[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 21, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8917-H8922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CONGRESS SHOULD EXERCISE OVERSIGHT REGARDING IRS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I suppose the item of the day in terms of 
significant news is the fact that the Democratic minority leader has 
decided to also throw his lot in with those who want to make the 
highest priority of reforming the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service. I 
want to get on board, too. I cannot think of any American out there who 
does not think that we could improve the Internal Revenue Service in 
some way, and hopefully in a way which relieves us of some of the 
unjust items that have affected us in the past in some way.
  But, in all seriousness, it is long overdue. The IRS has been 
neglected by Congress for too long. Congress, in general, is delinquent 
in its oversight responsibilities for the Federal Government. In the 15 
years that I have been here, I have watched how time is frittered away 
and it is always the item which captures the most headlines for the 
moment that gets the most attention, while the important functions of 
government, and the gigantic agencies of government, like the Internal 
Revenue Service, they go on and on and they get very little oversight.
  I suppose that is why IRS stumbled into a $4 billion blunder in the 
setup of their computer operation in an attempt to computerize 
themselves. Not enough Congressmen were watching. Not enough outside 
independent monitoring was going on, and there are probably numerous 
other areas in the IRS which need reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope that the debate on IRS will not 
degenerate or remain at the level that it is. It is sort of standing at 
a very low level. We are interested more in paper clips and rubber 
bands and operations that are at a very primitive level than we are in 
the total philosophy that guides IRS and the total setup of policies 
that emanate from the Congress through the Committee on Ways and Means 
and the Senate Finance Committee.
  I hope that the debate about IRS will be a long and fruitful one. I 
hope that it will be a very thorough one, and I hope that we will look 
at all aspects of what is happening with our Internal Revenue Service, 
what is happening with our revenue collection processes.
  Revenue has always been, and I have said this many times before, 
neglected by people who are progressives, liberals, whatever we want to 
call us these days. We have never spent enough time looking at revenue 
collection, taxes, tax policies, and that has caused some serious 
problems, the fact that there has never been a balanced debate or the 
kind of attention focused on the revenue process that we should have.
  For the past few years, I have been insistent that we take a hard 
look, an intense and thorough analysis of what is going on with respect 
to revenue collection. I was fascinated. I am not on the Committee on 
Ways and Means, I am on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I 
am concerned primarily about why there are no funds for programs like 
the school construction program. I am concerned about the fact that 
while we are lumbering along with an antiquated education system in 
some obvious ways. It needs help from the Federal Government and we are 
not supplying that help. I am concerned about our priorities and why we 
continue to give the impression to the American people and the world 
that we are a bankrupt Nation or almost a bankrupt Nation when it comes 
to the area of education, in the area of youth employment or a number 
of other worthwhile programs. We always have enough money for defense 
and we increase the defense budget, but we do not have enough for 
education.
  So, my concern for expenditures related to positive programs like 
building schools led me to take a closer look at the revenue side of 
the equation and several years ago, I became fascinated by the fact 
that our income tax collection process, our income taxes produce a 
large amount of taxes from individuals and families and a much smaller 
percentage from corporations.
  Corporations are where the money is, so I was fascinated by the fact 
that at present about 11 percent, of the last figures I looked at, the 
records that I saw, 11 percent in 1996 of the income tax collected was 
collected from corporations, while four times that much was collected 
from families and individuals, 44 percent.
  So, the policies and the laws which govern and guide IRS are of very 
great interest to me. How much of that inequity in collection, 
inequality in the collection between corporations and families and 
individuals is due to the fact that Congress made the wrong kinds of 
laws, or the laws are imbalanced, they are not in balance in terms of 
collections from corporations versus individuals and families. How much 
is doing to the wrong policy? The wrong philosophy? And how much might 
be due to IRS and its administration, its implementation of the 
policies that have emanated from Congress? Is IRS delinquent in the way 
it pursues collection of revenue from corporations? Does it spend too 
much time, an inordinate amount of time pursuing families and 
individuals and shy away from pursuing collection of taxes from 
corporations because they are so big, they are so complicated, they 
have lawyers, they have tax accountants?
  We have all seen in the past remarks made by people in the executive 
branch of government concerning the need to focus on collecting taxes 
where we can collect them more rapidly. I think in the Reagan 
administration there was a statement made that IRS should not waste so 
much time with corporations, it takes too long to get the collection. 
Middle-class people are the people who will respond when the IRS goes 
for the collections. If there are problems, then pursue middle-class 
taxpayers and we will get a better return, a more rapid return in terms 
of collection.
  How much of that permeates the modus operandi of the Internal Revenue 
Service?
  Those kinds of questions I would like to see raised and answers.
  There is another aspect of the debate which I think also I have 
raised before and we should take a hard look at, and that is how fair 
is our revenue collection policy and how fair are the procedures?
  When we have a situation which has persisted for a long, long time, 
more than 10 years, we will talk about just the last 10 years, but it 
is probably the last 20 years that we have had the situation with 
respect to New York City and New York State. We have a situation where 
big cities like New York City and big States like New York, industrial 
States, have consistently paid more into the Federal coffers, the 
Federal Treasury, than they have gotten back. The balance of payments 
has been way out of kilter consistently over the years. I have 
discussed it on the floor of this House on several occasions.
  Senator Moynihan quite a number of years ago started making a study, 
an analysis, of which States are in a position where they are paying 
more into the Federal Treasury than they get back in terms of Federal 
aid. So it has become a very thorough kind of analysis, and now it is 
supported by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and 
they produce a nice booklet every year and the latest version of the 
booklet I have in my hand. It is entitled ``The Federal Budget and the 
States: Fiscal Year 1996,'' the 21st edition.

