
you have a tax shelter industry with tens of thousands of people doing 
nothing but help people convert ordinary income to capital gains so 
they

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end up paying no tax so the people who go to work every day end up 
paying a certain tax. I do not think so. It does not make sense to me.
  If the Senator from Mississippi wants to pass a bipartisan resolution 
and takes these kinds of things, especially, out of it, write a 
resolution and we will pass it. I have no problem with that. But you 
cannot call this bipartisan, bringing this to the floor and throwing 
out sort of an in-your-face admonition about what Democrats did in 
1993. Most of us feel good about what we did in 1993. We turned this 
country around, and passed a piece of legislation that substantially 
reduced the Federal deficit, substantially reduced the Federal budget 
deficit, helped create new jobs, put us on a course to economic growth 
and reduced interest rates. That is what we did, and we did not get one 
vote to help us. All we got was criticism then and now, 4 years later, 
we slip papers under the doors and over the transom, to say, ``Here is 
what they did, here is what they did back in 1993.''
  That is not the way to do business. If you want to do a resolution, 
let us do one. Let us just take all this backbiting out of it and do a 
resolution that reaches the consensus that I think we could reach on 
some of the things that we think should be done with respect to our Tax 
Code.
  I yield the floor.

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