[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 106 (Monday, July 26, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H6405-H6412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               TAX RELIEF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, the discussion about tax relief has been 
brought to this body tonight in very eloquent terms. What I would like 
to do is to talk to one of my colleagues, one in particular, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski), who is headed this way, to 
discuss the practical side of tax relief.
  As I go about my district, and I have seen the discussions brought 
about, both the pros and cons, I am perplexed by the fact that people 
are saying we do not need tax relief.
  I want to state at the front of this that there are three reasons 
that I can see for tax relief that is needed at any time, and 
especially at this time.
  One is to support the economy. We have surpluses now that have never 
been so great. They were not obvious in that the projections 5 years 
ago, even 3 years ago, were that we were going to have deficits, a 
continuation of deficits. But we have surpluses now.
  The economy is growing from a lot of different sources. There is a 
lot of money in the stock market. It is over 11,000 now, which is 
unheard of. When I came in 1992, I think it was right below 3,000. So 
it is a factor that we need to support the economy so that it does not 
go down, so that we can keep the surpluses. Tax relief is one way of 
doing that.
  Secondly, we must shrink the government. We are doing a good job. It 
is not simple. We are doing it over a lot of objections. We are doing 
it through elections after elections, when people are saying, from the 
other side, you do not care about this, you are mean-spirited, you are 
this or that. But we have started bringing the cost of government down.
  There is one sure way we can do that. That is to stop the blood 
supply or stop the money from coming in. Tax relief will provide that, 
and it will also help and give freedom to the people who work.
  We have too many people who were finding their families in disarray. 
They are not spending enough time at the breakfast table, the dinner 
table, the supper table. That is because they are having to work two 
jobs. They keep talking about let us bring costs down, but our 
inflation is under control.
  We have a lot of different factors that are being mentioned, but the 
big problem is that we are just taxing people to death.
  This particular tax relief package includes something called estate 
taxes. That is something that I hope, when the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) gets here that we can talk about in more 
detail. But we have to support the economy, keep the surpluses in 
place, shrink the government,

[[Page H6406]]

stop spending so that we will have smaller government, less 
bureaucracy. It will be less burdensome to the individuals, and give 
freedom to the people who work so they can have choices for their 
families, because we must build the families back.
  The excuses that we have seen in the past have been, well, let us 
wait until we balance the budget. That seems safe for those people who 
want to keep taxes at a high rate. That seems safe because the deficit 
was projected for years and years and years. I think in 1998 the 
deficit was projected at $377 billion, and we came in, or maybe these 
are not the accurate figures, but we came in at like something like $72 
billion for a surplus, a swing from a deficit to a surplus.
  So it was safe for people to say, we won't have the taxes, those 
people who believe taxes are the way for government to operate. They 
were saying that is fine, let us just keep it there. Let us keep the 
taxes there until we can eliminate the deficit. Well, we have a 
balanced budget, we have eliminated the deficit, and we are progressing 
in that way. We need to keep it.
  Also we heard that social security was a factor, we must protect 
social security and Medicare. That has been mentioned time and time 
again. At one point the administration proposed that we put 62 percent 
aside on social security. We have said, no, before we do anything, 
before we have tax relief, we have more spending, we are going to put 
100 percent of the social security aside.
  That comes from years and years of using social security for the 
wrong reasons. Not one year has one dime been set aside to protect 
social security until we have passed the lockbox, not one year. The 
trust fund has been used for all kinds of things. It has been used to 
finance the Vietnam War, to finance spending programs, to finance the 
government getting bigger. It has brought about more and more deficit, 
more and more debt, and greater and greater government, and less and 
less control of our lives. But we have taken care of that with the 
lockbox. We are taking care of social security and Medicare.
  Now we are told, let us wait until the debt is paid off. Here comes 
another excuse, another delay for these people who want taxes. Now what 
we have done in this bill that is coming up is we have plugged the tax 
reductions into whether the debt is coming down. So if the interest on 
the debt is not reduced in certain years, then the reductions in the 
income tax or the 10 percent across-the-board tax will be delayed 1 
year.
  So then we are faced with the fact that we are going to benefit from 
our keeping the debt down because the interest will be lower, and from 
that point, if we spend too much, we will suffer from it, so we are 
going to have a good and a bad consequence.
  I just think what we have as the problem and the thing that is 
perplexing, as I have stated, and I see that the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) is here. But what I am saying, some 
people, when they hear the word ``taxes,'' they say, yes, that means I 
am going to get something. Some people, when they hear ``taxes,'' they 
say no, I am not in favor of this because somebody is going to take 
something away from me and take my incentive for working.
  What I would like to discuss in this time we have here with the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) is the pros and cons of it. 
We happen to have appeared before this body one other time, when we 
discussed another issue, and we had a friendly discussion. People 
called my office and said, why are you so friendly with somebody on the 
other side? He got the same kinds of calls.
  I would just like to propose to the gentleman that maybe he could 
make an opening statement, and we can just start talking in front of 
the American people. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. First of 
all, I want to congratulate my good friend, the gentleman from 
Arkansas, because what it should establish to the American people is 
that a Republican and a Democrat can come to the House floor and engage 
in debate and talk about the real issues that we are involved in, and 
not the partisan or political issues that so often we get involved in 
in our debates on the floor.
  So I really welcome this opportunity to share this hour with the 
gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey), and what we want to do is not 
necessarily talk about a particular tax bill, whether it be the House 
version of the tax bill, the Senate version, or the President's 
version. I think what we really want to talk about with the American 
people is sort of representing the average American sitting there in 
the living room, trying to come to some conclusion as to what their 
government should be doing right now in regard to fiscal policy and tax 
cuts that will have great ramifications on their family, on their 
community, and on the future of not only this country, but indeed, the 
world.