                              {time}  2115

  I was wondering before about how long we have done this, 21 years. 
For 21 years this study has been done, and Senator Moynihan does it now 
in conjunction with the John F. Kennedy School of Government. It is 
available,

[[Page H8918]]

and I hope that certainly the policymakers in States like New York, New 
Jersey, Connecticut, the States that find themselves paying enormous 
amounts more into the Federal Treasury than they are getting back in 
terms of Federal aid, New York State is not so bad.
  This year we only paid $14 billion more into the Treasury than we are 
getting back. In the past it has been $16 billion and at one point it 
was $23 billion more was being paid by the taxpayers of New York into 
the Federal coffers than they were getting back in various forms of 
aid. This ranges all across the board, all forms of Federal aid.
  So it is interesting that New York State columnists and New York 
State legislators, Congressmen, city councilpersons, assemblymen, State 
Senators have never been that concerned about this imbalance. Senator 
Moynihan first made a speech about it at a community college in New 
York State, New York City. He was hoping it would attract the attention 
of the press, but it did not.
  The press, over the last 21 years, has basically ignored a basic 
injustice in revenue collection and distribution. We do not get back 
nearly as much as we put in. New York State now ranks third among those 
who suffer from this imbalance. At the same time New York State now 
ranks third in the amount of poverty that it has. That is pointed out 
in Mr. Moynihan's statement here. It is an important piece of irony.
  I am sort of stimulated and led to return to this discussion, and 
maybe I will be repetitious and say things I have said before here, but 
I am led to return because there was a columnist in the New York Post 
on Monday, October 13, who happened to single me out in his discussion 
of the New York economy and in his discussion of the fact that this 
piece of literature is produced every year and that New Yorkers seem to 
ignore it.
  Mr. Fred Siegel, a columnist for the New York Post, I do not know 
much about Mr. Siegel, I have not read him that often, but I think it 
is interesting that he pointed out in his column that we have this 
situation where the economy of New York City is in serious trouble. It 
is ready to fail.
  The point he was making primarily was that in the present mayoral 
election in New York City, we have a municipal election, borough 
president Ruth Messinger is running against incumbent Mayor Rudy 
Giuliani. He was stating that in this election there is very little 
talk about the economy of the city. The discussion of the economy of 
the city does not focus at all on the fact that New York City and New 
York State are in the situation where they continue to pay more into 
the Federal Government's coffers than they get back.
  And during the course of his discussion, he says that this is a 
subject that officials should be addressing, the mayor and his opponent 
should be addressing it. And he also pointed out that the Members of 
Congress should be addressing this subject. Particularly, he says 
Representative Major Owens devotes his time to long rambling and 
incoherent speeches on poverty and welfare reform before an empty House 
Chamber. I was stimulated, of course, to respond to Mr. Siegel and I 
think that Mr. Siegel and all the columnists in New York City's papers, 
the Times, the Daily News, the Post, columnists, reporters, Mr. Siegel 
has thrown out a challenge to elected officials.
  I would like to throw that challenge back to the columnists and 
reporters. Why is it that the editors, the columnists, the reporters of 
New York City and New York State refuse to accept the fact that we are 
being swindled and that we are a donor State to an ungrateful set of 
States out there who make speeches on the floor criticizing New York 
all the time.
  Why do we continue to accept the drain from New York State without 
putting up a fight, even if we can do no more than have a rhetorical 
fight at this point? Certainly the people of the State ought to be 
aroused by the columnists as well as by elected officials and begin the 
debate. We do not even have a debate now. There is really no challenge.
  I have quotes here from Mr. Siegel and other columnists who think 
that New York's Congresspeople are not interested in this problem and 
we have done nothing in the past. I do not know about my colleagues in 
the Congress from New York, but I have the proof here that I have 
consistently spoken about this very problem. I only went back one year, 
1996, and I found three occasions where I talked at considerable length 
about the problem of the drain of dollars from New York State and New 
York City: March 12, 1996, March 22, 1996, and April 16, 1996. I talked 
at length about this very problem. I quoted from the statistics from 
the previous edition of this book, the Federal Budget and the States.
  I would like to say Mr. Siegel and all the other columnists and the 
editorial boards of the New York Times, the New York Post, get a copy. 
It is a fascinating book. It was made even simpler to read this time. 
Join the few Members of Congress and other political leaders who are 
aware and who are discussing this matter.
  Mr. Siegel is to be congratulated. He put his finger on a very 
important problem in terms of the mayoral election. There is not enough 
discussion about New York's economy. His article appeared in the Post, 
as I said before, on Monday, October 13, and is entitled ``New York 
Economy Ready to Fail but City Politicians do Nothing to Stop the 
Hemorrhage of Wealth.''
  I am just going to quota a few items from Mr. Siegel's column. He is 
really writing about the mayoral election and that is his primary 
concern. He criticizes both candidates for mayor, the democratic 
candidate, Ms. Messinger and the incumbent Mayor Guiliani. He even 
throws in the candidate for the Socialist Workers Party, Olga 
Rodriguez, and says she at least talks about the economy, even though 
she is still trying to fight the October revolution. Talks about the 
kinds of things that have been discredited in terms of the fall of the 
Soviet empire.
  But he does talk about it, and I think it is a proper point of start, 
a jump-off point for a bigger discussion. And I hope that other 
journalists and editors will pick up and we can really begin to deal 
with the problem.
  Quoting from his article, Mr. Siegel says, and I quote, on Thursday, 
the Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, warned that the economy 
is on an unsustainable track. Less cautious observers suggest that 
stocks are overvalued by 20 percent. Is there a crash in the offing? 
Probably not. But there does not have to be for the city to suffer. 
Should the market drop to 6000, a level that just a few years back was 
unthinkably high, the city will start to slide into a fiscal meltdown.
  What Mr. Siegel is saying is that the present prosperity of the city, 
such as it is, and it is a spotty prosperity, certain neighborhoods 
have not enjoyed it at all, but overall the city looks good on paper. 
The mayor has just announced a surplus of more than $150 million. The 
Board of Ed has announced a surplus of more than $150 million. The 
Transit Authority has announced a surplus. These are all bodies which 
inflicted heavy taxes on the backs of the poorest people in the city, 
heavy suffering on the backs of the poorest people in the city.

