[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 110 (Friday, July 30, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H6727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    TRIGGER MECHANISM IN TAX BILL PROVIDES FOR TAX RELIEF AND DEBT 
                               REDUCTION

  (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, on the tax cut and on the debt 
reduction, we are interested in both. We developed a trigger last week 
when we passed our tax bill that accomplishes the assurance that we are 
going to pay down the debt. The Senate is putting in a provision in the 
tax bill that it sunsets after 10 years.
  Additionally, we are working on a new trigger that is based on 
revenues. It says, in effect, that, if the revenues are not there, we 
are not going to have these kinds of tax cuts.
  So the first portion that comes in from increased revenues would be 
to expand spending. The next portion would be to pay down the debt. 
What is left over from that would be additional tax cuts.
  Let me just give my colleagues a fact that is interesting in terms of 
the overzealous taxation. We are talking about doing away with 10 
percent of the income tax. If we did away with all of the personal 
income tax, revenues coming into the Federal Government would still be 
greater, larger than they were in 1990. That is how fast government is 
growing. That is how we are sucking the taxes out of Americans' 
pockets.
  Let us leave more of that money in the pocket of the people that 
earned it.

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