  The proposition that I would argue tonight, if we were going to put 
it in debaters' terms, would be, resolved that the Congress of the 
United States take no action this year in regard to affecting the 
revenues as represented by the Tax Code adjustments, as suggested by 
either the House, the Senate, or the President.
  That proposition that I would argue is based on several things.
  First and foremost, anyone in economics today agrees that although we 
can project out what the income will be 10 years from now, 20 years 
from now, or 30 years from now, and sound very intelligent about it and 
very informed, and I am sure the gentleman from Arkansas or I could 
give that argument, but the fact of the matter is that there is a 
common parlance term for that, and I will just give the initials, it is 
BS.
  The fact of the matter is, we have a hard time in our system, and 
with this complex economy of the United States and of the world, to 
even project out what is going to happen 3 months or 6 months from now. 
If anyone doubts me, listening to this, if we knew what was going to 
happen 3 months from now, we would all immediately run down to the 
markets, whether it would be the stock market or the bond market, buy 
options, and retire 3 months from now, if we knew where it was going, 
because clearly it is going to be reflected in those markets.

                              {time}  2100

  The market is a day-to-day operation. It really is an intelligent 
operation as a free market. It indicates what people's, in varying 
degrees, their analysis has made them come to a conclusion. There are 
winners. There are losers. Some people buy thinking a stock is going to 
go up. In fact, it goes down; and they lose. Some people sell when they 
think the stock is going to go down; and in fact, the stock goes up.
  That is what a free market is. That is how markets exist. To my 
knowledge, there is no one that I know that can tell me even what is 
going to happen tomorrow on these markets, no less 3 months from now, 6 
months from now, and clearly not 5, 10, and 15 years from now.
  It almost appears to me to be the height of conceit that anyone at 
any office, elected or otherwise, or in any position in this country 
that would have the audacity to make these projections.
  Now, why is that important? Well, when we pass tax laws, they are not 
easily reversed, particularly if we pass a tax law and reduce taxes and 
therefore reduce revenues.
  We have seen over the course of the history of the last 20 years, 
only four major tax packages enacted in law. This will be our fifth. So 
the earliest life turn is about 4 years, 5 years.
  In 1981, we saw a tremendous tax reversal and where, in the Reagan 
administration, the concept of Reaganomics, supply-side economics, said 
that basically we can hold what we committed when we ran for office. 
When Mr. Reagan ran for office, he said, ``I will balance the budget. I 
will increase expenditures for military and defense. And I will cut 
taxes.'' So he cut taxes, balanced the budget, and spent more for 
defense.
  Now I argued at that time to myself, I did not see how one could do 
that. I did not see how one could cut revenues on the one hand, spend 
more money for the defense on the other hand, and balance the budget.
  Well, Mr. Reagan was right in two instances. The two instances were 
an act of this body can, in fact, cut taxes, and they did in 1981, 
almost $900 billion.

[[Page H6407]]

  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, was that with the help of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski)?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, Mr. Speaker. Fortunately, I was not here. But our 
predecessors were here. I have to say that that tax cut probably was 
not passed only by the Republican majority, because, as the gentleman 
from Arkansas knows, in the House, as a Representative, there are a lot 
of people pressing us for tax cuts. So it becomes a very popular 
political thing to do. Oh, let us get on the bandwagon.
  As a matter of fact, some of my friends that talk about that occasion 
call it the Christmas tree. Everybody had something to add on and give 
a gift to somebody back home or some industry or some group of people 
they were interested in.
  Anyway, what they did is they made this tremendous commitment to cut 
taxes and then, and I think rightly so, although I was not in favor of 
it at the time, I will quite frankly tell my colleagues that they did 
make an increase in the expenditures for defense. It was sizable; over 
the course of that decade, probably a trillion dollars for defense.
  Now, looking back with the hindsight and the ability to see what 
happened in 1989 and 1991, the Wall falling and the destruction of the 
Soviet Union as we knew it for 50 years of our lives, we could say, 
well, that was the expenditure, a greater defense expenditure to win 
the ``Third World War'' without fighting it. Because, in fact, we 
forced in a poker game, if you will, the Soviet Union to try and match 
the American capacity to spend for defense.
  They were great accomplishments. Fine. We brought the Soviet Union to 
dissolve into new states. Hopefully, over a period of time becoming 
more democratic and making the world more stable. We had a military 
that was fully equipped to handle the needs and protect the interest of 
America and, indeed, the free world; and it was accomplished.
  But in that price, it did not only cost us that trillion dollars for 
defense expenditures, it cost us an increase from 1980, when Mr. Reagan 
became President, of a debt of the United States, not a deficit, a debt 
of $800 billion to, at the end of his administration, it was about $3.5 
trillion. It was a $2.7 trillion increase in the debt of the United 
States in that period of time.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, is the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania attributing that to the fact that there was tax relief 
given?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, clearly, we cut revenues, and we spent 
more money, and we ended up in debt. What we did is we financed 
America, as opposed to financing it by revenues and tax revenues, we 
financed it by going into debt. I mean one can justify that. And we 
probably can do that in the future to some extent. But the question is 
how far do we want to go into debt long-term in the United States, and 
who does it benefit, that debt, and who does it really hurt? I think we 
should talk about that debate.
  But let me set, if I can, the standard. So we went through this, that 
administration, and then we came into the Bush administration. Just 
prior to the Bush administration, the second tax bill was passed. In a 
way, I did not support that tax bill in the House, but I voted for it 
finally when it came out of conference, and I did it really for a 
simple reason.
  It was Bill Bradley who was the United States Senator at the time, 
and his argument was, I thought truthfully correct, that we should try 
and make our tax policy reflective of the free market, to free up 
decision making by corporations and individuals of where they make 
their investments and where they put their money, not based on tax 
avoidance that is a policy set by the legislators of tax policy, but 
that supply and demand of capital and funds be freed up to operate in 
the marketplace.
  That is one of the reasons we did away with the difference between 
capital gains and earnings. They were taxed at the same rate. That was 
the first time that occurred probably in 50 or 70 years in tax policy 
in the country. It was good policy.
  Our problem is the Christmas tree in 1986 when we brought the levels 
of tax rates down, even Mr. Reagan had advised to come down no lower 
than 35 percent on the top bracket, no, the Christmas tree makers in 
the House and the Senate were not happy. They brought it down to 28 
percent and 14 percent on the low side.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania hit this thing twice. The Reagan tax relief bill brought 
supposedly 19 to 20 million jobs into the economy that did not exist 
before. Is it possible that the fact that the spending kept going up is 
the reason why we had the deficit and not the tax relief? In other 
words, is it true, is it not a possibility that the tax relief actually 
played toward reducing the debt by employing more people, increasing 
the number of taxpayers, and bringing in more revenues in that fashion?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, that argument applies to the present day. 
There is not any doubt in any mind, we are at $5.5 trillion, if we want 
to become greater spenders, I think the economic theory indicates that 
we can spend ourselves into higher revenues and greater job creation. 
It is just we are going to end up with a much higher debt. That is 
really the issue I am much interested in. Where do we want to stop, or 
what do we want to do with this accumulated debt?

