[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 96 (Wednesday, July 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H5013-H5018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX CUTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Christensen). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Mississippi 
[Mr. Parker] is recognized for the remaining time before midnight as 
the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. PARKER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to 
come before the House and discuss some issues of importance, and I must 
tell my colleagues that I have enjoyed listening to my colleagues over 
the last hour talk about their view of the tax situation that we have 
in this country and what their views are as far as cutting taxes.
  I appreciate the fact that they are now in a position and their party 
is in a position where they are supporting tax cuts. That means a lot 
to me. That is very different than what we had experienced in the past. 
But I also think that it is very important that people understand 
exactly what we are talking about as far as the tax cuts that the 
Republicans are presenting.
  Now, my intention tonight is to talk about the death tax and the 
repeal of the death tax, but for all my friends on the other side of 
the aisle who are discussing tax breaks and how they feel they should 
be done, it is very important that we talk about the facts about the 
taxes. They are all honorable people. They believe strongly in their 
views, and I can appreciate that, but let us talk seriously about what 
is exactly happening.
  I have to tell my colleagues that I think the average American in 
this country understands that people who pay income taxes should get a 
tax cut if we are going to have tax cuts. Now, there has been a lot of 
talk about this class warfare thing. And I heard some of my colleagues 
say we do not want class warfare, we do not want to create any types of 
problems as far as the different socioeconomic classes in this country.
  Even though they do not intend to do that, that is exactly what they 
are doing when they start playing this game as far as taxes. Because 
what they do not say is this: In 1972 we had a Republican President by 
the name of Richard Nixon, who began a program called reverse income 
tax. It has since been renamed EITC, the earned income tax credit. It 
was a wealth redistribution program, which was an odd thing for a 
Republican to do, but Richard Nixon was not a strong conservative; he 
was somewhat liberal in a lot of areas. So he determined that he would 
have and present a program that was referred to as reverse income tax.
  What they did was they took individuals who were at the poverty level 
and that paid no income tax and returned money to them that they had 
not paid. That is EITC. Those people who are getting EITC, they were 
getting it then and they are still getting it today. That was 25 years 
ago. They are still getting the earned income tax credit. People who do 
not pay income tax are receiving a check from the Federal Government 
for taxes they never paid, and they get that money every year at tax 
time.
  Now, I am not going to argue that point. Even though I am not a fan 
of EITC, I will not argue that point. But we have watched the Federal 
Government take money from people for no reason. We have seen the 
Federal Government take money and waste it, trillions of dollars. Those 
individuals have worked and earned that money and they have sent it to 
Washington. And now we have Members of the other party, Members across 
the aisle who are saying, hey, what we want to do is we want to give 
even more money to those that do not pay income tax.
  Well, I think the average American in this country believes that if 
they pay income tax, it is time for them to get a break. It is time for 
the Federal Government to realize that they have been paying the bill; 
that they have been paying income tax for years and they have not 
gotten a break. It has been 16 years since they have gotten any type of 
break in their income tax.
  So let us be clear about what we are talking about. We are talking 
about individuals who pay income tax getting a tax break.

                              {time}  2315

  We are not talking about individuals who do not pay income tax. They 
are still going to receive their EITC, and people need to realize that. 
We need to move away from this point of saying we want the working poor 
to get a tax

[[Page H5014]]