  The Transit Authority raised the fare from $1.25 to $1.50, and people 
going to work every day can feel that in their pocketbooks in terms of 
poor people having to pay $1.50 to ride the subway or the bus. But now 
they come up with a surplus. And that is a whole other discussion.
  The mayor has cut numerous programs in neighborhoods. He has cut back 
drastically on the hospitals, city hospitals, a number of other places 
where tremendous cuts were made. And the most devastating cuts of all 
were, of course, made in education. We are suffering mightily as a 
result of those cuts. But we now have a surplus, and part of the reason 
given for the surplus is because the stock market is booming. And New 
York City and New York State have a tax on stock market transactions. 
Every time there is a transaction, we reap revenue.
  So what Mr. Siegel is saying is that that will not go on for much 
longer. We cannot expect to prosper or to have our budget balanced 
indefinitely by the gyrations of the stock market. We have to do 
something better than that. And I agree with Mr. Siegel on that point.
  The low rate of job growth, I will quote Mr. Siegel again. Beyond the 
halo of Manhattan prosperity, unemployment is 11.4 percent in Brooklyn,

[[Page H8919]]

12.6 percent in the Bronx, total employment, according to a report from 
the State Comptroller's office, has grown by 1.1 percent over the past 
3 years and New York State as a whole. That may be good for New York 
but it is considerably less than half the national rate of 2.7 percent. 
We are at the peak of the national business cycle, but the gap between 
the city unemployment rate and the national unemployment is the highest 
in recorded history.
  To sum up and clarify, I am reading from an article by columnist Fred 
Siegel that appeared in the New York Post on October 13, entitled New 
York Economy Ready to Fail but City Politicians do Nothing to Stop the 
Hemorrhage of Wealth. In this column he mentioned my name and said that 
while this is going on, we are neglecting the problem of the fact that 
we have a hemorrhage of wealth and people like Major Owens make long, 
rambling and incoherent speeches on poverty and welfare reform before 
an empty House Chamber.
  My speech, I assure, is not incoherent at all. Step by step I am 
saying that I agree with you that we have neglected, as political 
leaders and as columnists and editors, we have neglected a major 
problem. I hope that your article and my speeches here, which are not 
different from the kind of speeches I have been making all along, will 
spark a debate among New Yorkers so that they can get themselves 
together and understand where the enemy is and go out and demand a just 
sharing of Federal revenue.
  We are $14 billion in the hole this year, $16 billion last year. And 
it has gone as high as $23 billion, where $23 billion more has been 
paid into the Federal coffers than we received back.
  At the other end of the spectrum, we have New Mexico, which receives 
the greatest amount per capita of Federal aid above the amount that it 
puts in.