  See, in my mind, I can certainly justify debt in fighting a war. I 
would not care, if America were in world war, if we have to double or 
triple the debt; and, oftentimes, that is when debt did occur that way.
  Mr. DICKEY. Even taking Social Security surpluses or Social Security 
income?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely.
  Mr. DICKEY. Okay.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. If we want to have to go to war to defend this 
country, we have a win-lose situation. If we lose, we do not have a 
Constitution, we do not have Social Security, we do not have America.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, I can go along with that.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. So that type of risk of that nature, that justifies 
almost any fiscal policy.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, before we really get into some of these 
other things, it is clearly a situation where the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania believes that we ought to keep the taxes where they are, 
we ought to have more control in the Federal Government. I want less 
taxes and less control in the Federal Government. Is that not a fair 
statement?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, not quite, but close, Mr. Speaker. Close. Here is 
what I want.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania to 
characterize what he thinks I want and what he wants and see if we can 
get the differences set out.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Arkansas wants 
to try and give back to the American people what he may perceive as 
excess funds coming from them. I think that the gentleman somewhat has 
lost faith in the political system, both the Congress and the 
Presidency, or even the enlightenment of the American people; that if 
this money, all the surplus money practically that will come in or is 
projected to come in over 10 years, if it is not returned, it will be 
improperly spent.
  I think I look at it as two things. I think it is the first time in 
my lifetime that we have an opportunity of reversing this tremendous 
trend of increasing the national debt of the United States, and, in 
fact, we can start paying it off. I think that is fiscally responsible 
and that is the fiscal conservatives' position.
  Now, that is not to say that, at some point, we should not examine a 
tax cut because, certainly, if we knew the excesses of revenues were so 
great that we could pay the debt off in a couple of years, that would 
be great. But we all know that $5.5 trillion is not going to be paid 
off in a couple of years. Even the President's most optimistic view is 
that he could retire the public debt of $3.6 trillion in 15 years. But 
that again is assuming all these assumptions work out.
  I have been around the House long enough to know, every time I hear 
my friends on either side of the aisle, including my fellow colleagues 
on this side of the aisle, when they start making an argument based on 
all of these assumptions, seldom do these assumptions work out. I would 
like to err on the side of conservativism, fiscal responsibility.
  I think two things, too, on the side of the gentleman from Arkansas. 
Last

[[Page H6408]]

year, I voted against what I thought was an irresponsible resolution, 
although proposed by a very good friend of mine, and I really like the 
gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent). The gentleman from Oklahoma 
said, let us pass the resolution to do away with the income tax code by 
the year 2001.
  I checked the other day. That was in June of 1998. Some 219 of my 
fellow Republican colleagues voted yes, and about 208 of my Democratic 
colleagues voted no, and it passed.
  The whole theory, if we go back to that argument that the gentleman 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent) and those proponents made that day was that 
this gigantic out-of-control tax code has got to be finally shot and 
put to rest, given a decent burial. The only way to do that is pass a 
resolution that, on a certain date and a certain time, it is dead. It 
is repealed.
  Some of us argued that is awfully nice to say that, but if we do not 
have something to replace it, it is really injurious to the decision 
makers and business and in our communities and in our families of what 
are their obligations going to be 3 and 5 years from now.
  The whole purpose of passing a tax statute rather than year to year 
is to give people the benefit to project their needs and how they can 
respond to the obligations that they may have from the government.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, what I see in this body, and I have only 
been here 7 years, is that we do not do a whole lot until the end of 
the day, we do not do a whole lot until the end of the week, and we do 
not do a whole lot until the end of the term.
  Now, I am defending my vote to say that we are going to terminate the 
tax code at a certain date because that is how we operate. We are not 
going to operate without a deadline, and we probably will not do it 
until 6 months or a year until that deadline comes up.
  Now, of course, it did not pass. The law did not pass the Senate. It 
had not been signed into law, so those people listening do not have to 
worry about it. But I am just saying those of us who are so concerned 
with the spending and the fact that, if we let up at all, we are going 
to continue to spend, and the Internal Revenue Code and Internal 
Revenue Service is one way that we spend.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, let me try and respond to the gentleman 
from Arkansas. I think two problems are at fault there, two fundamental 
errors. One, why do we want to get rid of the tax code? Because it is 
so lengthy, so complicated. Most Americans are so fed up with the time 
they have to expend preparing their taxes and business people preparing 
taxes and the expense of preparing taxes that they wanted to simplify 
it. Yet, just the other day when we voted the tax cut, we added 560 new 
pages to the tax code. We made it far more complicated. That will spurn 
about, oh, another 10,000 pages of IRS regulations to implement our 
changes in the law. Why did we do that if we were serious about 
changing it?
  Mr. DICKEY. Because we are trying to stimulate the economy, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I could agree with that.
  Mr. DICKEY. Mr. Speaker, what we have is we have a structure called 
the IRS, which is horrible. It favors the rich. It favors the people 
who have got enough lobbying strength to make exceptions. The poor 
working stiff is out here, who does not have the shelters, has to pay a 
lot more than the rich people.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I believe the gentleman from Arkansas 
agrees with that. But then if we look at the tax code we just passed, 
two-thirds of the benefits go to the upper 9 percent, and a third of 
the benefits go to the richest 1 percent of our population. So that 
certainly is not taking care of the 91 percent that only got a third of 
the tax benefits.

