[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 12, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H3004]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            TAX FREEDOM DAY

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today is the first day of the rest of our 
life. Kind of an old 1960s pop culture saying that Jonathan Livingston 
Seagull was very proud of.
  If we look at this week, today is the first day of the rest of our 
taxpaying year to be tax free, because as of yesterday we start working 
for ourselves. We have paid off our debt as a serf for Uncle Sam and 
big government. We will all continue to pay lots of taxes here and 
there, but generally speaking we are through. From now on we get to 
keep our money.
  Think about the tax burden just in income tax. Today, the average 
American family pays 24 percent. In the 1970s, it was 16 percent. In 
the 1950s, it was 5 percent.
  Now, what does that mean? Everybody is busy. Everybody is busy as 
heck in the 1990s. I know, I have four kids, and all my friends are 
running around. It is nothing but a treadmill. Because of that, we do 
not have enough time as families to sit down and impart information to 
each other, to train our kids, to help them with their homework and 
bring them up with the good moral values we need to run a country.
  One of the by-products becomes tragedies such as what happened in 
Littleton. Families need to spend more time with each other, 
particularly with their children, and our tax burden prohibits it right 
now. We need to lower taxes.

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