                              {time}  2130

  We have places like the Speaker's county in Georgia, which is one of 
the highest per capita recipients of Federal aid. We have the great 
State of California, which has a booming population, but compared to 
New York, their balance of payments has gone way down because they are 
the recipients of disaster aid.
  If it is not a mud slide, it is a hurricane or an earthquake that 
leads to Federal money being pumped into California's economy. And 
California now is contemplating El Nino and the results of El Nino and 
what El Nino might do to the weather, and the weather may lead to some 
catastrophic natural disasters.
  I am all in favor of people being helped when they have natural 
disasters, but this may be one of the areas where States should go it 
alone and not have to come to the Federal Government for a handout. It 
is certainly a very unfair situation for certain States to continually 
have floods and earthquakes and various catastrophes that they know are 
going to happen and they are not prepared for them. As a result, their 
economy is rewarded by enormous amounts of money being pumped in to 
deal with those disasters.
  Somebody should do a study on California's economy, the amount of 
damage done, the estimate of the damage versus the amount of Federal 
aid that flows in and the amount of Federal aid combined with the 
amount of local and State aid, and we might find that disasters are 
really a great benefit in kind of a perverse way.
  I am not going to go into it in too much detail, but all of these 
things need to be looked at when we start criticizing the kind of 
economy we have in New York. And it has been the subject of a great 
deal of criticism, which I will quote in a few minutes.
  But I want to continue and complete Mr. Siegel's article. Mr. Siegel 
goes further and says the low rate of job growth accounts in part for 
the facts that despite the city's image of wealth and power, 2 million 
New Yorkers live in poverty. Two million New Yorkers live in poverty. 
An average household income, adjusted for the cost of living, is about 
16 percent below the national average. These numbers will only grow in 
the case of a recession.
  I want to repeat that, quoting from Fred Siegel's article, the low 
rate of job growth accounts in part for the facts that despite the 
city's image of wealth and power, 2 million New Yorkers live in 
poverty. And the average household income, adjusted for the cost of 
living, is about 16 percent below the national average. These numbers 
will only grow in the case of a recession.
  He has already quoted before that unemployment in Brooklyn is 11.4 
percent; unemployment in the Bronx, 12.6 percent. While the city's 
overall economy is benefiting from the stock transfer tax and the city 
has a surplus in its budget, rampant poverty is still there. And New 
York State, as a whole, now ranks third in terms of being among the 
poorest States in the Union having the greatest amount of poverty. Two 
million New Yorkers living in poverty.
  Mr. Siegel goes further and says that the growth of wealth and power 
in the high-tech West has been one of the two massive transfers of 
wealth and power undermining New York's position in the national 
economy. The shift of economic power to the West is matched by the 
continuous movement of Federal dollars to the South.
  Senator Patrick Moynihan just issued his 20th annual study of the 
balance of payments between various States in the Federal Government. 
Well, Mr. Siegel, it was not the 20th, it was the 21st balance of 
payment study between various States and the Federal Government. For 
the 20th consecutive year, the average New Yorker sends roughly one 
thousand more to Washington than he or she gets back, and it is even 
worse for New Jersey and Connecticut, residents of New Jersey and 
Connecticut and the surrounding metropolitan region.
  The South, by contrast, is the big net winner. Continuing to read 
from Fred Siegel's article of October 13 in the New York Post, ``Did 
this massive redistribution of resources come up in the mayoral debate? 
No. Is it a pressing matter for our daffy delegation of Congress?'' And 
he goes on to criticize Congress Members from New York for not paying 
attention. Even drops my name, as I have just read before.
  But I am not guilty, and Mr. Siegel, I would like to join with you, 
as I said before, in stimulating the most voluminous, thorough, intense 
debate possible about this whole matter.
  Successful institutions, Mr. Siegel says, like successful people, 
learn from their pasts and adapt to new conditions. Neither of the 
major candidates seems capable of the adaptations necessary to stem the 
flood of wealth and influence away from New York.
  And, like Mr. Siegel, I am baffled by the fact that New York leaders, 
politicians, clergymen, columnists, editorial writers for years on end 
continue to ignore what is contained in this book. The Federal budget 
of the States contains a graphic picture of the wealth flowing out of 
New York State into the rest of the country.
  We could use $14 billion. Our economy could certainly benefit from 
$14 billion being sent back. Or even $7 billion. Let us take half. 
Maybe there should be some kind of revenue-sharing provision written 
into the Tax Code where States are always given back at least half of 
what they put in beyond what they normally get back from the Federal 
Government.
  Maybe that would be a creative idea and maybe it would be acceptable 
to everybody, because the people in this Chamber who yell the loudest 
about States' rights are the ones who seem to benefit the most from 
this imbalance. The Representatives of the recipient States are the 
ones who talk most about States' rights and the need to have States do 
it on their own, go it on their own, do not interfere, no mandates. If 
we do not want any mandates, that might be a good idea. But why should 
we have Federal dollars flowing in large amounts into the States who do 
not want Federal interference?
  Now, certainly the tradition of the Northeast and New York State 
supplying more in terms of its contribution to the Federal budget than 
it gets back is a tradition that was not blindly initiated. I think 
Franklin Roosevelt and people who developed the New Deal knew very well 
that the rest of the country needed help and they deliberately came up 
with policies that related to taxes and expenditures which spread the 
wealth across the country. The greatest beneficiary of the New Deal 
were the southern States, and they still are the greatest beneficiaries 
of the way that we distribute Federal dollars.
  The New Deal was something that New Yorkers were proud of, and for

[[Page H8920]]

years progressives and liberals have always been proud of the fact that 
money has flowed from the northeastern States, the industrial States, 
out into the rest of the country. And we have taken care of the 
national interest that way. However, in the past few years, New York 
and the big cities like Chicago, in an industrial State like Illinois, 
and New York and New Jersey, and these big industrial States that have 
big cities are being constantly criticized for serving as a drain on 
the Federal Treasury.