break. The individuals that members of the other party are talking 
about do not pay income tax. They already receiving EITC, reverse 
income tax.
  We are talking about the people in this country who take money out of 
their pocket every week, out of their children's hands, out of the 
needs of their families, and they are sending it to Washington. It is 
time for them to get a break.
  Let me address one other thing that I heard tonight about the 
alternative minimum tax. We in this country have screamed, and yes, 
especially the liberals, they have screamed and yelled for years about 
businesses in our country not reinvesting. They have talked about 
businesses not putting money back into their own companies to buy new 
equipment, to modernize, to become more efficient, to create goods and 
products that they can sell, and because of that we have seen our 
industry base in this nation deteriorate. Now I have heard tell, all of 
this, I have heard some of the people in the last aisle were talking 
about how terrible it is for the AMT, the alternative minimum tax.
  Understand what the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means did. 
He removed, in his bill he removed that part of alternative minimum tax 
which dealt with depreciation. What that said was this, and if you are 
in business you understand this but those that are not in business do 
not.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PARKER. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. 
Parker] suggesting that most liberals in fact work for government, 
therefore, have not the slightest clue what it is like to be in the 
business world? Is that what the gentleman is suggesting?
  Mr. PARKER. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that most people in this country 
do not understand business.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I would 
suggest that most of the government employees do not understand what 
the small businesses that provide most of the jobs in America are up 
against each day because of increased Government bureaucracy and 
regulations, and they do not understand why businesses might need a 
more favorable tax code in order to create more jobs for working 
people.
  Mr. PARKER. Let me tell my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Kingston], an interesting thing. The change in the depreciation on the 
alternative minimum tax, let me tell him what it means.
  If you have got a business and you reinvest in equipment, you have a 
depreciation which is not a gift from the Government, but the 
Government allows you to reinvest and you subtract, over the life of 
that equipment you subtract the amount of cost that you have invested 
so that you can provide more jobs, so that you can produce more 
products, so that you become more productive.
  The amazing thing about it is that with the alternative minimum tax 
on the depreciation side, what has happened through the years is that 
even though you get this depreciation, you are in a situation where you 
lose that depreciation by paying a minimum tax even though you are 
investing in your business.
  Now what I find fascinating is you cannot have it both ways. The 
liberals in this country do not realize, or even if they realize they 
do not want to talk about the situation in which we find ourselves 
where companies are penalized for investing in their companies. If they 
invest in their companies, they are going to have to pay an alternative 
minimum tax. So what they do is, in order to come out ahead, they do 
not invest in their company and therefore they do not get the 
depreciation. They may pay the alternative minimum tax but they are not 
penalized.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, and, therefore, they 
create less jobs.
  Mr. PARKER. And they create less jobs, and also businesses wind up 
leaving this country because they cannot make it in the environment in 
which they find themselves.
  Mr. KINGSTON. But this tax relief plan is about the middle class and 
creating jobs, and what we have is, a lot of liberals are against that 
and therefore they are against job creation.
  Mr. PARKER. Exactly. Now what I wanted to talk about tonight and why 
we have all joined together is talking about the death tax, which I 
think is the most un-American tax that our Government has ever put on 
the American people. Understand, prior to 1916 the Federal Government 
had never used the death tax unless we were at war, and they used it 
because our exports were not as great, we did not have taxes that we 
could collect.
  So from a standpoint from national security, we used a death tax in 
order to get enough money in order to fight a war and remain free. That 
occurred until after the turn of this century in 1916. At that point we 
instigated a death tax which was very small, and it has increased over 
a period of time and it is now at a level of 55 percent at the top 
level.
  It does exactly what the President of the United States has said he 
does not want to do. The President of the United States, the Honorable 
Bill Clinton, has said over and over again, we do not want to have 
people who play by the rules, who get up every morning and go to work, 
who work hard, to be penalized. We want them to be treated fair. I 
agree with him.
  But what we have done as a Congress through the years is that we take 
people, and they are frugal, they save, they do without the luxuries, 
and they turn around and when they die, the Federal Government comes 
and says, ``We want what you have saved. We want to take what you have 
done your own self, by the sweat of your brow, we want it now. We do 
not want you to be able it pass it to your children.''
  Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PARKER. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.
  Mr. RILEY. I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Mississippi 
[Mr. Parker] for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that as a small businessman for the 
last 32 years, one of the reasons I ran for this office is I am 
absolutely convinced that if there is going to be job creation in this 
country, it is going to have to come from small business.
  When we listen to what the other side said tonight, the way they 
portrayed this tax cut, it would lead us to believe that they really do 
not believe that most of the jobs that are created in this country come 
from small businesses. When we look at the larger corporations and they 
are continually downsizing, if we are going to maintain this growth we 
have got to do something to stimulate these small businesses.
  For 32 years I ran several businesses, and I believe I understand 
what most small business people are going through today. One of the 
things that I am absolutely convinced of, we have to have a return 
on capital, we have to reward risk taking, and I think that is what we 
are beginning to see on this side of the aisle.

