[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 15, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3193-S3195]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TAX DAY AND TAX RELIEF

  Mr. GRAMS. Madam President, I would like to talk a little bit about 
tax day and, of course, the arguments going on here in the last few 
minutes about taxes and who should pay them, how much should be paid. I 
find it a little ironic, but perhaps not surprising, that efforts to 
get a couple of resolutions on the floor to approve or have the Senate 
go on record that the American taxpayer, the American family, the 
American working people need tax relief--we tried to get just a 
resolution approved under a unanimous-consent agreement, but it was 
denied.
  Many talk about tax relief. The only problem is there are many more 
in this body who talk against tax relief. I have been a strong 
supporter of family tax relief, and I have been the author and have 
supported for the last 4 years an effort to get a $500-per-child tax 
credit across the board. That is not really enough, because when you 
look at how we support families and children, if we kept pace--and a 
lot of you just looked at your 1040 forms, 1040EZ forms, and you found 
out for every dependent you can deduct $2,550. If that had kept pace 
with inflation from 1955, it would be worth over $9,000. So over the 
last 20 or 30 years, somehow we have found children or families less 
worthy of tax relief than we do today.
  We talk about other tax relief, like the death tax, the estate tax. 
In other words, you have worked all your life, you have tried to put 
something away, as you are encouraged to do, to provide for your family 
after you are gone, to be able to leave your children or your spouse 
some money for the means of doing better. But yet, when you die, the 
Government wants to come in and take the majority of it. I think it was 
Paul Harvey who went through this the other day on the radio and talked 
about if you had a $3 million estate, by the time the Government got 
finished taking money away from you through penalties, et cetera, and 
the estate tax and everything else, your family would get $400,000, the 
Government would get $2.6 million of that.
  If you had an estate of $1.9 million, the tax on it would be 85 
percent that would go to the Government. What kind of a message does 
this send to anybody? Does it tell you that you should save? ``Why? I'm 
going to save up all my money so that the day I die, the Government can 
come in and take 85 percent of it away from my kids.''
  We talk about the death tax, and we talk about eliminating the estate 
tax. You worked all your life, you have already paid your taxes on 
those dollars. This is after-tax income, and yet, when you die, the 
Government says, ``That's not enough, we want the bulk of whatever you 
have in your savings account and cap gains tax.''
  There is always talk about how it is only a tax cut for the wealthy. 
Granted, there are people who have money who are going to benefit from 
this, but it is capital they are going to reinvest. When we talk about 
being able to provide an economy for working families in this country, 
we need to grow, and that needs investments, it needs capital, no 
matter where it comes from--foreign investors, local, domestic. We need 
those dollars.
  Right now, it is estimated that $7.5 trillion is locked up in old 
investments; in other words, in companies that maybe are not as 
efficient as new companies, old products that could be replaced by new, 
because of penalties of taking your money out of one investment to put 
into another, and the Government is standing there to grab a majority 
of it. In other words, people cannot afford to take it out of one 
investment because the Government is going to confiscate a large part 
of that. So those investments remain locked up. What we are saying is 
cap gains would release a flood of new investments into new jobs, new 
companies, new products; it would expand the economy, it would provide 
new revenues.
  I know my time is going to run out, but let me talk quickly about tax 
cuts.

[[Page S3194]]

We always hear these charges of where did the deficit go wrong, and 
they all go back and blame it on Ronald Reagan in 1981. He said, 
``Let's have some tax relief for Americans,'' and he pushed through a 
tax relief package. During 1981 to 1990, revenues to the Federal 
Government nearly doubled. They increased 99.4 percent--99.4 percent--
but that was not enough because this Congress spent 112 percent. They 
spent far exceeding even the growth in the revenues.
  They say, and we have seen the charts this morning, ``Let's look at 
where the blame is; the blame is the Reagan-Bush administrations 
because that is when the deficits went up, and let's give all the 
credit to President Clinton because this is where the deficit is coming 
down.''
  Let's retrace that. During the Reagan-Bush administrations, who 
controlled the purse strings? Who was in control of Congress? I don't 
want to throw stones, but I think everybody knows. It was controlled by 
Democrats. Who controlled spending? Ronald Reagan suggested and was 
able to get through tax relief under the premise that for every $1 in 
tax relief, there would be a $2 reduction in spending. But once the 
revenues came in, the eyes got big and people just could not resist 
being the good guy on the block and taking your money and spending it. 
In fact, they spent it so fast they even outspent a rapidly growing 
economy.

