[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 30 (Thursday, February 25, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2022-S2023]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SHUMER:

[[Page S2022]]

  S. 481. A bill to increase penalties and strengthen enforcement of 
environmental crimes, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the 
Judiciary.


                      the environmental crimes act

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today I am introducing my first bills as 
a United States Senator. I said over the last year that the picture 
that I want to keep at the forefront of my mind is that of families 
sitting around their kitchen table paying their bills, planning for 
retirement, affording a home, paying for college for their children, 
and discussing the quality of their local schools.
  Today I am introducing my first bills for those families at the 
kitchen table. And let me tell you a little bit about these families. 
They are the same in Brooklyn and Buffalo, Mt. Vernon and Massapequa, 
Syracuse and Setauket.
  They are living in a time of both overwhelming promise and 
overwhelming challenge.
  The promise--the upside--is that America remains indisputably the 
preeminent economy in the world. The challenge--the downside--is that 
for most families there is a great deal of uncertainty about the 
future. They are concerned that forces beyond their control--rising 
college costs, inferior schools, struggling communities--put them 
behind the eight-ball.
  Their concern isn't so much that the U.S. economy will turn sour. 
It's that they, or their town, or their children may be washed aside in 
the economic tide. The families of Upstate New York have lived that 
reality for six years.
  The nine bills that I am introducing today are designed to help 
families deal and thrive with the changing times of a global, 
competitive economy.
  I am introducing two bills to make college affordable for working 
families. The Make College Affordable Act, which I am honored to 
introduce with Senator Moynihan, makes all college tuition tax 
deductible for families with less than $140,000 in income.
  The Save for College Act allows families to contribute up to $2,000 
per year in an education IRA that is tax-free when the money goes in 
and tax-free when it comes out so long as it is spent on college costs. 
Families earning up to $200,000 are eligible for the IRAs.
  Let me make two points about these bills. Since 1980, the cost of 
attending college has increased at more than twice the rate of 
inflation and has risen even faster than health care. At the same time, 
the necessity of a college education is greater now than at any time in 
our history.
  If our country is to remain economically strong and if we want 
families to be able to get ahead, then college--whether it's SUNY or 
NYU--must not put families in the poorhouse.
  The Teachers Loan Forgiveness Act will recruit new, high quality 
professionals to teaching by forgiving all student loans for public and 
private school teachers.
  It is expensive to become a teacher. The pay is low. And we wonder 
why there is a shortage of young, eager, qualified teachers to educate 
our children. We must make the teaching profession more financially 
attractive to put excellence in the classrooms.
  The Comprehensive Pension & Security Retirement Act makes all 
pensions portable. If you lose a job, if you take time off to raise a 
child, if you change jobs--your pension will stay with you and grow. 
Pension portability and reform is the most important retirement 
security issue next to Social Security.
  Specifically for Upstate New York, with Senator Moynihan I am 
introducing the Airline Competition Act of 1999 to end predatory 
pricing and to direct the Transportation Department to grant take-off 
and landing slots to underserved airports within a 500 mile radius of 
New York. Monopolistic airfares in Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo are 
slowly strangling the economy of Upstate and the Southern Tier. I 
believe the days of sky-high airfares to these cites are numbered.
  To rebuild struggling neighborhoods through homeownership I am 
introducing legislation to offer a $2,000 tax credit to first time 
homebuyers in Enterprise Zones and Empowerment Communities. In New 
York, that includes the South Bronx, Harlem, and parts of Albany, 
Schenectady, Troy, Buffalo, Kingston, Newburgh, and Rochester.
  Because women pay more for health care than men, the Equity in 
Women's Health Act bars any health plan from discriminating on the 
basis of gender or sexual orientation through their coverage options. 
It also requires each health plan to include a short prospectus to 
describe exactly what they will and will not cover.
  To protect consumers, the Credit Card Consumer Protection Act of 1999 
closes loopholes in existing law that allows credit card companies to 
offer low teaser rates that increase dramatically unbeknownst to the 
cardholder.
  And last, the Environmental Crimes Act increases fines and penalties 
for criminally negligent polluters and it also trains new personnel to 
investigate environmental crimes.
  These are not all--but some of my priorities for the year. As I have 
said many times, my passion is legislating in ways that make people's 
lives better. With the impeachment over, I am anxious to get started on 
the issues that matter to New Yorkers and all Americans.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. ABRAHAM (for himself, Mr. Lott, Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Helms, 
        Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Bunning, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Cochran, and Mr. 
        Mack):
  S. 482. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal 
the increase in the tax on the Social Security benefits; to the 
Committee on Finance.