  There are so many things out there that completely complicate and 
retard the growth of most small businesses in this country. Until we 
return to the philosophy that says we are going to encourage 
entrepreneurship, until we return to that philosophy that says we will 
reward the person that goes out and takes a risk, I do not believe that 
we will ever have the growth that we need in this country.
  Whether it is the alternative minimum tax, whether it is the tax rate 
or the death tax, the three combine to become a deterrent, and that 
deterrent I think is spreading across this country today.
  I listened last week to a story that was told in the well about a man 
who for 35 years got up every morning, went to work, paid his taxes. He 
worked hard. He raised a family. He played by the rules. After 35 years 
he wanted to take a break, so he sold his business and paid 28 percent 
capital gains tax at the latter part of the year. A few months later he 
found out that he had a brain tumor. A few months after that he passed 
away.
  And after paying 28 percent, his family ended up paying an additional 
55 percent to the government. So within a period of almost 9 months, 35 
years of work was reduced to approximately 20 percent that his family 
had to retain.
  Mr. PARKER. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. RILEY. I yield to the gentleman.

[[Page H5015]]

  Mr. PARKER. Mr. Speaker, that is one point that people do not 
understand. See, people in this country could have a severe problem and 
they do not even know they have got it. I listened to people a while 
ago in other special orders. They believe what they say and they talk 
about capital gains being for the wealthy. But I am going to tell my 
colleagues what is interesting. Do the people in this country 
understand what capital gains is? I think a lot of them do not.
  I will give an example. Take somebody, and let us say they are 25, 
country people, and they go out and build them a house, and say they 
build this house for $25,000 and they keep that house for 30 years. Now 
that house over a period of 30 years has appreciated in value, and let 
us say it gets up to $100,000 by today's numbers. Now that is not an 
unheard-of figure. In parts of the country it would be more than that.
  But my question is, they started out with an initial investment of 
$25,000. Now they got a house that is worth $100,000 and they are proud 
of. They paid for it and had a small note on it. But when they sell 
that house, do they realize that they have to pay capital gains?
  The real question is, would they agree with me that the Federal 
Government does not deserve one-third of the increase in the house? 
They started off with the $25,000 investment and now the house is 
$100,000. If they sell that house, does the Federal Government deserve 
a check for one-third of $75,000? Do they deserve a check for $25,000?
  Well, my personal view is that the Federal Government does not 
deserve that. My point is that the Government created inflation, which 
increased the value of the house and it deflated dollars. But does the 
government deserve that check?
  I am going to tell my colleagues, you can take some mighty liberal 
people in this country and ask them that question and they will tell 
you in a heartbeat, ``I do not think the Federal Government deserves 
that.'' That is what we are talking about when we talk about capital 
gains. It can hit home mighty quickly.
  And in the business, a lot of people have small businesses and they 
have no concept of how the Federal Government is going to evaluate that 
property when they die. They can have severe economic consequences of 
the cost whenever that death occurs and not even know they have a 
financial problem.
  Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PARKER. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.
  Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, there is one other primary point that needs 
to be made. I believe that we are taking a segment of our society out 
of the market, out of being risk takers. A person over 50 years of age 
today that makes an investment that will pay back over the next 15 to 
20 years, if he is already in this 55 percent tax bracket, what 
incentive is there for him to go out and risk 100 percent of his 
capital on a venture that may or may not come to fruition? What 
incentive is there for him, if the most that he will possibly leave his 
children is 20 or 25 or 30 percent, but he has the possibility of 
losing 100 percent?
  I think that we are taking a segment of our society who want to 
remain productive, who want to remain active, I think we are removing 
them from being the entrepreneurs that I think this country has to 
have.
  Mr. PARKER. I agree with the gentleman.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PARKER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman getting the time 
and doing this special order on taxes. I have been meaning to come over 
and have not been able to participate in one of these.
  I am just so pleased that we are finally passing bipartisan tax 
relief for the American people. And the position that is a bipartisan 
position on this bill, as anybody could tell who looked at the vote, is 
the affirmative position in favor of this tax relief. We are going to 
end up passing this tax bill coming out of conference with support from 
both parties.
  I believe the President is going to sign it, and I think we are going 
to pass this bill because the American people need it and deserve it. I 
would like to say what I think about this measure because I think it is 
one of the best things we are going to do in this Congress.
  We look at the trend of the last generation before the 1994 election, 
and I think this is what the American people were so angry about in 
1990 and 1992 and 1994. It was a trend where Washington sucked the 
money and resources and the power away from the American people to 
here, and then used it often to uproot their most basic values and 
traditions.