  Who was to blame? It was not Reagan or Bush, it was the 
democratically controlled Congress spending the dollars.
  Let's look at the last 4 years. They say in the last 4 years, 
deficits have actually gone down. From 1993 to 1995, they went down 
because Bill Clinton got through the largest tax increase in history. 
Again, who passed it? It was Congress who passed it, and that was 
controlled by the Democrats. So we did have deficit reduction but, 
again, because of tax increases. In fact, this Congress has raised 
taxes once on average every 22 months.
  The last 2 years, under a Republican controlled Congress, deficits 
continued to go down, but because of reductions in spending.
  Here we have a difference in philosophy. We could balance the budget 
if we take 80 percent of everything you make. We can probably balance 
the budget and still increase spending, but it would come out of 
somebody's pocket. I don't know, it does not seem to make sense. In a 
recent USA/CNN poll, 70 percent of Americans said they wanted tax 
relief, meaningful tax relief. Not this give-and-take, smoke-and-
mirrors, a little bit here, little bit there, targeted what you believe 
as tax relief, not what they believe you should have but what you 
believe you should have.
  Let's look at 5 years. The Government is going to take $8.6 trillion 
from you over the next 5 years, and we are asking in tax relief one 
penny on every dollar. Somehow, you are going to hear from this body 
that we cannot live with 99 cents on the dollar, but you, as taxpayers, 
sure can give it all up. Somehow you can make the sacrifice, tighten 
your belt, spend less on your children, education, food, clothing, 
shelter, homes, maybe a night out for pizza, but do not let Congress 
take one penny on the dollar less than what they want to spend. By the 
way, that would not even be enough.
  The support for taxes, I still support--let's look at DC and the 
budget in DC.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. GRAMS. I was going to wrap this up by saying the District of 
Columbia has problems with their budget, and what has been the proposed 
solution? Give them tax relief. I think the whole country has a serious 
problem, taxpayers have a problem, just like what is facing Washington, 
DC, and I think they need tax relief as well.
  Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.
  Mr. NICKLES addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, first, I wish to compliment and 
congratulate my colleague from Minnesota for an outstanding statement 
on really the need for tax relief. Today is tax day. Today is the day 
that thousands of Americans will be running to the post office trying 
to make sure they get their taxes filed on time.
  In my household, it is not a pleasant time. My wife and I have been 
married 28-plus years, and this is always the time where we are 
scrambling around to make sure we find all the charitable 
contributions, make sure we get all the 1099's, make sure we get all 
the forms together, and it is not pleasant, it is not easy, it is not 
something we look forward to.
  I heard my friend and colleague from Arkansas say he does not mind 
one bit the amount of money he pays in taxes. I will say, as a 
taxpayer, I mind. I will say a lot of taxes are unfair and a lot of 
taxes are very counterproductive to individual freedom. As a matter of 
fact, a lot of taxes actually suffocate an individual's ability to 
expand, to grow, to work for yourself, to take care of your family.
  I will give you a couple of examples and one of the reasons why this 
Senator favors very much balancing the budget but also, likewise, 
cutting taxes for families, particularly working families, making some 
changes in estate taxes as outlined by my colleague, Senator Grams, and 
making some changes in capital gains. Let's touch on a couple of 
examples.
  I heard my colleague from Arkansas say, ``Well, they're cutting taxes 
for the wealthy.'' You do not have to be very wealthy, and all of a 
sudden you are working for the Government more than you are working for 
yourself. If you are a self-employed individual and you have a company, 
maybe you have a painting service or lawn service--I used to have a 
janitor service when I was in college--if you are self-employed, 
single, and you have taxable income at $25,000, most people would not 
categorize you as rich. But according to Government sources, you must 
be, because the Government wants half of everything you make.
  If a person has a taxable income at $25,000, their marginal income 
tax bracket is 28 percent Federal income tax. That individual must also 
pay Social Security taxes; if self-employed, he pays 15.3 percent. Add 
that to the 28, and that is 43.3 percent, and that is before they pay 
any State income tax. In my State that is about 7 percent.