                              {time}  2115

  But let me give the second problem.
  Mr. DICKEY. I do not agree with what the gentleman just said, by the 
way, but go ahead.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. By passing the tax code right now, and by taking this 
supposed, assumed, money that may come in, the gentleman has now 
limited the funds that would be necessary to make intelligent new tax 
policy. Because if we want to make a simplified tax policy, we will not 
be able to project what revenues will come in from that tax policy for 
several years. Now, if we had a surplus, we could take that risk at 
that time.
  Further, we know that Medicare and Social Security do need 
adjustment, do need support. Why should we not take this surplus and 
make sure that Social Security and Medicare are secure 25, 30, 40, 50 
years from now?
  Mr. DICKEY. What does the lockbox do? The lockbox theory says we will 
not touch the money from Social Security and Medicare. We are going to 
protect it.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Matter of fact, let me talk about the lockbox.
  Mr. DICKEY. Did the gentleman vote for the bill?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No.
  Mr. DICKEY. So what the gentleman said was let us keep Social 
Security available for spending like we have had before?
  I do not want to be argumentative about it, but that is the way the 
gentleman's vote could be interpreted; is that not correct? Is that not 
a fair interpretation?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. What we are doing now is taking all of the surplus 
from Social Security, but it is a little amount, from beyond Social 
Security, and we are actually doling it out by reducing taxes over 
assumptions that cannot be correct over 10 years.
  Mr. DICKEY. Reducing what taxes, now, income taxes or FICA, Social 
Security?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Corporate taxes. All kinds of taxes. Not Social 
Security.
  Mr. DICKEY. Let me ask the gentleman this question. Those people who 
want to tax, those people who say on August 7 of 1993, or whenever it 
was, voted for the largest tax increase that this Nation has ever had, 
also want to keep Social Security available for spending. Is that a 
fair corollary; or is that a corollary with the gentleman?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No. And I appreciate that the gentleman could have 
heard that assertion made sufficiently long enough by some people that 
are trying to sell a political agenda, but it is really not correct.
  Mr. DICKEY. Those two things exist with the gentleman, do they not?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. There were two fundamental things that happened. In 
the Reaganomics of the 1981 tax cut and the 1986 tax cut, we never got 
to balance the budget. The Presidents, both Reagan and Bush, never sent 
to the Congress a balanced budget.
  Mr. DICKEY. I understand that.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Every year it was out of balance. So they just 
recognized the right to live in deficits.
  Mr. DICKEY. They spent more.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Spent more than was coming in; therefore, we were 
building up the debt in the United States.
  Now, there were two heroic acts, two heroic acts, one performed by a 
Republican president and one performed by a Democratic president. And I 
may not have ever said this to the gentleman before, but I was here in 
1991, and I remember when President George Bush met with the leadership 
of the House and the Senate and tried to get our fiscal House in order 
in 1991; and they brought back a proposal that I voted against and 
which did not carry in this House, a budget proposal.
  They brought it back a second time. I voted against it, and it failed 
in this House. And then they called a group and said what is it going 
to take to pass a budget? And I quite frankly said we are going to 
start cutting this deficit and, therefore, the debt of the United 
States.
  Mr. DICKEY. Let me ask the gentleman this question. Does the 
gentleman think we can cut deficits better by cutting spending or 
increasing taxes? What is the gentleman's opinion?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Cut deficits?
  Mr. DICKEY. Does the gentleman think we can cut deficits better by 
increasing taxes or by cutting spending? Which is better, if the 
gentleman has to make a choice between the two?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, it depends where the taxes are going to come 
from and what amount they are and who we are taking it from.
  Mr. DICKEY. Well, was it better that we increased taxes back under 
George Bush or cut spending? Which was the better circumstance?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Very clearly, because we were already in deficit, how

[[Page H6409]]

could we not increase taxes? And we were already cutting spending. That 
was the beginning.
  Mr. DICKEY. Spending was going up every year. Spending went up every 
year.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. That is absolutely true. The budget of the United 
States has gone up every year. The population of the United States has 
grown every year. And every year from now until America becomes less 
than 50 states or has a decrease in population as a result of a 
catastrophe our government will grow. We will always have more 
Americans year to year.
  This whole argument of people saying, oh, they are spending more this 
year than they did last year. Of course we are, because this year we 
have 8 million more Americans.
  Mr. DICKEY. I just happened to think, and of course I wanted to get 
into this discussion, and I wanted someone who might be watching and 
listening to us to see if there is a difference. Those things that the 
gentleman is talking about, the historical things, what I think is that 
if we stop spending, we do a better job of cutting the deficit than by 
increasing taxes.
  I think if we increase taxes, we are decreasing the chances of 
reducing the deficit. That is from a businessman's standpoint. I am a 
businessman. I have had to meet payroll, I have had to borrow money, I 
have had to pay interest, I have had to control inventory, I have had 
to pay insurance premiums and pay taxes. I have had to balance all of 
that and then across the counter still please the customer. And from 
that standpoint I am saying this, that I believe that cutting spending 
is 10 times better than increasing taxes if the goal is to cut the 
deficit.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. My answer to that is, depending on what spending we 
are going to cut and depending on whose taxes and why we are going to 
increase them.
  I will give the gentleman an example. Today, people that have lived 
in this country with the existing market that has doubled or tripled 
their net worth in the last 6 years, even though they pay 1 percent 
more in taxes than they did 6 years ago, I doubt there is anyone who 
would trade their net worth in today, if they are in the upper 5 
percent income bracket in this country. They will certainly not do 
that.
  Mr. DICKEY. If they are in the stock market, I agree.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Not only the stock market. Compare it to salaries. I 
heard Senator Harkin talk today about the last 20 years. If we took 
executive salaries, CEO salaries in the United States and the minimum 
wage, and we tracked them to give the minimum wage increase the same 
percentage as the corporate executive increase was, the minimum wage 
today would be $40 an hour.