                              {time}  2330

  You know the Bible says where your treasure is, that is where your 
heart will be also, and it was clear that the regime that used to run 
this place, the treasure they wanted in Washington, because that is 
where their heart was. And look what it did to the tax burden of the 
American people.
  I mean my parents started out in the early 1950s. The average 
American family in the early 1950s was paying about 2\1/2\ percent of 
their income in Federal taxes, 2\1/2\ percent. Today that same average 
family in my district earning in the mid-$40,000s pay about 25 percent 
total of their income in Federal taxes. If they were paying at 1970 
levels, that family earning $45,000 a year today would have $4,000 a 
year more in disposable income.
  And then we got the naysayers and the quibblers. No matter what tax 
bill we come up with, tax cut bill, they do not like it because they 
basically do not want to cut the taxes for the American people.
  Now the heart and center of this bill, and I wish it could be more, 
and I wish we could do across-the-board tax relief for everybody. Bob 
Dole lost the last election, so we cannot do that. But the President 
has agreed to something that I think is a substantial step forward, and 
the heart and center of this bill is a $500-per-child tax credit.
  And I hope the American people understand what we are talking about 
is $500 off the bottom line of your taxes for every child you have got. 
You got three children, it is $1,500 less in your Federal taxes.
  So if you are again in that family paying, earning in the mid-
forties, and in Federal income taxes you are paying 7, $8,000, this 
amounts to about a 15-percent income tax cut for you. It is very, very 
substantial.
  And the other side argues, people who do not like this thing, they 
got to come up with some reason to oppose it, and they do not want to 
come out and say we are opposed to tax cuts so they say, well, your tax 
relief is for the wealthy. It is for everybody but the very wealthy. I 
cannot understand how they even say that. The very wealthy do not get 
it. Everybody else gets it, and they do not want to get it, and if you 
are earning above a certain income level, what is it, $75,000 in the 
bill, you do not get the $500-per-child tax credit.
  Mr. PARKER. I think it is fascinating that the very wealthy in this 
country, they hire their lawyers, they have their tax accountants, and 
I must tell you they do not pay a lot of taxes because they go through 
all kind of things in order to get around it. It is the middle-class 
income taxpayer that is burdened. He is the one, she is the one, that 
is going to work every day and having to pay the taxes. It is not the 
very wealthy. The very wealthy, they are going to take care of 
themselves. Just like the estate side, the very wealthy corporations, 
they do not worry about this. There are ways around a lot of this when 
you are large enough. The small business person, the small farmer, 
those are the individuals that are having the real problem.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, I chair the Committee 
on Small Business, and I am taking up a lot of your time, and I 
appreciate your indulgence, but I did want to talk briefly about the 
death tax because we have held hearings on this in the Committee on 
Small Business, and the gentleman is absolutely correct. The large 
publicly-held corporations, they do not care about the death tax. It is 
the small family business, people who have done, as you were saying 
before so eloquently, who have done what we want them to do. They have 
worked, they have saved, they invested. They do not go out to eat a 
lot, they do not take a

[[Page H5016]]

lot of trips. They have started a family business. And something like 
60 percent of family businesses in this country are seriously adversely 
affected by the death tax. Many of them have to liquidate in order to 
pay the death tax.
  There was a lady who testified at a hearing we held in St. Louis, my 
district, on this issue, and that woman almost broke down in tears 
describing what she and her brother were trying to do to save their 
family business from the IRS, the business their father had built up 
and worked his whole life to preserve and passed on to them. And then 
the government, swooping in and trying to grab it from them.
  And I would say to the gentleman, what happens to the employees of 
the family business when the business has to liquidate or sell out to a 
big company in order to pay the estate tax? Who gets laid off? It is 
the employees.
  It is a tax that makes no sense. We are writing this bill to do 
something about it. I wish we could do more than we are doing. The 
gentleman is doing a service in having this special order, and I really 
appreciate your yielding some time to me because this is a good bill, I 
believe we are going to pass this bill. It is a bill the American 
people have needed and wanted for a long time, and again it is a 
question of where is your faith.
  I mean if you want the resources of the country to go to Washington, 
you are going to be opposed to this bill, and that is the reason for 
this rear guard desperate action fought against every tax-cut bill we 
come up with because these people want to preserve the power and 
resources and size and scope of the Federal Government. But I do not 
think they are going to win in this one. I think we are going to get it 
and the----
  Mr. PARKER. Let me tell you one thing. I have watched the liberals 
talk about how much they love tax cuts now. Now they control the House 
over the last 16 years. They had a lot of opportunities. We could have 
had tax cuts, and believe me, conservatives, the Democrats and 
Republicans would have voted for it in a heart beat.
  But you know, none of those proposals ever got through committee, 
never got through subcommittee, never got through the Committee on 
Rules, never got to the floor, so it is somewhat disingenuous for them 
to stand up and talk about how much they love tax cuts when they had 
plenty of time to do it. They just did not quite do it.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, if you will remember, the 
President ran on the platform in 1992 of a middle-class tax cut, and 
although he had a Democrat Senate and Congress, not one bill was 
introduced to give middle-class tax relief. However, reaching across 
the aisle, reaching over the hard left and the Democrat Party, he has 
found a partner to work with. In a bipartisan basis we have a middle-
class tax cut, and if you will look at this chart, 76 percent of the 
tax relief goes to people and households making below $75,000. That is 
the vast area right here.
  Now what is not shown on this chart is that if you are making 
$200,000, 1.2 percent of the tax relief goes to you. The majority of it 
clearly goes to hard middle-class working families. I know the 
gentleman from Michigan----
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Just been fascinated listening. I think there are a 
number of things that I would like to build off that some of you have 
talked about.
  No. 1, I think we want to personalize this. What does it actually 
mean to the average family? You are talking about the families with 
three children, $1,500 more per year. That is $30 per week in an 
increase in take-home pay with a per-child tax credit, $30 per week, 
not gross, where the Federal Government comes in and takes their share 
again, $30 per week increase in take-home pay.