  People who don't look at the figures tell us that New York is a great 
drain. I do not know where his assumptions came from, but the gentleman 
from Georgia [Speaker Gingrich] more than once on the floor of this 
House over the last 10 years that I have been here has been 
particularly focused on New York City and New York State as being 
wasteful of Federal dollars.
  I think that at one point in 1995 he stated that New York was quote, 
``Saddled with a culture of waste for which they want us to send a 
check.'' New York was saddled with a culture of waste for which they 
want us to send a check. Who is us? Send it from Georgia? Georgia is a 
recipient. They get more money from the Federal Government than they 
pay in. How would they send a check to New York? We continually send 
the check for the rest of the country.
  The Federal Government is not going to bail out the habits that have 
made New York so extraordinarily expensive, quoting the Speaker again. 
The Speaker stated that the Federal Government is not going to bail out 
the habits that have made New York so extraordinarily expensive.
  Conventional wisdom came to be believed on the floor of this House 
that New York was a financial sinkhole. New York was inefficient, 
wasteful, a drain on the public purse. I suppose that the Congressmen 
and Senators from New York have a lot of blame to bear. They must bear 
the burdens of blame for allowing this to happen, when we have the 
figures here for the last 20 years which show that New York has not 
been a burden on anybody. We have been the donor of large amounts of 
taxes flowing into the rest of the country.
  Now, in the days of FDR, it was a conscious transfusion. They 
consciously decided that the northeast States, and New York among them, 
should help to supply the money needed to sustain the economies of the 
rest of the country. What started as a transfusion, a voluntary 
transfusion, has now become bloodsucking. It is really sucking the 
blood of a dying economy.
  Mr. Siegel is right, the New York economy needs help. It is the last 
place that should have to continue to send out billions of dollars that 
do not come back. Speaker O'Neill used to say that all politics is 
local. All income taxes are local and many other taxes are local, but 
certainly income tax. People live in a locality. They live in a city, a 
village or a State. They pay their taxes, and they flow up to the 
Federal Government.
  The Federal Government does not generate any taxes. In Washington, we 
print dollars, paper, but those paper bills are symbolic of the revenue 
that is collected from across the country. So it comes out of the 
localities and the States. It comes from New York, the billions come, 
and they do not go back in any just way to a State that now needs it to 
come back.
  There was a time when we did not need it, but we need it now, and the 
Members of the congressional delegation of New York ought to lead the 
fight to get into this debate about the Internal Revenue Service, a 
discussion of how revenue is distributed in America. Nobody has a right 
to take from one set of localities and give to another unless there is 
some kind of formula, some kind of rationale.
  It is now a habit. It is not a voluntary transfusion, it is 
bloodsucking. We have to stop the tax sucking, the bloodsucking, and 
look at the dying economy of New York City and reroute the blood, 
reroute the taxes back into the economy of New York City.
  Let me just read from Mr. Moynihan's introduction to this year's 
edition of this wonderful book that comes out every year, The Federal 
Budget and the States. In his introduction he says some interesting 
things. He talks about, a little bit about the history of taxes, income 
taxes, for example.
  An income tax was proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
Alexander J. Dallas, in the Madison administration as a means of 
financing the War of 1812. The war ended before anything was agreed, 
but the idea was in place and the legislation with respect to income 
tax was enacted in the Civil War and continued until 1872.
  Legislation that put the income tax in place actually had been 
conceived as early as Madison's administration during the War of 1812, 
but it was enacted in 1872. In that period, New York alone, quoting 
from Mr. Moynihan's report, New York alone paid one-third of the entire 
tax when the tax first began. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania each 
contributed about 13 percent, thus approximately 60 percent of the 
total revenue collected came from only three States.
  Historically, the northeast has taken care of the rest of the 
country. It started that way and it still is that way. I am sure that 
at different points in time it has been voluntary, it has been given 
freely, but now we have a situation where ungrateful recipient States 
are like jackals criticizing the policies and economies of the donor 
States.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. Moynihan continues in another section where he talks about the 
16th amendment. There was legislation that established the income tax, 
but that only lasted until 1872. Later on, in 1913, the 16th amendment 
was ratified, in 1913. It provided that Congress shall have power to 
lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived without 
apportionment among the several States and without regard to any census 
or enumeration. The 16th amendment, in 1913. That is a long period of 
time between amendments. The 15th amendment had been passed in the 
1800's. We had the 13th amendment, which freed the slaves, the 14th 
amendment, which established equal rights, and proposed to punish the 
people who rebelled against the Government. That part is always left 
out. There is more in the 14th amendment about punishing the rebels 
than there is about equal rights. But nevertheless the 14th amendment.
  Then the 15th amendment which gave the right to vote to the newly 
freed slaves. Then it was not until 1913 that we had another amendment 
to the Constitution. That amendment did what legislation had started 
before, it enshrined in the Constitution the power of Congress to lay 
and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived without 
apportionment among the several States and without regard to any census 
or enumeration. The States in the Northeast could have objected at that 
time. They might have had the power to stop it at that time, but they 
did not because they had this spirit of being responsible for the rest 
of the Nation. They also made some assumptions about the fact that at 
that time a large percentage of the funds collected by the Federal 
Government were going into the Armed Services, the military budget and 
a large part of that military budget was being spent in the big 
northeastern States. To continue from Mr. Moynihan, his introduction:
  ``It may be noted that this was the First Amendment to the 
Constitution to be adopted since the time of the Civil War. The 
regional conflict never ceased. The time simply came when the poorer 
regions were assumed to have the better of the argument and the votes. 
The programs that followed may have been a good idea when New York was 
singularly the most prosperous state in the Nation and these programs 
were an act of social conscience designed to uplift the downtrodden or 
unenlightened elsewhere. We sent the money to Washington, received 
precious little in return and felt very good. Somehow as late they 
don't seem to show as much gratitude as they used to.''
  A very important statement. New Yorkers gave freely because they 
wanted to uplift the downtrodden or unenlightened elsewhere, the money 
went to Washington, the New Deal moved even faster, and yet we got 
little back in terms of gratitude. Mr. Moynihan is to be congratulated 
for his thoroughness and his diligence over the years in staying with 
this subject and getting the most objective analysis