  And, obviously, I am not saying that is bad. That is a business 
decision. That is the people who own the stock and control these 
corporations, and these are people that help create great wealth in 
this country. So I am not opposed to that.
  But let me go back to spending. If the gentleman makes the argument 
that all spending is the same spending, I do not agree with him, and 
that all spending costs money and could drive us into debt, I do not 
agree. There is intelligent spending and stupid spending, quite 
frankly. Intelligent spending, and I will give the gentleman an 
example, the GI Bill of Rights. When that was instituted by this 
Congress in 1945, it was a novel new idea that all these young American 
men and women that were going to be returning from all over the world 
into the private sector were going to be upskilled and uptrained and 
educated. It cost a great deal of money in the first 4 and 5 years of 
the GI Bill of Rights. But where is America today as a result of that 
expenditure? That trained, educated, skilled work force developed the 
computer, developed space industry.
  Mr. DICKEY. Just for the sake of time, there is actually plenty of 
things that we agree on that spending is perfect for, like the highways 
and the judicial system and the military. My gosh, the gentleman and I 
will not argue about that. But what I am saying is just cutting 
spending. I am not talking about which spending we cut. If we reduce 
cost, and I think this administration has done that, if we reduce cost 
in certain ways, we reduce the number of employees and those things, 
that has a greater impact.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. And we have.
  Mr. DICKEY. Let me finish. That has a greater impact than increasing 
taxes. Now, the same thing, if we cut spending and reduce taxes, then 
we have a double benefit.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely. There is no question about that.
  Mr. DICKEY. Does the gentleman have confidence that we can continue 
to cut spending? Has the gentleman felt the pain of our cutting 
spending in this House?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. What I guess I am arguing is a simple proposition: the 
gentleman is an average American family, and the gentleman is making 
$400 a week and the gentleman has debt of $10,000, credit card debt, 
auto debt, whatever, and suddenly the gentleman's employer asks him to 
work 50 percent more hours a week, instead of 40 hours a week can the 
gentleman work 60 hours a week and be paid the same amount or double 
time. The gentleman has an opportunity to make $200 a week or $400 a 
week more than the gentleman ever had.
  Now, the gentleman does not know how long that is going to last, but 
right now the gentleman can say, gee, it is going to last for a month 
or so because my employer really needs this work done because he has 
sales to meet. Now, the gentleman meets around the kitchen table or the 
dining table on Sunday with the family and the gentleman says, I think 
I am going to have 20 weeks of this 50 percent more time, so, 
therefore, I am going to make either $200 more a week for 20 weeks, 
which is $4,000 or $400 more a week for 20 weeks, which is $8,000. We 
are going to have $4,000 or $8,000 more to spend in this family in the 
next 10 weeks.
  Now, who in their right mind would say, okay, Daddy, let us go on an 
around-the-world vacation? No, an intelligent mother and father would 
say, oh no, we are going to take some of that money and pay down our 
credit cards, or pay off the car, or take some of it and put it in the 
bank for education for the kids' future.
  There is no real difference here. What we are arguing about or 
differing on is we are just like that family. For the last 40 years, 30 
years, since 1969, we have been increasing our debt every year, and 
particularly in the last, oh, about the last 20 years, since 1980 it 
has been exponential in its explosion. Now, I can justify why we did 
it, but now we are in prosperous times. Our unemployment rate is 4.2 
percent. Most people cannot even believe it could get down to that 
level but certainly cannot see it falling much below that.
  Mr. DICKEY. So the gentleman is saying we should spend more now?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, I am saying we should start paying off that debt.
  Mr. DICKEY. Are we not doing that?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No.
  Mr. DICKEY. Of course we are. Fifty-one billion dollars was paid off 
on the national debt, we are talking about non-Social Security debt, in 
1998, and $122 billion is projected for this year.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. That is right.
  Mr. DICKEY. Now, we are 7 months in it, and the gentleman may say, 
well, the projections will not work. The gentleman probably did not 
believe in 1998 that we would be paying off $51 billion in the national 
debt.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I absolutely believed it.
  Mr. DICKEY. So interest rates are going down. This tax package, that 
I voted for and the gentleman voted against, says that we will not have 
the tax decreases unless the interest on the national debt goes down 
every year.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, no.
  Mr. DICKEY. Every year. It will extend it one more year for 10 years.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. It is really a false claim. If the interest rate jumps 
up to 10 percent from the 5.6 percent it is at now, that immediate next 
year----
  Mr. DICKEY. Not interest rates, the interest payments.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. The interest payments.
  Mr. DICKEY. The interest payments on the national debt, if they do 
not go down, the tax reductions do not take place. Does that take care 
of the debt problem?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, because the gentleman is talking about interest, 
not the size of the debt. The interest payments are depending on what 
the

[[Page H6410]]

interest rate of that year is. I can grow the debt and have lower 
interest rates.
  Mr. DICKEY. But does not the lack of dollars that the gentleman pays 
in interest free up more dollars for paying the national debt off?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, not unless the gentleman has the money to pay the 
debt off. Right now we are not going to have that. We are, quote, 
taking $1 trillion over the next 10 years, if all assumptions are 
right, that would have gone to the debt. And instead of letting it go 
to the debt, we are sending it back to the American people. But that 
means that an interest rate on the Federal debt, assume it is 6 percent 
because that is where it is about, that means $60 billion every year 
more will have to be paid ad infinitum until that is reduced.
  Mr. DICKEY. It is $358 billion that is projected for next year in 
interest on the debt, just to get a figure.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. What I am saying is, why can the gentleman not join me 
and say, look, we are working extra time, our economy is as prosperous 
as it can be, let us form a policy to get rid of this debt while we 
can? We cannot pay the debt off when the economy is in recession or 
depression. If we do not pay it off when we are in prosperity, where is 
the fiscal hope of ever paying it off?
  Mr. DICKEY. Here is the answer to the question. In 1961, President 
Kennedy had a reduction in the capital gains taxes and tax revenues 
went up. In 1996, we had a reduction in capital gains, tax revenues 
went up.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely.
  Mr. DICKEY. It does not necessarily always happen. The gentleman and 
I have discussed this before.