  And we talk about the death tax and the reduction in the capital 
gains tax. We are talking about creating an economy that will create 
more jobs. More jobs, more opportunity, greater investment, greater 
investment which will enable our workers to be working in the highest 
value-added jobs in the world, and when they are adding more value than 
any other workers in the world, it will enable them to continue to be 
the highest-paid workers in the world so that they can maintain the 
highest standard of living.
  We are going to kick off a project, we just got approval yesterday, 
which we call the American Worker at a Crossroads, which is going to 
examine these issues on a longer-term basis. What kinds of things in 
addition to the kinds of tax cuts that we are proposing, and we are 
going to pass this month; what other kinds of things do we need to do 
as we take a look at labor law? As we take a look at the billions of 
dollars that we spend on job training? Are we getting the kind of 
impact, are we creating the economy, are we creating the necessary 
framework to make sure that after the year 2000 our economy is still 
going to be the envy of the rest of the world?
  Today we work under and we have an economy, we have a work force, we 
have an employee management labor relations model that is based on 
decades-old labor law. Is that still the best framework to rein in our 
workers? Or are there better ways to do that? Are there new 
opportunities with a different kind of work force, the different kinds 
of jobs that they are engaging in, the high-tech? So that is going to 
be a project that we will begin that will build on these tax changes.
  Tax changes create the environment to encourage investment. Changes 
in labor law, changes in Federal spending will enable us to better 
equip our workers to be the best and the most talented workers in the 
world. We combine those two things, and we can ensure a great economy 
for our kids and for our future. That is what it is about.
  Mr. PARKER. I must tell the gentleman the best social program in the 
world that has ever been invented is a good job, and one of the 
problems we have got in this country: When we penalize companies, when 
we penalize small business so that they cannot provide those jobs, we 
are hurting every worker in this Nation, because once you hurt one, it 
spreads like a disease, it hurts everybody; because if you are 
penalizing one small business out there, you can bet your bottom dollar 
that other small businesses are hurting too.
  Now you know we talk about the tax load that we have in this country. 
Right now we pay between 38 and 40 cents out of every dollar that every 
worker in this country makes on average for Federal, State and local 
taxes. Now when you add the regulations, onerous regulation, that the 
Federal Government has put on a lot of these companies, you can add 
another 10 to 12 percent on top of that.
  So all of a sudden people are taking home 50 cents out of every 
dollar they make. Now that is sad in and of itself, but we have turned 
this thing around. I feel very good about what we, as the Republican 
Party, have done and the direction that this country is now going. I 
mean we even have the liberals talking about tax cuts. I find that 
fascinating. I do not believe that some of them believe what they are 
saying, but I like the fact that they are saying it. Whether they mean 
it or not is fine. I do not really care. What I want, I want to get the 
tax cuts there.
  I have listened to people tonight talk about the tax increase, the 
largest tax increase in the history of this country in 1993 as being 
what turned us around. Now I am glad they want to take credit, and I 
will be glad to give them some credit for stuff if they want it, and I 
do not care, I do not care who gets the credit. But let us not forget 
that we are the ones that cut out over 280 programs in the last 
Congress. I mean we stopped it. Let us not forget that we saved $53 
billion in money that would have been spent if it had not been for us 
over the last year.
  So we have got a low figure out there, and it is decreasing all the 
time as far as the deficit. But the business community in this country, 
the small business community in this country which creates the jobs, is 
now having confidence in the Congress in knowing that we are moving in 
the right direction and we are going to continue to move in the right 
direction.
  Mr. RILEY. If the gentleman will yield, I think you are exactly 
right. During the past week when I was at home, I had several town 
meetings, and the one thing people in my district do understand is that 
as families we are moving in the right direction.
  You know, a lot of the tax policies we talk about and a lot of the 
depreciations is complicated, and they do not understand, but the one 
thing they do understand today is that we are talking about tax cuts, 
not tax increases. It

