[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11401-S11405]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX CUTS

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I am pleased to have this opportunity to 
begin a discussion today which should clarify some of the competing 
rhetoric and certainly some of the misinformation that is being spoken 
about the potential for tax cuts in our culture.
  We are taxed at the highest rates in history. Never before have the 
American people been asked to devote so much of their hard-earned 
resources to government. Yet there are lots of statements made about 
the incapacity of this government to afford tax cuts to the American 
people, to give them some more of what they have earned in return for 
their hard work.
  I rise today to speak the truth about tax cuts, to speak the truth 
about the so-called emergency spending, about Social Security, and 
about the budget surplus. A group of like-minded Senators and I have 
been engaged in a long and arduous fight to return to the American 
taxpayers more of their own money. We are here to announce that we are 
not giving up that fight. It may now be clear that the Senate will not 
be passing a tax cut this year.
  Even if the majority leader were to bring the House-passed bill to 
the floor, there are just too many Members, big spenders, if you will, 
who are more interested in spending the surplus than returning the 
surplus to the rightful owners--those who generated the surplus. I only 
wish the advocacy groups who attack tax cuts would be honest enough to 
criticize the President and the other big spenders as they spend the 
surplus on more and more government programs and projects.
  Senators Inhofe, Grams, Brownback, Bob Smith and I have waged a long 
battle, battle after battle, as a matter of

[[Page S11402]]

