[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 58 (Wednesday, May 7, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H2336]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            TAX FREEDOM DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pappas] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAPPAS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss a very important day 
that occurs annually and will occur this Friday. The day that I am 
referring to is Tax Freedom Day. This is the day in which the average 
American worker will finally stop working for Uncle Sam. This year Tax 
Freedom Day is May 9. That is 1 day later than last year; 1 more day 
that the American worker works for the Government.
  For the first 128 days of this year, every day that people in America 
have gone to work, they have only been working for Government. That is 
just wrong. For those of us who live in New Jersey, Tax Freedom Day 
will come on May 11, again 1 day later than last year. While the day 
that we pay our taxes, April 15, never changes, the number of days that 
we must work to pay those taxes has increasingly grown later into the 
year.
  In 1993, Tax Freedom Day was May 2, 122 days into the year. On 
average, the American worker will spend 2 hours and 49 minutes of each 
8-hour workday to pay their taxes, both Federal and State. That is more 
than the same worker would spend on clothes, 20 minutes, and housing 
and household maintenance, 1 hour and 20 minutes, transportation, 34 
minutes, health and medical costs, 59 minutes. Somehow, that just does 
not sound right, and it does not sound like we have our priorities 
straight.
  Day after day we discuss and debate proposals to help improve the 
quality of life for America's families, but how can we expect families 
to save, to pay for a child's education, to buy health insurance or so 
many other things when government continues to take and take more and 
more each year. More than anything else, what we need to give back to 
the American people is their time and their money.
  Just tonight, many of our colleagues spoke about the problem of 
juvenile crime, a very important issue for so many communities and 
families. How can we truly claim to live in a free society when the 
very freedom that we love to talk about is not available until May 9.
  Since the early 1990's, Tax Freedom Day has grown later and later, 
and we must reverse this trend. This Congress has continued the 
discussion that was begun in the last Congress on giving families and 
individuals tax relief and balancing the budget. That discussion must 
continue to move forward, and we must act this year so that the next 
year Tax Freedom Day is earlier in the year and not later, as has been 
the case.

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