                              {time}  2130

  But it is a possibility that the tax reductions are going to increase 
the amount of revenue.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely. I tell you right now, if you reduce the 
capital gains tax in 1999, you will have more revenue in 2000. Why? 
Because everybody that has had their stock go up 100 percent or 200 
percent in the last 4 years, they are not going to be stupid. They are 
going to sell and pay less taxes than they would this year and take a 
benefit, so you are going to get that up-front tax revenue.
  Mr. DICKEY. I want to talk about one other thing. Let us talk about 
the estate tax now. In this provision, and I know you agree with some 
of these things, but in this provision of estate taxes in the bill that 
we just passed, it provides that there is going to be reduction of the 
estate tax over a period of time to zero.
  Now, I want to see if you agree with this. After someone pays the 
Federal income tax and after they pay capital gains tax if they had 
capital gains, after they pay tax on savings on their dividends and 
after they pay excise taxes, fuel taxes, income taxes and State taxes 
and then sales taxes and all other taxes that I have not named and 
someone is left with something after all of that, is it good that we 
tax that that has been accumulated or saved from all of that effort at 
the rate of 37 to 55 percent at someone's death?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No and yes. Like all things, there are not simple 
answers. I wish there were.
  Mr. DICKEY. Are you in favor of reducing the estate tax?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I think the estate tax certainly should be adjusted 
for small businesspeople, for farmers and for people that are in net 
worths of even a couple of million dollars.
  But let me ask you this. Assume that an individual has a net worth of 
$100 billion and assume that person has a life expectancy of 45 years, 
and if there is no estate or income tax, what do you think that 
person's accumulation of wealth will be and the next generation of that 
wealth in perpetuity?
  What am I suggesting? If you apply that formula to just Bill Gates, 
and I hate to cite Mr. Gates because he has made a great contribution 
to America, but I am sure he is already thinking that because he has 
indicated that he does not want to keep that in a family. But if you 
did apply it, probably by his 75th or 80th birthday, he will have a net 
worth value, at just growth of 10 percent a year, of $2 trillion.
  Mr. DICKEY. What is your question?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Without an estate tax, that growth will constantly 
compound ad infinitum. So that if you carried that to the extreme, you 
get to the Benjamin Franklin example, that all the money in the world 
would be owned by one person.
  Mr. DICKEY. That person has to die for this thing to work. For this 
estate tax to apply, Bill Gates has to pass on.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, no, no. Because his children are not going to have 
an estate tax.
  Mr. DICKEY. We do not know about the children.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. My argument is, I do not know how they would do, but I 
think that is open to a very strong argument.
  Mr. DICKEY. What you are saying is you just want to stop the 
accumulation of wealth no matter how hard you work, nor how much talent 
you have or how much you contributed to the society?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. It all depends. If we want economic kings or czars in 
the world.
  Mr. DICKEY. I do not think that is going to happen. Let me give you 
an example.
  A young man, younger than I am, younger than we are, came to this 
city and told the story of what it was like in a small town in my 
district where he owns a bank, he owns three banks, his family does, a 
car dealership and some timberlands. When his grandmother dies, he is 
going to have to borrow money and pay $20,000 a month to pay the death 
taxes that are going to be on her estate. Now, when his dad dies, her 
son, it is going to be more than that, because hers will come into his 
and then it comes down.
  Now, here is what will happen to them. This may be something where 
you are in favor of. They will have to sell. They cannot expand, first 
of all. If they cannot meet the debt payment, they are going to have to 
sell off their interest. Is that what you say is the benefit of the 
estate taxes? Or are we stifling growth, reinvestment and further 
employment by doing this and forcing these people to pay $20,000 a 
month to the Federal Government for 10 years?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I understand what you are saying. That is a very tough 
event, but I would say there are probably 5 or 6 million Americans 
listening to us, all of which would not mind inheriting three banks, an 
auto dealership and timberland and most Americans do not have that when 
they pass on. They generally pass a mortgage on the house and debt on.
  Mr. DICKEY. But they are going to have to buy it back from the 
government.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. If we intelligently debate this as we are doing 
tonight, there is a solution to that problem. Part of the problem of 
estate taxes, which I agree with, we should find a way of taking 
artificial inflation out of an inheritance tax. There is no reason to 
penalize someone who has owned a piece of property for 40 or 50 years 
and a portion of its present value is represented by inflation and not 
real growth.
  Mr. DICKEY. You are talking about indexing now?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Sure. We can index that. Secondly, we can certainly 
raise the exemption a great deal so that the hundreds of thousands of 
Americans that have become millionaires in the last 6 years under the 
Clinton administration do not lose what they have earned over those 
years. I can understand that. We want to encourage people to contribute 
and to make wealth, but what we do not want to do, it seems to me, and 
I would like to argue this point, I think we have to find a mechanism 
that one great man can come along in a family and then for the next 200 
years of his survivors, contributing nothing, can end up being the 
wealthiest people in the world. I do not think we want to do that.
  I heard another figure today that impressed me and why we have to 
think about this. It is not pressing today that we think about it, but 
as Americans, to have public policy. The wealth of three Americans, 
three of our wealthiest Americans today, are greater than 600 million 
people living in the world today. Three people have the accumulated 
wealth of 600 million.
  Mr. DICKEY. I have seen that.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. How is this country going to imbue its free market 
system and its democratic government around the world if people think 
there is no way that we have equality? That

[[Page H6411]]

is not to say we should confiscate this wealth.
  Mr. DICKEY. I think where you and I differ on this----
  Mr. KANJORSKI. You and I are lawyers. You know the rule against 
perpetuities. What is the rule against perpetuity?
  Mr. DICKEY. You cannot keep passing it on from generation to 
generation to generation.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. You are claiming by inheritance to do away with the 
rule on perpetuity in families. If you cannot do it in a trust estate.

