[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 103 (Tuesday, July 20, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H5989-H5990]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           DEMOCRATIC PERSPECTIVE OF REPUBLICAN TAX CUT BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to 
my colleague from Georgia who was just at the microphone talking about 
how the Republicans are working on an agenda and one of the parts of 
their BEST program was saving Social Security.
  I also note with interest that right after the Republicans passed 
their $3 trillion tax bill, the Wall Street Journal wrote that in order 
to pay for it, they are going to have to dip into Social Security and 
take $25 billion out of Social Security to pay for this tax bill.
  The fact of the matter is that America is enjoying the greatest 
economy in the history of our country, the longest economic recovery 
since the Second World War, we have more people working, more people 
are buying houses, more people are entering the workforce from people 
who historically have not been able to find a place in our economy than 
any time in the country and we have had relatively low interest rates. 
All of that has happened since the 1993 economic program of the 
Clinton-Gore administration when this Congress took a courageous vote 
but was only able to pass it with Democratic Members of the House and 
Senate, not a single Republican voted for that.
  When we voted for that and the Clinton-Gore plan passed, they said 
that everything was going to go downhill, that interest rates were 
going to soar, that people were going to be unemployed, the economy is 
going in the tank, the Dow is going to crash. None of that has come to 
pass over the last 8 years.
  It has taken us 20 years to get out of the hole that Ronald Reagan's 
tax cuts put us in in 1981. In 1981, we had a huge tax cut that we 
could not afford. It was sort of like increasing your kids' allowance 
after you have been unemployed. It sounds good, but it does not make a 
lot of sense. For 20 years, we have tried to dig our way out of that 
hole. For the first time we are now looking at surpluses and we are 
looking at surpluses over the coming years.
  But what the Republicans are asking us to do is to take all that 
economic prosperity, to take those low interest rates, to take that job 
creation, to take that employment, to take those new homes and roll the 
dice with those with the tax bill that is $800 billion in the first 10 
years and then goes to $3 trillion in the second 10 years.
  Now, in order to do that, they tell you that everything is going to 
stay the same over the next 15 years. You have to believe that nothing 
is going to change in a negative fashion over the next 15 years. But if 
you go back to the Wall Street Journal, we already see that the 
Republicans are starting to think of ways of breaking the current 
budget caps because they cannot live within them. But the surplus that 
they want to give people back in tax cuts is predicated upon the fact 
that those budget caps will not only be enforced at their current 
levels, they will be reduced so there will be less spending, and yet 
the Republicans are trying to figure out ways to increase the spending 
this year because they cannot live under the cap.
  I think the American people are on to something. When we look at all 
of the data, what the American people are saying is we know we have a 
$5 trillion debt that has been run up over the past history of this 
country. Now the sun is shining on our economy and people are working 
and they are buying houses and taxes are being generated. Why do we not 
pay down the debt? Why do we not save that $150 billion in interest? 
Why do we not take that interest and apply it to the debt just like a 
family would if they had a windfall? You would pay off the MasterCard, 
you would pay off the Visa bill, you would try to get out of debt; and 
the interest you save, you might use to buy your kids some clothes or 
you might use for whatever purposes you want. And the interest you save 
on low interest rates would be applied to your family income. You would 
be able to refinance your home that so many millions of Americans 
already have under this economic recovery.
  For all of this we are going to pass a $3 trillion tax bill that the 
Washington Post tells us mainly benefits relatively few people. The 
wealthiest people in the country get most of that tax cut. But what 
does it put at risk? It puts at risk every family's well-being. Because 
even Alan Greenspan said that if he had his way, he would not cut 
taxes, he would not increase spending, he would just take the savings 
we are making now in the surplus and apply it to the debt and let the 
surpluses continue to run because he knows that not every day is going 
to be a sunny day for the American economy. The clouds are going to 
come, the economic cycles are going to reoccur and we are going to have 
some bad times.
  What better to go into bad times with than a little bit of extra in 
your savings account to tide you over? Just like a family does, that is 
what a Nation has to do. We are going to have some options over 
tomorrow and the next day. We can decide whether we are going to be 
prudent, whether we are going to take care of this economic recovery, 
whether we are going to allow it to last longer so more people can 
participate, or whether we are going to pick up those dice and just 
roll them out there on the crap table and see whether we can put it all 
at risk.

                              {time}  1945

  I vote to believe. I vote to believe that we ought to be prudent, 
that we ought not to take Social Security and Medicare and the 
education of our children and put it at risk because, understand, if 
you take the Republican proposal, and you take a $3 trillion tax cut, 
there is no money for anything else.

[[Page H5990]]

  That is why again, as the Wall Street Journal points out, they are 
already trying to play shenanigans with the spending programs to hide 
spending; they are already prepared to go in and take $25 billion out 
of a Social Security Trust Fund that is already broke. That is how they 
finance their tax cut.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not think that is a program that American families 
want to endorse.

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