            legislation to repeal the tax on social security

  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise now in conjunction with the 
distinguished majority leader, Mr. Lott, and with the distinguished 
Senator from Missouri, Mr. Ashcroft, to introduce legislation which 
will repeal the 1993 increase in the tax on Social Security benefits.
  As my colleagues are aware, senior citizens pay Federal taxes on a 
portion of their Social Security benefits if they receive additional 
income from savings or from work. Before 1993, seniors paid taxes on 
half their Social Security benefits if their combined income, as it is 
described--which means their adjusted gross income and one-half the 
amount of the Social Security benefits they receive--exceeded $25,000 
for individuals or $32,000 for couples.
  Soon after coming into office, however, the new administration 
increased this tax on these middle-income retirees as part of the 1993 
tax bill. For individuals now, after that, with combined incomes 
exceeding $34,000, and couples with combined incomes exceeding $44,000, 
the tax increase on the percentage of their Social Security benefits 
subject to taxation went from 50 percent to 85 percent. This provision 
increased taxes for nearly one-quarter of Social Security recipients. 
It in large part produced an increase of 7.5 percent in the tax burden 
on America's seniors, a tax increase that was more than double the 3.5 
percent that the rest of that legislation imposed on other Americans.
  This tax increase is unfair. It penalizes senior citizens, and it 
penalizes them for exactly the wrong reason--for saving to achieve 
security in their retirement. It also unfairly punishes seniors who 
have the capacity and choose to continue to work.
  We are engaged, as you know, in an important debate here in Congress, 
the debate over the future of our Social Security system. Republicans 
have joined with Democrats in pledging to set aside the entire Social 
Security trust fund surplus over the next 15 years, to shore up that 
system, to make certain it is available for the senior citizens both of 
today and tomorrow.
  At such a time, with dire warnings of impending bankruptcies still 
ringing in our ears, it seems the last thing the Federal Government 
should be doing is to discourage people from work and saving for their 
retirement.
  Wise Americans have always saved for their retirement. They have 
sought to be independent in their old age by working hard and by 
putting aside a portion of their income. Yet the 1993 tax increase 
proposed by the President and ultimately passed into law by the 
Congress changed the rules for these wise savers. After plans and 
investment decisions had already been made, this proposal came in and 
declared that savings and hard work would be taxed significantly more 
heavily than they had been before.

[[Page S2023]]

  As we work to shore up Social Security, we must not allow the Federal 
Government to punish people for working and saving. We must not allow 
the Federal Government to tell people they might as well not save for 
retirement, that they must depend solely on Social Security benefits 
for their well-being once they retire.
  What is more, we should not forget that the projected Federal budget 
surplus over the next 10 years alone is slated to reach approximately 
$2.565 trillion. We have agreed, wisely in my view, to save the bulk of 
this surplus to shore up Social Security. But surely, at a time when we 
foresee at least $787 billion in surpluses in addition to those 
earmarked for Social Security, the Federal Government can afford, in my 
judgment, to give seniors and those planning for their retirement the 
kind of tax relief they need to prepare for their futures and to keep 
our economy strong.
  That means, in my view, that we must repeal this onerous tax hike for 
the sake of our seniors and for the sake of our economy as a whole. 
Discouraging savings has always been a recipe for economic disaster 
because it reduces the amount of money available for investment in new 
jobs and a growing economy.
  Now is the time to reduce the extent to which Washington discourages 
savings. It is time to repeal this tax hike so we may increase savings, 
investment, and the financial security of our senior citizens.
  Mr. President, this legislation has a simple purpose: It repeals the 
1993 ill-considered Social Security tax hike returning our seniors to 
the position they were in prior to 1993.
  It restores a modicum of fairness to our Byzantine tax structure and 
to our dealings with senior citizens. It is important legislation for 
our seniors, for our Social Security system and for the future of our 
Nation, and I urge my colleagues' strong support.
  In short, Mr. President, I think we should do everything possible to 
make it feasible for seniors, both today and especially in the future, 
to be able to live in retirement in a comfortable way and to not solely 
depend on the Social Security system. We know the burdens that system 
will take.
  By discouraging savings during people's working years, by 
discouraging people from continuing to work after they reach retirement 
age, we are actually, I think, undermining our chances of providing the 
kind of long-term income security that Americans deserve in their old 
age.
  For that reason, we should, in my judgment, repeal this tax hike. We 
should make that a priority this year, and we should then couple that 
action with other action aimed at shoring up the Social Security system 
so it not only works for today's seniors, but for the seniors of our 
future as well.
                                 ______