fact, since May of this year, when we opposed the Senate Budget 
Committee resolution, because it contained only $30 billion in tax cuts 
over the next 5 years. Because of our strong and vocal opposition to 
that particular measure, our leadership made a commitment to us to 
fight for more tax relief, to adopt the House-passed tax cut number, to 
make eliminating the marriage penalty a priority of the Senate in a tax 
cut bill, and to move the budget reconciliation package so that tax 
cuts would be protected.
  In June, the House did pass a budget resolution that included $101 
billion in tax relief. The other Senators and I, in accordance with the 
previous agreement with the leadership of this House, assumed that this 
would be the amount of tax relief that would be delivered to hard-
working Americans this year. You have $101 billion in the House and an 
agreement by the Senate that it will go to the House figure; you would 
think you would be able to get to $101 billion.
  As the August recess loomed before us, the tax cuts remained elusive. 
That is why on July 17, a group of Senators and I came to the floor 
during consideration of the legislative branch appropriations bill and 
attempted to add a marriage penalty elimination amendment to that bill. 
To eliminate the marriage penalty would effectively reduce taxes for 
about 21 million couples who are penalized simply because they are 
married. Our point was simple and clear: Congress should not receive 
the funding under the legislative branch appropriations before the 
American people got the opportunity to keep a reasonable amount of what 
they earned. Why give all the money that Congress wants to Congress 
while we don't honor the need for the American people to fund their 
families?
  We were prevented from offering our amendment at that time by the 
Democrats. We came back 2 weeks later while this body was considering 
the Treasury-Postal Services appropriations bill and we offered our 
amendment again. Our amendment would have eliminated the unfair and 
discriminatory marriage penalty, that extra tax that people pay just 
because they are married, which affects 21 million American families to 
the tune of about $29 billion a year.
  We did not rely on spending the surplus in order to advocate that tax 
cut. We called for reductions in spending. We said that the Government 
has been on a budget high in fat for too long, it is time for us to 
provide the people with some relief, and we should do that by cutting 
spending. So we called for reductions in spending to offset the reduced 
revenues that would have come as a result of the tax cut.
  On July 29, a majority of the individuals serving in this Senate 
voted in favor of eliminating the marriage penalty when they voted not 
to table our amendment. A majority of the Senate said that it is time 
to stop imposing Washington's values on the people and start imposing 
the people's values on Washington. The marriage penalty is perhaps one 
of the best examples of an elitist Washington imposing its values on 
the principles of the American people. We know that the American people 
understand the value of marriage and families in our culture. We know 
that they understand that if we expect to succeed in the next century, 
if we don't want to sink, if we want to swim, we had better make it 
possible for families to meet their needs. One way to do that is to 
stop penalizing people for being families, and we ought to do that.
  Unfortunately, we had to withdraw the amendment because of the 
constitutional requirement that revenue bills originate in the House of 
Representatives. But the Senate did go on record supporting a marriage 
penalty elimination--this tax cut. A majority of this body voted to 
support eliminating the marriage penalty, but today we are facing the 
disappointing reality that the Senate will not pass, or probably will 
not even vote on, tax relief.
  Much has been made about the surplus that is now attendant to the 
financial situation in Washington. Last week, the President happily 
announced that, for the first time in almost 30 years, the Federal 
budget is in balance--not just in balance, but there is a budget 
surplus of almost $70 billion. President Clinton even took credit for 
the balanced budget and the budget surplus.
  Well, who is really responsible for the budget surplus? Was it the 
President and his party who voted for the largest tax increase in 
American history in 1993? Or was it the Republicans who made balancing 
the budget a national priority? Let me suggest that it wasn't the 
President, and let me suggest that it wasn't the Republicans, but that 
it was the American people who continued to work hard, to pay their 
taxes, continued to demand from their elected officials that we have 
some fiscal discipline. The American people should be credited with 
balancing the budget through their hard work, creativity, innovation, 
and their industry. Government doesn't generate revenue, it doesn't 
create wealth, people do, when they work hard.
  Make no mistake, the Federal budget surplus is up because Federal 
income taxes are up. Income tax revenues have increased $83.7 billion, 
or 11 percent, just since last year. Where do those tax revenues come 
from? They come from the American people.
  The President's record on taxes is threefold: Increase, increase, and 
increase. He has not proposed cutting taxes. Rather, his latest budget 
proposed increasing taxes by $100 billion over the next 5 years. 
Americans pay more in taxes today than they have in any other time in 
our history. President Clinton raised taxes by $242 billion in 1993, 
the largest hike in U.S. history, and sought to increase them another 
$290 billion as part of his plan to nationalize the Nation's health 
care system in 1994. And he sought to increase taxes by another $500 
billion-plus this year as part of a tobacco tax bill. In 1995, he 
vetoed the first major tax cut since Ronald Reagan was President. We 
all remember when the President mused aloud about his 1993 tax 
increase. He put it this way: ``It might surprise you to know that I 
think I raised them too much, too.''
  Well, frankly, I believe the President is right that he raised taxes 
too much. If we raised taxes too much, wouldn't it behoove us to begin 
to settle the account and start to let the American people have some of 
their hard-earned resources for expenditure in their families? It is 
one thing to confess that you raised taxes too much; it is another 
thing to develop another plan to spend all that you raised when you 
raised too much. If he really believes we raised taxes too much, we 
should give some of these hard-earned resources back. The President 
seems to have forgotten that it is the American people who have led us 
to this budget surplus. It is their money, not our money.
  Mr. President, I have not forgotten this key fact. That is why I am 
here today--to say to the American people that they deserve not to have 
their money squandered on more Government, but they deserve a return on 
their investment--a return in the form of tax relief that is funded by 
reducing the spending of a Government addicted to a high-fat diet. This 
Government should be involved in reducing its invasion of the American 
culture with more and more Government and thereby consuming more and 
more of what families need to meet their needs.
  Now, the President has a plan, but his plan is to spend the surplus. 
When it became clear earlier in the year that the fiscal discipline the 
Republican Congress had demanded from the President would result in a 
budget surplus, the President made a statement in his State of the 
Union Address which he has repeated numerous times since then. He said 
this, and I have this statement on a chart here:

       But whether the issue is tax cuts or spending, I ask all of 
     you to meet this test: Approve only those priorities that can 
     actually be accomplished without adding a dime to the 
     deficit. Now, if we balance the budget for next year, it is 
     projected that we will then have a sizable surplus in the 
     years that immediately follow. What should we do with this 
     projected surplus? I have a simple four-word answer: Save 
     Social Security first. Tonight, I propose that we reserve 100 
     percent of the surplus--that's every penny of any surplus--
     until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen 
     the Social Security system for the 21st century.