[[Page H8921]]

possible so that the figures that we quote here are generally accepted 
as credible. We have a situation, however, when we look at all of the 
available numbers, the quote from the report now is very apt, quoting 
again from Mr. Moynihan's introduction:
  ``We will have more to say about this subject at another time but 
consider for the moment the logic of the 95 percent minimum return 
advocates. He is talking about transportation and the fact that there 
has been a great complaint about States which pay the gasoline tax not 
receiving 95 percent of the money back in terms of highway and 
transportation funds. Take it a step further. If the Federal highway 
program exists merely to collect gasoline taxes and return them 
precisely to where they were paid, why bother.''
  Quote from Mr. Moynihan again: ``Let the final word be that of Gerald 
B. Solomon of our 22nd Congressional District in the Upper Hudson 
Valley of New York. Mr. Solomon happily is also the chairman of the 
House Committee on Rules.'' Quoting from Mr. Solomon, ``Anyone who 
thinks that their State is being short-changed because they don't get 
back what they contribute in a gas tax is ignoring a whole series of 
factors and should take a hard look at New York. New York pays $18 
billion,'' he is quoting the previous years, ``$18 billion more in 
Federal taxes than we receive in Federal funds. If they want to raise a 
stink, then let's redo the formulas for everything. New York could use 
an additional $18 billion.'' End of quote from Mr. Gerald Solomon, 
Republican from the State of New York's 22nd Congressional District.
  When we look at the mix of defense expenditures, gasoline taxes and 
return for transportation costs, the expenditures for Medicaid, aid to 
families with dependent children or welfare, when we look at the whole 
mix and put it together, military expenditures, also, New York still 
comes out as a donor. It gets back more from Medicaid and Medicare than 
most States, but we are forced to pay 50 percent of the total Medicaid-
Medicare costs, whereas in Mississippi the Federal Government pays 70 
percent and the Federal Government only pays 50 percent of our costs. 
Per capita we have a larger number of people so we get back more 
Medicaid and Medicare funds than probably any other State per capita. 
But when we balance that off against what we get back for 
transportation, military contracts, when it all is balanced out, the 
taxpayers of New York in 1996 were still paying into the Federal 
Government $14 billion more than they received back. This is worthy of 
a debate.
  Mr. Siegel, get yourself a copy of the book, arouse your fellow 
journalists and editors and let us go to work. Let us take a close look 
at the pages of a book which spell out the situation State by State and 
educate the people of New York as to what is the problem with respect 
to their taxes not returning to improve their quality of life and how 
are they being swindled. Let us look at Alabama on page 1. Alabama is a 
recipient State. They receive far more than they pay into the Federal 
Government's coffers. Alabama continues to retain its positive fiscal 
relationship with the Federal Government with a balance of payments 
surplus of $1,421 per person, the eighth highest in the Nation. They 
get back $1,421 for each person in the State than they pay in. Relative 
low per capita income results in tax collections of about 13 percent 
below the national average. Alabama ranks fourth in the Nation for 
payments to individuals and 14th for defense spending, leading to 
overall Federal spending that is 16 percent higher than the national 
average. The State of Alabama receives 16 percent more, its Federal 
spending, receipt of Federal funds is 16 percent higher than the 
national average. It has consistently been that way for a long, long 
time, certainly the last 10 years. Our dollars flow to Alabama. Alabama 
is not grateful. Alabama talks a great deal about States rights and not 
having people outside interfere.
  The State of Georgia, let us read the synopsis on the State of 
Georgia. Georgia is almost equal to the national averages for both 
taxes and spending, varying by less than 1 percent in each direction. 
It began and ended the period from 1981 to fiscal year 1996 with 
moderate balance of payments surpluses. In the early to mid-1980's, 
rising Federal tax payments fueled by economic growth outpaced the 
State's success in attracting defense dollars, with the result that its 
balance of payments surplus fell slightly. The dramatic decline in 
defense spending in the late 1980s dropped the State into a deficit 
position in fiscal year 1988. Defense spending increased in fiscal year 
1992 and went up again in the past year, so Georgia ends the 16-year 
period with a balance, a small balance of payments surplus of $66 per 
capita and a rank of 27th. Over the years, Georgia has received per 
person as high as $434 more per person than it has paid in and it 
presently receives $66 more when you take the whole State into 
consideration. In a previous year, this book zeroed in on some counties 
and they found that the county that Speaker Gingrich represented was 
the county that received the highest per capita in amount of Federal 
spending than any other county in the country.