  Mr. DICKEY. You can do it with intent, though. You can bypass the 
rule against perpetuities. You can exempt it from applying. It can 
happen. But vesting is what is so very important in that. I am sure 
this does not mean anything to anybody.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. We know that Benjamin Franklin put an accumulation, I 
do not know whether it was $100--
  Mr. DICKEY. Excuse me. We are talking about two different things. I 
think I am listening to you from the standpoint of what you want to do 
is just share the wealth.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No.
  Mr. DICKEY. What I want to do is try to protect the economy. The 
estate tax is harming the economy.
  The estate tax is harming the economy. Do you agree with that?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. The estate tax?
  Mr. DICKEY. The death taxes are harming the economy. In my situation, 
this family knows what is needed for those three banks in small town 
Arkansas. They know what the dealerships can do and what they cannot 
do. If they have to sell to someone, say, from Omaha, Nebraska, who 
comes in there, we will not have the same productivity. We will not 
have the same progress.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. All the adjustment necessary can be made there and 
should be made there after an extended debate, that we think about why 
we have inheritance tax policy affecting the very largest accumulation 
of wealth down to the very minor accumulation of wealth. Certainly I 
agree with you.
  Mr. DICKEY. We agree on that. Lead me into this other area. We are 
using the death tax to share the wealth. How does that help our 
country?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, we are not. I certainly do not want to use the 
death tax to share the wealth. What I am disturbed about is those 
people who without some way of either encouraging them to be 
philanthropic with their assets or taxing them, we go on in perpetuity 
accumulating wealth like a vacuum cleaner.
  Mr. DICKEY. What happens, though, in the estate plans, and you and I 
have seen them, where to avoid estate taxes, all of these things go 
into charitable trusts or charitable institutions so that there is no 
tax.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. And that is very serving to the economy, to have this 
type of philanthropic activity.
  Mr. DICKEY. You say it is serving the economy?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Sure.
  Mr. DICKEY. It is hurting our ability to pay off the national debt.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No.
  Mr. DICKEY. So taxes are not needed to pay off the national debt? 
What we are doing with the death tax, we are driving those assets into 
tax-exempt entities.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Let me ask you a question. Would you agree that the 
economy of 1999 is probably the best economy that you have ever lived 
in in your lifetime?
  Mr. DICKEY. I think historically it is, do you not?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I agree.
  Mr. DICKEY. I claim credit for it.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Would you join me in the wish that we could perpetuate 
this economy as many more months or years as possible because it is 
increasing wealth for everyone in our system?
  Mr. DICKEY. Yes, sir. I think to do that we need to reduce taxes.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. That is where we differ. I want to get to that point. 
Right now we are at the top level of our production of commodities, of 
materials. We are at about 90 to 92 percent of absolute capacity to 
produce. That is about the highest level we have been in in our 
lifetimes. There is not much productive capacity left in our economy.
  Mr. DICKEY. That is what they have been saying for the last 2 years.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. We are down to 4.2 percent and right now if you go to 
some employers or some workshops, you find the level of performance of 
employees has fallen because we are tapping the very minimally trained 
people in our force, which is very healthy, but sometimes services and 
activities fall as a result of that because we are getting people in 
the workforce that never worked before. That means we are at maximum 
capacity of production and we are at maximum employment. Now, what a 
tax cut does--
  Mr. DICKEY. Wait a minute. There is an exception to that. That is, 
our tax in relationship to the gross domestic product is the highest 
that it has been since 1946. It is 20.1 percent. Does that relate to 
your discussion?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No, it is always going to do that as long as we keep 
running deficits, as we have run deficits. Next year if the deficit 
does not go down and it goes up, you are going to need more interest 
for the debt. It will keep going up. Every $100 billion, you are going 
to need $6 billion more, every year ad infinitum.
  Let me give you an example what we are all worried about. I join guys 
like Alan Greenspan. I cannot say he favors or believes in everything I 
believe, but we do agree on one point. He says this is not the time to 
cut taxes. This is the time to pay off the debt.
  Mr. DICKEY. When is the time to cut taxes from your standpoint?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. From my standpoint clearly not until we reduce the 
increase in debt back to the Reagan years. I would like to go to zero.
  Mr. DICKEY. How can you go to zero faster by taxing?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Because that money is a revenue in and it buys bonds.
  Mr. DICKEY. But you just got through saying it is perfectly 
reasonable to expect that by reducing the taxes we will increase 
revenues.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. No. Artificially for a year in capital gain, you will 
get more capital gains revenue in because it will exacerbate the 
market.
  Mr. DICKEY. I see what you are saying. I did not understand your 
position. I disagree with it.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Your problem is and what Mr. Greenspan argued to us 
the other day in his appearance on the Humphrey-Hawkins report, is that 
at some point when this economy starts turning down, you are going to 
have to provide a mechanism to encourage it to return from recession to 
recovery. That is when you cut taxes. So we may have to go into deficit 
spending when that happens. But why would you spend and put more money 
out for consumption when we cannot create any more product and we do 
not have any more people to employ?
  So what we are all worried about is through this type of fiscal 
policy, you are going to have more money chasing the same amount of 
goods and the same amount of people that are available and start to 
exacerbate inflation. We have a tremendous impact on fiscal policy in 
the policy of taxation. But we have an independent body downtown called 
the Federal Reserve, and they control the monetary policy of this 
country.
  Basically Mr. Greenspan says that if you shove more money out there 
to buy more goods and there are not those more goods, the price of 
those goods are going to go up and the cost of that labor that is 
limited is going to go up, you are going to cause inflation and we are 
going to have to raise the interest rate to counter, with monetary 
policy, that inflation. Let us look at what that does.
  Mr. DICKEY. That stops the tax decreases from going into effect if 
that happens. We have got the mechanism to control that.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. The mechanism on taxes, first of all, only apply to 
the change of the rate on personal income tax, not to the estate tax, 
not to any of the others. They are set. Once they are passed they are 
set. But also every time the Federal Reserve would increase interest 
rates by 1 percent, it costs the American government $55 to $60 
billion. Every 1 percent. To see interest rates go up to 8 or 9 
percent, as has happened many times in your lifetime and mine, if that 
were to occur--
  Mr. DICKEY. Not with balanced budgets though, I do not think.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. We have not lived in too many balanced budgets.