  That is quite a statement. It is a bold statement. The President has 
used this statement to attack our plan to eliminate the marriage 
penalty and provide tax relief. He has used this sort of suggestion 
that we will just have to save Social Security and therefore you can't 
have any tax relief for the American people--a tax relief package that 
we

[[Page S11403]]

were and are prepared to pay for out of reduced spending. But has the 
President attempted to keep his pledge to use every penny to save 
Social Security? There is only one answer. That answer is a resounding 
no.
  Only days after his Social Security pledge, he sent a budget to 
Congress that contained $150 billion in new spending, according to the 
Senate Budget Committee. Without that new spending, the surplus would 
have been $150 billion larger--hardly every penny of any surplus being 
used to save Social Security.
  It seems like every week the President has proposed an additional new 
spending program. His fiscal year 1999 budget, submitted earlier in the 
year, contained $150 billion in new spending. Just last Thursday, the 
President was at it again. At a press conference at the White House, he 
repeated his call for $34 billion to run our schools from Washington 
and to take control of our children's education away from their parents 
and teachers with new Federal expenditures of resources that are hard-
earned by the American people, which he won't allow them to keep to 
fund their families.
  The President called for this new spending, as with all his spending 
requests, without a dime of offsetting savings. He is not talking about 
reallocating Federal expenditures, he is talking about increasing 
Federal expenditures. That means it can only be financed by dipping 
into the same surplus that he pledged would be spent for Social 
Security.

  Every penny of any surplus--the President said, should be reserved 
until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen Social 
Security.
  The President is gifted with language, so now we're redefining the 
phrase, every penny.
  It reminds me of the fellow who sat down to dinner every night and 
put his finger in the wine glass and flipped a little wine off his 
fingers. His friend said to him, ``Why do you do that? Every night you 
come in, stick your finger in the wine glass, and you flip the wine off 
your finger.'' He said, ``Well, I promised my mother on her deathbed 
that I would never drink a drop of wine. And that is the drop I am not 
drinking.''
  The truth of the matter is that the President has said we are going 
to devote every penny of the surplus to Social Security, and there are 
not any pennies there--just dollars, and billions of dollars. So we are 
free to spend the billions of dollars. Those are the pennies we are not 
saving but flipping them off our finger because they are not there.
  In addition to all the increased spending that the President has 
asked for--spending that breaks the budget caps--this body will be 
called upon to vote for a package that includes at least $17.8 billion 
to pay for so-called emergencies--and I will go into what those quote-
emergencies-unquote are shortly--that will be paid for out of the 
surplus.
  The truth is, they have done nothing to save Social Security. They 
have no proposal. They tried to discredit tax cuts by saying cutting 
taxes would impair Social Security. They might impair some other 
invasive government programs but not Social Security. But this is a way 
of trying to fight against any reduction in government, any ability of 
this Senate to try to say to families you need to be able to fund your 
needs rather than just be used as workers to fund the ambitious schemes 
of spending and big government.
  The truth is that the big spenders don't care about saving Social 
Security or balancing the budget. They care about reserving their 
ability to spend the taxpayers' money.
  They do not want their ability to spend curtailed in any way--they 
want the amounts to continue to increase, and they want to stop any tax 
cut that infringes on their spending power.
  They look at this surplus as an huge pot of money to finance all 
their pork barrel pet projects. There is no fiscal discipline here! 
There is only a strong commitment, an all consuming passion to prevent 
tax cuts at any expense--even if it means misleading the American 
people by their demagoguery about saving social security.
  The President said he wanted to save Social Security; devote every 
penny. The President and the big spenders have feigned their concern 
for Social Security and fiscal responsibility. It is a mantra that has 
been repeated thousands of times--sort of a slogan that any time there 
is a problem, they run and hide behind the Social Security billboards. 
They stick their heads into the ground and yell, ``Social Security,'' 
so they can avoid dealing with issues that count.
  I guess we can expect to hear that mantra another thousand more times 
in the next month preceding the election. But it is also clear that 
when we look at the President's record on Social Security reform, that 
he talks the talk but then takes a walk.
  Despite promising to save Social Security first, the President has 
never proposed a plan to reform Social Security--not even hinted at it. 
Clinton's one and only proposal related to Social Security was to 
promote and to sign into law a $25 billion tax increase for some Social 
Security beneficiaries. For all his rhetoric, not one plan--not one 
concrete proposal--to preserve the Social Security program.
  Social Security merely becomes a tool in his hand to try to divert 
attention from the opportunity to cut government spending and provide 
Americans with the opportunity to fund their families rather than to 
fund the bureaucracy.
  While a series of bills have been introduced by Republicans and 
Democrats addressing Social Security solvency, Congress is still, to 
this day, waiting upon a plan from the President.
  But the President has one goal, and that is to spend the surplus, and 
spend it as quickly as he can. Unfortunately, the President is not 
alone in this goal. It appears that a majority of the Senate is opposed 
to cutting taxes or cutting spending. They are only interested in one 
thing as well--stopping tax relief so that they can spend the surplus 
themselves.
  The President has presented to the American people a false choice--he 
said it has to be either this or this--and it is a false choice. He has 
said it is a choice between saving Social Security and Squandering the 
Surplus on tax relief. But this is a misleading choice. It doesn't have 
to be one or the other. We can take the surplus, devote it to Social 
Security, and we can provide tax relief by cutting some of the spending 
that is wasteful and inappropriate by a bureaucracy which is bloated.
  I believe we can do both. But only if we do not spend the surplus on 
increased government, as is currently being planned. Congress is 
planning to spend at least $17.8 billion of the surplus next week in 
the ``emergency supplemental'' bill. And we can be sure that the $17.8 
billion figure will continue to grow exponentially by the time this 
Congress adjourns.
  Mr. President, the Administration's spending requests during this 
Congress have become more than a bad habit. These requests reveal a 
consistent failure at responsible governance. Twenty billion dollars or 
more in ``emergency'' appropriations may be requested before this 
Congress adjourns.
  Billions of these dollars will pay for expenditures the 
Administration knew it would incur. What are we talking about? These 
aren't surprise expenditures. These aren't emergencies that have come 
up. These are expenditures that have long been planned to be put into 
the emergency spending portion of the budget so they wouldn't come 
under the caps--so they wouldn't come under the normal limits that are 
related to balancing the budget.