[[Page H5017]]

is a very easy concept when you can talk to a worker and say if you got 
two children, next year you will have a thousand dollars more in your 
pocket than you did this year. That is a concept that I think our side 
of the aisle can take a tremendous amount of pride in.
  And as my friend from Georgia indicated a minute ago, for anyone to 
say that this bill is for the rich or big business, how they do that 
and look at this chart where it is a proven fact that 76 percent of all 
of the tax cuts are going to the people who deserve it and who 
absolutely probably need it more than anyone else in this country. The 
person who is working two jobs and three jobs, doing whatever it takes, 
that is the people that we have to get this tax cut for.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman is finished with his point, I wanted 
to add on that a little bit, because one of the disappointing things is 
that the President and many of the liberals want to actually give the 
$500-per-child tax credit to folks who do not pay taxes.
  Mr. PARKER. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is confusing to me, too.
  Mr. PARKER. Now they pay taxes. Now they pay FICA taxes, they pay 
Social Security taxes, but they do not pay income tax. And what the 
President is proposing is that he wants to give an income tax break to 
people who do not pay income taxes.
  Now that is very important because income taxes, if you are going to 
give an income tax break, you should give a break to people who pay 
income taxes. They are already receiving, for those people that the 
President is talking about, he is talking about individuals who get 
EITC, the earned income tax credit. They are already getting a tax 
refund for taxes they have not paid.
  I am not arguing that point, and I do not think we should argue that 
point. It is in the law, it has been there for 25 years. The point is 
that we want to give people who pay income taxes and every person by 
the way who pays income taxes in this country, they know who they are. 
I do not have to go and point them out.