  New Mexico ranks at the very top. It is number one when it comes to 
recipient States. New Mexico receives more than any other State in the 
Union. New Mexico, the synopsis reads, leads the Nation with the 
greatest balance of payments surplus. Per capita Federal spending is 
about 45 percent above the national average, assisted by strong defense 
spending. While the average State receives about $865 per capita in 
defense spending in fiscal year 1996, New Mexico received nearly 3 
times that, $2,400 per person. The State also ranks high for 
intergovernmental assistance, particularly Department of Interior 
grants to minerals management and Native American programs. Per capita 
income is very low and tax collections are about 23 percent below the 
national average. They collect very little, send very little to the 
Federal Government but the amount that they receive is the greatest in 
the whole country. In past years they have cited New Mexico as also 
being the recipient of a tremendous amount of agricultural subsidies. 
The agricultural subsidies also were driving the amount of per capita 
Federal spending in New Mexico up. They have always had an interesting 
record. If we look at the record of New Mexico all the way from fiscal 
year 1981 to fiscal year 1996, they have always been above the $2,500 
mark in terms of per capita. For each person in New Mexico, they 
receive more than $2,500. It generally has run much higher than that. 
$3,048 per person in 1981, $3,005 in 1985, $3,313 in 1986, $3,421 in 
1987, $4,464 in 1988 and on and on it goes, always very high in terms 
of what they receive per person versus the amount that they pay in.
  Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, New York has always had a 
negative balance. We have received less consistently since 1981 per 
person. The $14 billion overall from 1996 translates into $773 we 
receive less per person in New York than we pay in. That is what the 
overall figure of $14 billion translates into on a per capita basis. In 
1981 it was $312 less. It went as high as $1,016 per person less in 
1989, $1,101 in 1994, $1,070 in 1995, receiving per person in New York 
that much less than we are paying into the Federal coffers. New York 
once again finds itself among the States with the largest per capita 
balance of payments deficits. The deficit fell by about 20 percent in 
fiscal 1996 but the total deficit of $14 billion still ranks third in 
the Nation. New York ranks near the bottom for most Federal spending, 
almost 12 percent below the national average of 1996. Defense spending 
has fallen sharply since the mid 1980s and New York ranked 46th in 
defense spending last year. New York's success in attracting grants to 
State and local government can be traced to Medicaid assistance, AFDC 
and surface transportation grants. New York ranks 12th in the real per 
capita income and tax collections are about 4 percent above the 
national average.
  I know that statistics can be boring and maybe these are boring but 
they are certainly not incoherent. There is a story here that we must 
listen to in the statistics. Mr. Siegel and other journalists have to 
pay more attention to these statistics. New York is to be applauded for 
the fact that this year its economy, partially as a result of the 
booming stock market, New York State, its economy is such that they 
have placed in the budget more money for schools, more money for 
education. It has also voted to launch a bond issue for school 
construction, more than $2

[[Page H8922]]

billion bond issue to help construct schools. It is to be applauded for 
as a State moving ahead to try to fill the gap. In New York City in 
1996 we had 91,000 children who did not have a place to sit in a 
classroom. This year we cannot find out the number because this is an 
election year in New York and they kept secret the exact number of 
children who did not have a place to sit. The estimate is that at least 
there were 80,000 who did not have a place to sit at the start of 
school.