  First, the administration did not realize--according to this, if it 
is an emergency--the year 2000 would follow the year 1999. It requested 
$3.25 billion to clean up the year 2000 computer problem. Why wasn't 
that in the ordinary spending appropriations request?
  DId anyone in the Administration have a calendar? Not only is the 
emergency designation of Y2K funding wrong, but experts in the field 
have informed my office that the Administration could have corrected 
this computing problem for far less money if the process had been 
stated earlier.
  So instead, the administration proposes to raid the surplus and to 
spend money that could have been used to save Social Security.
  Every penny? Maybe there haven't been any pennies, just dollars.
  Second, the administration claims it did not know that we would 
continue to deploy troops in Bosnia next year. This is an 
``emergency''--that somehow

[[Page S11404]]

the Bosnia deployment is unanticipated.
  It has been apparent from the beginning of NATO's Implementation 
Force (IFOR) that American troops were there to stay much longer than 
the President had initially promised the American people three years 
ago.
  In dispatching over 22,000 U.S. soldiers to participate in the NATO 
Bosnia mission in 1995 and 1996, the President told the American people 
that the mission would take about one year. Secretary of Defense 
William Perry and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili both 
confirmed the one-year duration of NATO's Implementation Force (IFOR). 
Secretary Perry testified before the House International Relations 
Committee that the total cost of the Bosnia mission would be about $2 
billion.
  Now, three years later, after two broken troop withdrawal deadlines 
and over $6 billion in cost, the Administration is seeking to fund this 
operation straight out of the surplus, which could be used, if we were 
to take the President at his word, to save Social Security. The 
President announced in December of 1997 that American troops would stay 
in Bosnia indefinitely, and yet he asked for an emergency 
appropriations of $1.9 billion for fiscal year 1999 operational costs.