                              {time}  2345

  That individual, he knows on April 15 when he has written, he or she 
has written that check, they know that they have paid income taxes to 
the Federal Government. They know when they look at that check stub 
when they have paid withholding taxes to the Federal Government. It is 
not hard to decipher who these individuals are. Those are the people we 
are trying to give an income tax break to. So that point needs to be 
made over and over again, so people can understand it.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman is correct. Let me do what the gentleman 
from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra] has suggested and put a face on this. Here 
is a single woman, and I am going to call her Mrs. Smith, this is a 
real person in my district who has a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old 
child.
  Under the Republican plan, she will get a $1,000 tax credit. Under 
the Clinton proposal she will get zero, because children over 12 years 
old do not get a tax credit, or their parents are not entitled. But 
instead, that $1,000 of income tax credit that she would be receiving 
goes to somebody who is not paying income tax; who in many cases is 
somebody whose children are getting WIC benefits, the nutritional 
program; possibly getting Medicaid; free health insurance; possibly 
getting food stamps, in addition to what they are getting; and probably 
qualifying for any number of college education scholarships, which are 
very, very important.
  But the point is, and the gentleman has said this, that for the poor 
there are a lot of benefits already. Our tax plan does not transfer any 
benefit plan from the poor to give to the rich whatsoever. But instead, 
the President is proposing to take from single mothers child tax 
credits, single working mother child tax credits, and giving it to 
people who are not working.
  Under the Republican plan, 41 million children and their parents will 
get tax relief. Under the Clinton plan, only 30 million children will 
get tax relief. That is a huge difference for America's middle class 
working families.
  Mr. PARKER. Mr. Speaker, let me mention one thing, because we tend in 
this country over and over again to downcast the IRS. It is an easy 
thing to do, I guess even in Biblical times the people did not think 
very highly of the tax collector. But in this country there are certain 
things that we need to understand.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, on that point, I think it was Jesus who 
amazed the people by saying Nicodemus, the tax collector, would not be 
in fact going to hell after all. That was the first time that concept 
was introduced biblically, I believe.
  Mr. PARKER. The point that I want to make is that I feel sorry 
sometimes for IRS employees. They are not doing what they invent. We as 
a Congress mandate to the IRS what they will do and how they will work. 
It is our fault as a legislative body that we do not correct the 
problems, and that we do not put the IRS into a situation where they 
can be more user-friendly, and that they can do their job better.
  We are the ones that tell the IRS when a person dies, you will go and 
you will collect the death tax. We are the ones who go in and tell 
them, you will go into this business and you will do certain things. 
You will padlock the door in a certain way. We do that.
  So I think I want to make sure that all the IRS employees in this 
country realize that there are some of us in this body who realize it 
is our fault and not theirs on conducting their business. We need to 
accept the responsibility, and we need to change their orders so that 
they can do their job in a much more efficient way.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman makes a good point. The IRS 
has been responding to the signals that its political masters for a 
generation were sending it. I think what the IRS is guilty of is not 
understanding that the political masters have changed now, and the 
signals are changing. They need to change as well. We no longer want 
them to ratchet every possible dollar they can get out of the American 
people, regardless of how fair or unfair the tactic may be.
  I wanted to make one other comment. I agree completely with the 
comments of my friend, the gentleman from Georgia, about the relative 
merits of the tax plan. I do think it is unfortunate that we have to 
argue over who gets what tax relief here. I just want to point out the 
reason is because this tax bill is not as big as we all wanted it to 
be. It was not as big. It is not as big as the tax bill we had in the 
Contract With America. It is not because the President did not want it 
that big. He did not want as much tax relief for the American people, 
so now we have to argue over who gets what.
  But we have less of a tax bill, and we have it so we can support a 
Government growing, even under this plan, and it is a good plan and I 
support it, but a Government growing at over 4 percent a year, at twice 
the rate of inflation. If we had cut the Government back to the rate of 
inflation, we would have more than enough money to provide tax relief 
for the American people, for all of these people.
  Mr. PARKER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, the 
one thing, I have to look positively at what is going on. Even though 
the tax cuts that we are giving are not as great as they should be, I 
think they are kind of like popcorn. You just cannot eat just a little.
  When the American people just get a touch of what it is like for the 
Federal Government to get their hand out of their pocket just a little 
bit and they are able to keep more of their money, they will want more. 
I think it will feed on itself.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I 
think it is important for the American people to recognize the story 
that was in the Washington Post today. We are in a position to be able 
to provide tax cuts because of the restraints that we have put on 
spending over the last few years. The economy is good, revenues are 
growing.
  We may be in a position to get to a surplus budget much earlier than 
what we thought. Then we will be able to start having some additional 
wonderful debates here about what do we do with the surplus. I think we 
will be arguing about are we going to use it to pay back the money in 
the trust funds, the money we have borrowed out of the trust funds? Are 
we going to be able to give additional tax breaks?

[[Page H5018]]

  I do not think any of us are going to be here arguing that we should 
use it for increased Federal spending, but how are we going to get it 
back to the American people, how are we going to pay ourselves, get 
ourselves out of debt, and how are we going to give this money back to 
the American people from where it came originally?
  So this tax package is in a context of continuing to make progress in 
getting to a surplus budget. We have a lot of things moving in the 
right direction.
  Mr. PARKER. To my friend who sits on the Committee on the Budget, 
does he remember when we had Chairman Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the 
Federal Reserve, who came before our committee? One thing that he said 
which had struck me, and it has stayed with me over years now, he said 
the American people have not experienced the benefits of a surplus 
economy since World War II.

  I think it is significant that we have not had a surplus economy 
since we instituted a death tax and the income tax and everything, all 
the other taxes there. But that is what the American people need to be 
looking for, for their children, their grandchildren, for themselves in 
the outyears, is having the benefits of a surplus economy, where our 
economy, which is so strong, so mighty, it is the most mighty economy 
that has ever been on the face of the Earth, and I must tell the 
Members, it is very difficult to destroy, because we have had 
politicians in this country for decades that have done everything in 
their power to destroy it, and they have not done it. They have not 
been able to. It is that powerful.
  But if we allow that surplus economy to work and do what it is 
supposed to do, and we release the ingenuity and the innovation of 
small business, if we just release that power and let people have the 
freedom to do what only entrepreneurs can do, people will receive 
benefits from that for generations to come. We will change the face of 
this Nation.
  Mr. RILEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I 
think it does one other thing. I think this tax package, probably as 
much as anything, sends a message that if you work hard, you will be 
rewarded. I think that is what this country was founded on. That is 
what made us the greatest country in the world, is that we need to do 
everything we can to increase incentives.
  I think that is what it does. It sends a message to the American 
people once and for all that we are going to continue, and as the 
gentleman said a moment ago, we will have a debate hopefully within the 
next few months or the next year on how we are going to take some of 
this extra money that could go to a variety of different programs, and 
I hope one of the things we do is continue this path of cutting taxes, 
whether it is death taxes or income taxes, whatever, because the more 
we use these tax cuts as an incentive, I think the more it stimulates 
our economy. In all reality, that is what is going to drive this 
economy for the next few years.