                              {time}  2200

  They have to shuffle about and find places in the hallways and the 
closets, and, in some cases, the bathrooms were converted in order to 
have a place for the kids to sit. Again, we continue to have a 
situation where some children are forced to eat lunch at 10 o'clock in 
the morning because the school is so overcrowded until the lunchroom 
cannot take all the students. They have to have three or four lunch 
periods, so the first lunch period has to begin at 10 o'clock in the 
morning. That is child abuse, to force a child to eat lunch at 10 
o'clock, but that is the case in a number of schools in New York City.
  So New York State has begun, at least to do more than just wringing 
its hands about its need for more schools. New schools, renovated 
schools, et cetera, will do more when we get the bond issue passed. But 
in the meantime we are paying more money into the Federal coffers than 
we are receiving back. The Federal Government ought to float a school 
construction initiative.
  The President proposes a mere $5 billion over a five-year period, and 
that was dropped out of the negotiations. We need to come back to that. 
We need to understand that if we are not willing to launch a school 
construction initiative to make sure of the schools across the country.
  The General Accounting Office estimates that the problem is about 
$120 billion in infrastructure needs across the whole country. There 
are rural schools, suburban schools, a number of places where they need 
new schools, not just in the inner-cities. The total tab would be, 
according to the General Accounting Office estimate, about $120 
billion. Here we had a proposal in the State of the Union message for a 
mere $5 billion and they dropped that.
  If you are not willing as a Nation through the Federal budget to deal 
with the problem of school construction and some other acute problems 
in places like New York, then give us our money back. Give us back the 
$14 billion or give us back half of it. We can solve our own problems.
  We have a situation where it is an involuntary transfusion. It is 
blood sucking, really, when you have a State which has an acute poverty 
problem, a city like New York, which has 2 million people who are poor 
out of a population of close to 8 million, but 2 million are poor. We 
need our money back.
  I want to repeat and emphasize the fact that this is not stated 
enough by journalists, by columnists, by editorial boards in New York 
City and New York State. When Mr. Siegel says that this Congressman is 
one of those who has not addressed the problem, I want to read and 
close out with a couple of quotes from my previous statements on the 
floor of this House.
  I think just last March 12, 1996, I made the following statement: New 
York State is a State in the Nation which provides the greatest amount 
of surplus in terms of Treasury. When you compare what New York State 
receives from the Federal Government, what it receives from the Federal 
Government in terms of aid, it is much less than it pays in. That has 
been true for the last 20 years.
  This is my quote from last year. In 1994, the last year they had 
figures available, New York State paid the Treasury $18.9 billion more 
than it got back from the Federal Treasury in State aid. New York was 
the most generous of the States. We were at the very top in 1994. I 
quoted from the booklet in 1994.
  This was, for the benefit of Mr. Siegel and the other journalists who 
want to check it out, this is in the Congressional Record, March 12, 
1996, H-2117.
  On that same date, I made several statements about Medicare and 
Medicaid. If New York State stood alone, it would be in receipt of 
$18.9 billion that it does not have now. If you gave us back the $18.9 
billion in 1994 that we paid into the Federal Government, which was 
greater than the amount we got back in terms of aid, we could solve our 
budget problems. In fact, just give us back half that amount.
  I am like a broken record, the same things I am saying tonight, I 
have said it many times before. It is not incoherent, Mr. Siegel. It is 
repetitious, I confess, but it needs to be repetitious because nobody 
seems to pick up on these important messages. If we had $9 billion, the 
New York State budget could be balanced and you would have a lot left 
over. We could take care of our own summer youth program, our own 
construction problems. If you give us back the greater amount of money 
we pay in, we could stop waiting for the Federal Government.
  I mention this because the criticism on the floor of the House 
repeatedly aims at New York and calls New York a welfare State.
  I think during that same discussion I talked about the Speaker's home 
State of Georgia, meanwhile, is one of the large number of southern 
largely Republican States that receives far more from the Federal 
Government than they send out in taxes.
  I quoted Mr. Moynihan at that time. Mr. Moynihan said, ``I told Mr. 
Gingrich, what are you talking about my friend? In Atlanta 59 percent 
of the children are AFDC, Aid for Families with Dependent Children. In 
a single year, where do you think that money comes from?'' By the way, 
Atlanta is in Georgia, and in case somebody doesn't have his geography 
straight, Atlanta is in Georgia, and Atlanta is the Speaker's home 
state. Those are some comments, but there are many, many paragraphs 
where I expanded on the same argument.
  Also, for the benefit of Mr. Siegel and any other journalist who 
wants to criticize this for not speaking out on this subject of 
providing leadership, on March 22, 1996, I announced I was going to 
have a town meeting, and the subject of the meeting was the fiscal 
future of New York City.
  The discussion begins with a discussion of what is happening here in 
Washington, because the fiscal future of New York City is inextricably 
interwoven with the policies of general aid here in Washington, our 
capital. I am going to start by talking that New York City is often 
discussed on the floor of the House of Representatives. People often 
talk about New York City and New York State. It is a favorite target of 
the Speaker of the House. Speaker Gingrich often refers to New York 
State and New York City as a welfare state and a welfare city. For that 
reason, the people of New York need to understand the perspective of 
our relationship with Washington better.
  I again repeat, we are called a welfare state and a welfare city. We 
are often accused of being a drain on the Nation, and yet New York City 
pays taxes to the tune of $9 billion more into the Federal Government 
and New York State pays another $9 billion, a total of $18.9 billion in 
1994.
  The total of New York State and the city for that year was $18.9 
billion. The year before that, in 1993, it was $23 billion more to the 
Federal Government than we received back from the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, I said at that time, it is baffling. We do not 
understand why Members on the floor of the House like to single out New 
York City. New York City and New York State are often singled out for 
its high expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid.
  Well, after we take away our high expenditures for Medicaid and 
Medicare, which are the highest in the country, I will admit that, and 
I can think of no more noble way to expend public funds than by taking 
care of the sick and the infirm and the elderly in nursing homes, no 
more noble way to expend funds. But we do not waste money when we take 
care of the sick and the infirm.
  In closing, I want to repeat and sum up, so that nobody will accuse 
me of being incoherent, this discussion is very much related to the 
topic of the day, the IRS and revenue collection. Revenue collection 
and the IRS should not be a discussion that takes place in a trivial 
manner. Let us talk about the philosophy of taxation and revenue 
collection, the implementation of that philosophy and how that impacts 
on the states that are now donors, while other states are traditional 
recipients.




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