  Next the Administration proposed to spend the surplus that he 
proposed be used to save Social Security on building embassies 
overseas. Yet, after the tragic bombings of Kenya and Tanzania, the 
State Department could not even tell the Congress how much money they 
had spent to upgrade embassy security to meet standards set forth in 
the Inman Report of 1985. An effective accounting system to track these 
funds had not been established.
  A failure to monitor where the money has been going is not the only 
problem. In recent years, the State Department has not even spent all 
the money appropriated by Congress for diplomatic security. In 1995 and 
1996, the State Department failed to spend $100 million appropriated by 
Congress to enhance the security of U.S. overseas posts but now they 
want to raid the surplus in a so-called ``emergency.''
  Mr. President, this administration has not managed fiscal resources 
in a manner which inspires confidence. The administration will spend 
over $550 billion in discretionary spending under the budget agreement, 
but instead of paying for these new spending requests from some other 
part of the budget, the administration wants to raid the surplus that 
would save Social Security.
  The real outrage is that the President plans to spend the surplus, 
not to preserve Social Security. The truth is that the President and 
some in the Congress have misled the American people about their plans 
for the surplus. They have no intention of saving the surplus to fix 
Social Security. They have no plan to fix Social Security. Their plan 
is to spend the surplus on fake emergencies and increase spending. They 
are unwilling to use the budget process to live within the budget caps 
to finance their spending, so they categorize items as emergencies so 
that they don't have to exist within the framework and discipline that 
would characterize any family's budget. We have caps on our spending at 
home. We have limits on what we can take and spend. We can't decide we 
are going to call something an emergency and create resources out of 
thin air. It can't be done by the American people. It shouldn't be done 
by the American President and Congress. So we, the Congress, end up 
denying hard-working Americans a tax cut and we scare senior citizens 
about the future of Social Security, and then they spend the surplus.
  One of the things we end up spending the surplus on is pork projects. 
There are many additional spending items that are being talked about 
for the omnibus appropriations emergency spending behemoth. I do not 
mean to say all of these items are without merit. Indeed, there have 
been natural disasters, floods, embassy bombings and other occurrences 
which demand our attention and perhaps some additional funding. But to 
do it all in an emergency rather than to be addressing in the next 
funding year, very shortly anyhow, where we would put the funding in 
the stream of limits and discipline that the budget process imposes is 
to simply not do our job.
  But even these events should not be used to excuse our willingness to 
deny tax relief or to spend the surplus. The Congress should find the 
money within the existing budget to pay for these items. As I said 
before, most of these items are not true emergencies. We have known 
about Bosnia for a long time. The need to increase our military's 
readiness we have known, and the Y2K computer problem we have known for 
years. But by labeling them emergencies, the President wants to use an 
accounting gimmick to spend the surplus, to spend it outside the normal 
budget process, and spend it in a way that does not affect the 
calculation under our spending caps. The fiscally disciplined way to 
deal with this is to work within the budget, to stop pork barrel 
spending, and to pay for these priorities.
  Mr. President, I want to share with you some of the items contained 
in the fiscal year 1999 budget in various appropriations bills that the 
Congress thinks are more important than saving Social Security because 
they are willing to spend on this kind of pork.
  Now, the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, has done the American 
people and this body a great service. He has gone through the 
appropriations bills and he has identified all the earmarked pork 
programs and put this information on his home page on the Internet. I 
recommend it to people who want to spend an evening getting a headache 
reading about additional Federal spending. Seriously, it is a list that 
is comprehensive and it is worth looking at. I have looked at the 
information. Let me share some of it with you. Here are some of the 
examples of what we are spending for this year, items that the big 
spenders obviously think are more important than Social Security 
because they are unwilling to cut these programs in order to save the 
surplus. If they really wanted these things, thought they were worth 
it, they should be willing to cut other spending. But they are willing 
to take them out of the surplus.
  Believe you me, if this list of earmarked expenditures that Senator 
McCain has on his web site were put up in big print, it would be a 
stack that would be substantial. Here are a couple things. Here is $3.3 
million for the Shrimp Aquaculture project. And let me apologize to the 
Senate for calling it pork. This isn't pork. This is shrimp. But there 
is $3.3 million.
  Here is another earmark. Wait a minute. Here is another one that is 
not pork, either. Pardon me. This is grasshoppers--$750,000 for 
grasshopper control research. Here is another--pardon me, not pork, not 
shrimp, not grasshoppers. Here is $150,000 to hire a new potato 
breeder. Here is $143,200 to continue subterranean termite research.
  Well, we have gotten through virtually everything but pork. Let's see 
if we can find something related to pigs in the process. Obviously, 
this is political pork, whether or not it is pork in the nutritional 
sense. Here is $2 million to unspecified communities in southern 
California for planning associated with the National Communities 
Conservation Planning Program. So we have $2 million for communities to 
plan to be a part of a planning program. We might call it planning 
squared, I think--planning for planning. I suppose we could have some 
additional resources to help people plan for planning to plan. Here is 
an earmark of $1.1 million to rehabilitate priest quarters in an old 
schoolhouse in a national historic site; an earmark of $1 million for 
incinerator replacement; an earmark of $3.4 million to meet 
uncontrollable costs at a wildlife center located in Wisconsin. 
``Uncontrollable costs'' may be a phrase that seems acceptable in 
government, but families don't allow for uncontrollable costs. We are 
not allowed to have uncontrollable costs.
  So the bottom line is this. When we are willing to load up our bills 
with this kind of pork or termites or shrimp or grasshoppers or 
whatever else it is, it is not about tax cuts, and it is not about 
saving Social Security. It is about money. It is about spending. It is 
about power because he who has the money has the power. Someone said it 
is the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. It is a power 
game here in Washington, and the big spenders just can't allow the 
American people to control their own money.
  Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan appeared before

