[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 70 (Friday, May 23, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5097-S5098]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXPLANATION OF SELECTED VOTES TO THE SENATE BUDGET RESOLUTION
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, now that the budget resolution has been
adopted, I wanted to take a few moments to discuss several of the more
important votes that took place.
The first of these was the Hatch-Kennedy amendment. This amendment
was characterized as an effort to raise cigarette excise taxes in order
to provide health care for low- and moderate-income children. I take
exception to that description. There was nothing in the Hatch-Kennedy
amendment to ensure that the new taxes would be imposed upon cigarettes
or that the additional revenues would be spent on children's health.
The net effect of this amendment would have been to raise taxes by $30
billion and spending by $20 billion, period. I have several reasons for
opposing an amendment of this sort.
First, I am not opposed to taxing cigarettes in order to either
reduce taxes elsewhere or fund important programs, and this vote should
not be interpreted as such. The net effect of this amendment, however,
would be to reduce the net tax cut contained within this resolution--
tax cuts targeted at families, education, and pro-growth policies--by
$30 billion. The tax cut contained in this resolution is already less
than 1 percent of the total Federal tax burden over the next 5 years,
barely adequate to provided badly needed tax relief to families and
small businesses. I believe that level is already too low, and I
certainly do not support making it smaller.
Furthermore, nothing prevents Senator Hatch, as a member of the
Finance Committee, from offering his proposal as part of the
reconciliation process. An amendment offered in the Finance Committee
to increase tobacco taxes in order to provide additional Medicaid
funding for children's health insurance would be in order. I might
support it. The amendment considered by the Senate Wednesday, however,
does nothing to further the prospects of such an effort.
On the other hand, this amendment does expand the reconciliation
instructions of the Labor Committee, where Senator Kennedy is the
ranking member. This amendment would provide the Finance Committee an
additional $2 billion and the Committee on Labor a whopping $18
billion. Not withstanding the debate over taxes or children's health,
there is no disagreement that both these issues belong in the Finance
Committee--not Labor. The construction of this amendment appears
motivated more by the jurisdictional concerns of Senator Kennedy than a
concern for children's health.
Finally, Mr. President, this amendment ignores the $16 billion
already
[[Page S5098]]
provided by the resolution for children's health insurance. Neither
Senator Kennedy nor Senator Hatch adequately explained why it was
necessary to spend $36 billion for a problem the President had agreed
could be addressed with $16 billion or why undermining an agreement
that already addresses this problem is superior to working through the
usual committee process. As was made clear during the debate, the $16
billion provided by the budget is more than enough to provide
children's health insurance as requested by the President.
In summary, Mr. President, this amendment does nothing to further the
cause of providing health care to America's children. It reduces the
tax cuts for families and small businesses by 35 percent, it does
nothing to assist the Finance Committee in its work to address this
issue, and it endangers the $16 billion already provided for children's
health.
I would also take this opportunity to speak about the Gramm amendment
to reduce discretionary spending by $76 billion and increase the net
tax cut in the resolution by a like amount. Mr. President, the Federal
deficit this year will be below $70 billion for the first time in
almost 20 years, largely because Congress over the past 2 years held
the line on Government spending and taxation. We resisted efforts to
raise spending above reasonable levels and we opposed efforts to raise
the already record tax burden on American families. And while I intend
to support this resolution because I believe, on balance, that it will
result in a smaller, more efficient Government, I am concerned that the
spending proposed by this agreement is too high, and that it plants the
seeds for ever-expanding Government down the road.
How much spending does this resolution contain? For discretionary
spending, this resolution spends $212 billion more than the 1995 budget
resolution, $189 billion more than last year's budget resolution, $75
billion more than the moderate group's budget alternative last year,
and just $16 billion less than the President's budget this year--
without the triggered cuts he proposed to ensure his budget gets to
balance. With regard to the Gramm amendment, the underlying resolution
spends $76 billion more than the President proposed just last year.
Hence, the Gramm amendment to reduce overall spending levels by $76
billion and to target that savings toward tax reduction.
Mr. President, last Congress I collaborated with a group of Senators
and Representatives to make the Federal more efficient by eliminating
wasteful programs and consolidating duplicative agencies. In our work,
we proposed to eliminate three Cabinet-level agencies--HUD, Commerce,
and Energy. Moreover, we advocated targeting both spending and tax
provisions which provided unwarranted benefits to corporations, so-
called corporate welfare. The point of this effort, Mr. President, was
to make the Federal bureaucracy more rational and efficient and to
reduce the burden of government on Americans.
Mr. President, I believe the Gramm amendment is in line with our on-
going efforts to streamline the Government and make it more responsive
to Americans. The discretionary spending levels it provides--the same
spending levels as supported by the President last year--are sufficient
to increase funding for important programs like health research,
transportation infrastructure, and insuring children while forcing
Congress to turn a critical eye towards the waste and inefficiency
prevalent in the Federal bureaucracy. Through my work at eliminating
wasteful Government agencies, I am convinced that we can save $76
billion over 5 years by targeting corporate welfare without harming
important Federal programs.
Just as important, the Gramm amendment provides significant tax
relief for American families and businesses. As I said previously, the
tax relief contained in the underlying budget resolution is less than 1
percent of the total Federal tax burden over the next 5 years. It is
barely sufficient to provide families with a pared-down $500-per-child
tax credit, a reduction on the capital gains tax rate, estate tax
reform, and an expansion of IRA's.
Mr. President, the tax burden is at its highest level in American
history, with the typical American family paying almost 40 percent of
their income to State, local and Federal governments--more than they
spend on food, clothing, and housing combined. With the Gramm
amendment, the tax relief contained in this resolution would still be
modest--less than 2 percent of the total tax burden--but it would allow
us to fully fund the $500-per-child tax credit, cut the capital gains
rate in half, provide relief from the onerous estate tax, and expand
eligibility for IRA's. These are important reforms that I have been
working on for my entire tenure in the Senate, and I will continue to
work to provide meaningful tax relief to American families beyond the
tax cuts included in this resolution.
I yield the floor.
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