[[Page H6412]]

  Mr. DICKEY. That is what I am saying. 1969 was the last balanced 
budget.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. If we enact this tax code, most of us, and I think 
when I say most of us, most of the economists agree, we will be out of 
a balanced budget in a very short period of time.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. DICKEY. Okay, let me ask my colleague this; let me change the 
subject a second.
  Marriage tax penalties; we right now are encouraging people not to 
live together if they love each other but not to get married. We are 
also, in this code, encouraging school bond construction by being more 
favorable on the taxes in that area.
  Does the gentleman agree that tax reductions should solve other 
problems like trying to encourage people to get married and also by 
bond construction for schools and so that the local authorities can 
build more schools?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I just spent 6 days a week ago traveling across 
America with the President, and I went to Hazard, Kentucky; I went to 
the delta of Mississippi; I went to East St. Louis in Illinois; I went 
to the Indian tribes of South Dakota; the hispanic community of 
Phoenix, Arizona; and to Watts in Los Angeles. And I went there trying 
to find out what policy the government could pursue to help these 
people, and I came away with a lot of observations.
  One observation is regardless of how many people tell us that this 
economy has helped all people, it has not. This economy has been very 
helpful to the upper 5, 10, 15, 20 percent of the American population. 
We are part of that population.
  Mr. DICKEY. Of course that employment now, unemployment is at an all-
time low for an all-time period of time.
  Now I do not understand what the gentleman is saying now.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, to some of those people, they are living in 
poverty level even though they are working poor. They are working poor.
  Mr. DICKEY. Well, we are doing that to the military. I know we are 
doing that to the military.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Yes.
  Mr. DICKEY. The military is existing on housing and food stamps in 
some instances.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. The Indian tribes of South Dakota, 75 percent 
unemployment. The unemployment rate in the delta of Mississippi was 
twice the national rate. But the explanation given by a lot of the 
officials, I think, I believe is the education level in the State of 
Missouri is 50 out of 50 States. And they said that is what we need 
before we can get people hired.
  Mr. DICKEY. Did the gentleman say Missouri or Mississippi?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mississippi.
  Mr. DICKEY. Okay.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. In order to attract new businesses in there they need 
a trained work force and an up-scale work force, and we have got to 
have the capacity to do that.
  What I came away realizing is, one, all people are not benefiting 
from this prosperity; two, there are distressed areas in this country 
that need help; and, three, where we agree:
  We can use, sometimes, tax policy to encourage where money goes, and 
I would much rather see capital investment in the private market made 
in these distressed markets where the government has anything to do 
with the decision-making and is not part of it.
  Let us utilize the great magic of the free market. It is a tremendous 
tool.
  Mr. DICKEY. Well, cannot we do that? I mean does the gentleman agree 
that tax credits and tax incentives are helpful?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely, if they are proper. But they are not 
proper if we have favorite special interest groups that come down here.
  Mr. DICKEY. Well, what about education savings accounts where one can 
put in not $500 but $2,000 a year?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Absolutely. If we can afford to do that properly, 
there is no question, and I think that type, I think that is where it 
is going, to the right place.
  Mr. DICKEY. Well, that is what is in this bill.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Sure, we know there are those little segments in the 
bill. But our problem is look at what we reduce, the corporate tax 
rate, the individual tax rate at the highest level to 1 percent. Let us 
look at what we did to the special interest groups. But we do not want 
to argue this bill.
  Look, we are never, as we know.
  Mr. DICKEY. The gentleman is right about that. That is correct, that 
is correct.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. As we know, no two Members in this House will ever 
agree 100 percent with what is in a spending bill or what is in a tax 
bill. This is the House that comes to order with compromise, and we 
have to accept things we do not disagree with.
  Mr. DICKEY. There are a lot of people in my district who I talk to 
and who support me, are saying the things that the gentleman us saying, 
not in the depth that the gentleman is saying, but they are saying not 
now, maybe later.
  I do find that the people who say, give the economy the augment like 
we want it or a little bit more fervent than the people who say we just 
do not feel right about it.
  But that is why I am listening to what the gentleman is saying.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I think our risk is I do not know how low the 
unemployment rate could go, but it is as low now it has ever been in my 
lifetime. I always used to think 5 percent was full employment. As a 
matter of fact, I think Humphrey Hawkins said 6 percent is full 
employment, matter of Federal statute. Well, 1.8 percent under that.
  I always felt that I never expected us to have what I think is a 
Clinton recovery of 1993 built on the Bush sensible tax increase of 
1991.
  Mr. DICKEY. Now, wait a minute. The gentleman thinks both of those 
tax increases have brought us low inflation, lowest unemployment, low 
interest rates and higher productivity.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Yes.
  I am going to join the gentleman some day in sponsoring a statue to 
George Bush because he did have, he gave up his Presidency to do the 
right thing.
  Mr. DICKEY. Why does the gentleman think he gave up his presidency?
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Well, he knew that he made the promise no new taxes.
  Mr. DICKEY. Because American people do not like tax increases.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Look, we started out this discussion knowing. I do not 
know of a Member of Congress who likes to vote to increase taxes. They 
will always vote to cut them. It is not hard to get numbers to cut. I 
do not think any American likes to pay taxes unless they think it is 
absolutely necessary or could be used for a good purpose.
  I think the gentleman is hearing out there from his constituents, the 
same thing that I am hearing. We do not want wasteful spending, and I 
agree with that. But we want measured, intelligent spending, and we 
want to pay down the debt.
  Mr. DICKEY. Let me tell my colleagues this:
  I have enjoyed discussing this with my colleague who has not smiled a 
whole lot. I have been trying to smile over here, but it has not been 
coming across. We must continue this sometime. Thank you so much.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. I think it helps us all.

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