  That means that person, that individual with taxable income of 
$25,000 pays 28 percent Federal income tax, 15.3 percent FICA tax, 
unemployment tax, Social Security, Medicare tax. You add the two 
together and get 43.3, add State income tax and, bingo, that person is 
taxed at over 50 percent, and any additional dollar they make is going 
to Government.
  I think that is too high. I do not think Government is entitled to 
take over half of what they make. They are the ones creating the work. 
They are the ones doing the job. They are the ones putting in the 
labor, the sweat, the equity, the homework, the education necessary to 
create the job, create the service, and Government is coming in saying 
they want half of it. If it is a couple and their taxable income is 
$40,000, they are in the same 50-percent tax bracket.
  I think that is too high. I think estate taxes are high. My colleague 
said that is cutting taxes for the wealthy. You can have a taxable 
estate of $1 million, and Uncle Sam says they want 39 percent. Why in 
the world, if a person accumulates a couple of restaurants, maybe two 
or three restaurants, and they happen to have an estate value of $1.6 
million--we have a $600,000 exemption, so he has two or three 
restaurants and their value is worth, say, $2 million, why should Uncle 
Sam say it wants 40 percent of it? What did Uncle Sam do to generate 
those businesses? Why should it be entitled to 40 percent?
  Or if you have a taxable estate of $3 million, Uncle Sam wants 55 
percent of that estate. Again, it could be a farm, ranch, machine job, 
it could be a restaurant, it could be any type of business. Why should 
the Government come in and say, ``We want over half''? What did 
Government do to create those jobs, that business? I disagree. That tax 
is unfair. It needs to be changed. I think it is counterproductive. I 
do not think it raises money.

  I think when you get into marginal rates, over half of the people 
find ways to avoid taxes. They will come up with schemes. They will 
come up with scams. They will do different scams. They do not want the 
Government to

[[Page S3195]]

get over half of what they make. They work to get it down.
  We should change rates. When we change rates, my colleague from 
Minnesota mentioned, when we lower that tax on transactions, there are 
more transactions, and the Government makes more money. A lot of people 
are sitting on a lot of transactions. They would like to sell this land 
for that, and buy this land, or sell this stock and buy that stock, but 
they do not want to if Uncle Sam says, ``We want 28 percent for that 
exchange.'' If you reduce the tax on that exchange, capital gains, you 
will have a lot more trading, a lot more buying and selling, and 
Government will make money on the transactions. The Government does not 
make money if people sit on the assets and do not trade the assets.
  The point is, we can reduce the rates and generate more money for the 
Federal Government, and, I think, create a healthier, more stable 
economy.
  So, Madam President, I make this statement urging my colleagues that 
this is the year that we can balance the budget and provide tax relief 
for American families. It should be a done deal. President Clinton 
campaigned for tax relief in 1992. He did not deliver. Actually he 
delivered just the opposite. In 1993, he passed the largest tax 
increase in history. In 1996, President Clinton campaigned for tax 
relief. Bob Dole, the Republican candidate, campaigned for tax relief. 
Both said they favored a $500-tax-credit per child. You would think 
that would be a done deal. We passed that last year in the last 
Congress. President Clinton, unfortunately, vetoed it. You think it 
would be a done deal and now it would happen. I am not so sure 
everybody on the other side is willing to do that. Hopefully the 
President will.
  I want to work with the President. I want it to become law. I do not 
have an interest in passing a tax bill just to have it vetoed. I want 
to pass a tax relief package this year that includes relief for 
American working families, that includes a reduction in capital gains, 
that includes estate tax relief, that includes incentives to save, 
IRAs, saving for retirement and education, I want to pass that and have 
it become law.
  We look forward to working with the President and other Members in 
this body to pass a bipartisan package that can actually reduce 
taxpayers' taxes this year.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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