                              {time}  2355

  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think it is interesting. I have two of 
my colleagues who came here in January 1993, the three of us came here. 
What we were faced with was raising taxes, growing rapidly the size of 
government, nationalizing health care, no concern about the deficit, 
deficits in the $200 to $300 billion range as far as we could see. It 
is really amazing.
  I think if we would reflect back to where we thought, I still 
remember walking about across the street saying, how can we be part of 
this? Four and a half years later we are getting close to a surplus. We 
are cutting taxes. This is a sea change. As my colleague said, this is 
like popcorn. We are debating the right issues.
  This is not enough right now, but we have a much different debate 
than what we had in 1993.
  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, the perspective is totally different. The 
last budget agreement, the budget plan, big increase in taxes, big new 
burst of domestic spending, deficits as far as the eye could see, 
passed on a totally partisan basis.
  Now we have a bipartisan budget agreement with tax relief, a 
plausible plan to balance the budget. We may do it sooner than we are 
expecting to do it, with real tax relief for the American people and 
restraint on domestic spending, a total sea change.
  There are the naysayers here, the old establishment type Members who 
are not going gently into that good night. They are the ``I want tax 
relief but'' Members. I want tax relief but not this plan. I want tax 
relief, but it does not give enough to this. I want tax relief but not 
now, or I want tax relief but I want it to end after 5 years.
  I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, I hope everybody needs to be aware, 
when they hear that ``I want tax relief but,'' make sure your wallet is 
still in your pocket. What they are trying to do is to keep that money 
for the Federal Government.
  Mr. PARKER. There are the liberals in this body, Mr. Speaker, who 
will do anything in their power to make this a class battle. They get 
their power from turning class against class. We know who they are. We 
know the games that they are playing. Makes for great sound bites. Tax 
break for the wealthy. Capital gains for the wealthy.
  I hear this over and over again, but I have a lot of confidence in 
the American people. The American people, you can fool them sometimes, 
but I am going to say, they get enough of it. They have had 40 years of 
sitting through this thing, of watching it, of being hit by it, of 
having to pay the bills.
  They are basically sick and tired of being sick and tired. They want 
it changed.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Missouri is about to kill 
me if I do not correct my earlier statement, that it was Zacchaeus and 
not Nicodemas, Luke, chapter 19. I stand corrected.
  I want to also say to the gentleman from Michigan, when we came here 
it was socialized medicine. It was the largest tax increase in history. 
It was expansion of the Hatch Act. It was motor voter. Everything was 
big government, big government this. We have stopped the ball from 
rolling to the left. We have stopped the onward intrusion of the big 
government.
  Have we stopped it as abruptly as we would like to? No. But we are 
moving in that direction. We believe this tax relief bill is the first 
and very, very significant step in returning to the American middle 
class people money that is theirs, that the government should not be 
taking from them.
  Mr. PARKER. Let me close by saying, I want to thank my colleagues the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Talent], the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Kingston], the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra], and the 
gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Riley] for participating in this special 
order.
  We will do another special order next Wednesday night. It is 
important that the American people understand what we are doing in a 
very rational and a very logical way, because the American people, when 
they understand, they will agree. In their hearts they know that we are 
doing the right thing, but they hear so much verbiage. They hear so 
much rhetoric. They hear so much hyperbole that sometimes they sit back 
and go, who can we believe.
  They have heard so much junk through the years from Washington that 
they do not know who to believe. We are giving that information. I 
thank the gentlemen for participating. I am looking forward to having 
another special order next Wednesday night and being able to bring more 
facts to the American people and to our colleagues so they understand 
exactly what we are doing.

{time}  2358

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