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the Senate Budget Committee and was asked what in his opinion should be 
done with the surplus. Let's look at his remarks.

       My first preference is to allow the surplus to reduce the 
     debt. I am also, however, aware of the pressures that will 
     exist to spend it.

  This individual, who perhaps knows as much about Washington and knows 
as much about this country and its financial caps indicates he knows 
about . . .

       . . . the pressures that will exist to spend it. And that 
     in my judgment would be the worst of all outcomes. And if 
     push came to shove and it was either to spend it or cut 
     taxes, I would strongly and unequivocally be on the side of 
     cutting taxes.

  Alan Greenspan happens to know that the growth and intensity, the 
kind of opportunity that is presented in the American economy is 
curtailed when we have more and more spending, and that growth and 
opportunity is enlarged when we have people with more of their money to 
spend themselves through tax cuts.
  That is why he says:

       And if push came to shove and it was either to spend it or 
     cut taxes, I would strongly and unequivocally be on the side 
     of cutting taxes.

  He stated that to spend the surplus would be the worst of all 
outcomes, but that is apparently what this President plans to do.
  I am sad to inform you, Mr. President, that the worst of all outcomes 
is about to happen. The pressure to spend is just too strong. I am here 
today to set the record straight. We cannot let the surplus be spent on 
mislabeled emergencies and increased spending. We must demand fiscal 
discipline from this Congress. We should demand truth to senior 
citizens about the fate of the surplus, and we will demand that the 
President, who decries tax cuts--we will demand that the President 
stand accountable for his actions as he prepares to spend the surplus 
rather than to keep his promise to save Social Security.
  The American people will not be fooled. You cannot save Social 
Security by wasting the surplus on bureaucracy in Washington, DC. You 
cannot save Social Security when you are sending the elderly's Social 
Security checks to the shrimp aquaculture project in Hawaii. You cannot 
save Social Security when the people recognize your posturing for what 
it is, a political exercise designed not to save Social Security but to 
save yourself.
  Mr. President, I appreciate this opportunity and yield the remainder 
of my time to my colleagues.
  I yield the floor to the Senator from Idaho, Senator Craig.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.

                          ____________________