[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 111 (Monday, August 2, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H6764]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT TAX CUT PROPOSALS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, it is sort of irony that I should be 
following the gentleman who just spoke because I am going to be 
speaking about the same thing. That was not specifically planned, but I 
am glad that it comes out that way.
  Mr. Speaker, we are told this week that the main business of the 
Congress is proposals which have now passed both the House and the 
Senate to provide for an $800 billion tax cut. Any time the Congress is 
thinking about tax cuts, it behooves everyone in America to hang on to 
their wallet, to sit up and take notice, to pay very close attention to 
who is being given tax breaks and why. But also how that differs from 
who the proponents are saying is going to get the tax breaks.
  This week is no exception at all. The Republican leadership says that 
their tax cut is for the middle-class. For the middle-class in America, 
working Americans. For the middle-class. Well, that is clearly not true 
if we look at what has passed the House and the Senate. The House 
passed its bill 2 weeks ago. And starting at the wealthiest end of 
Americans, at Bill Gates, at the wealthiest end and come down to an 
annual income of $300,000 a year, that 1 percent, just over a million 
Americans who have incomes between $300,000 a year and Bill Gates, that 
richest 1 percent is on average going to get $54,000 of tax breaks. It 
turns out to be 45 percent of the total of all the tax reduction being 
proposed goes to the 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans.
  If we take 6 million Americans, 5 percent starting at the top of the 
scale down to an income of $125,000 a year, I think it might be 
instructive to remember that every single Member of the Congress, every 
Member of the House and every Member of the Senate has income greater 
than $125,000 a year, that 5 percent will average $15,000 a year in tax 
cuts and gets 61 percent of the total reduction.
  Mr. Speaker, if we start at the other end and come all the way up, 
all the way up from the lowest income American to people making under 
$125,000 a year, all 95 percent of them, all 120 million taxpayers, 
they will receive less than the 1 percent whose income is over $300,000 
per year. It turns out that those people, who include the broad middle-
class, income from $25,000 a year to $65,000 a year under the House-
passed bill, would get less than half as much in total tax reduction as 
the 1 percent richest portion of the population.
  Let me put that in slightly different terms. If we were to take 100 
people that we know, one person whose income is over $300,000 a year 
and the rest whose income comes down from that point, and we have $100 
to give out in tax reduction, 100 people and $100 in tax reduction, 
that one wealthiest person, that single one is going to get $45. Forty-
five of the dollars that it is possible to give out under the 
circumstances. Ninty-five people, the 95 starting from the lowest 
income up to incomes that covers the broad middle-class, they are going 
to get a total of $39 divided among them.
  If we look at it in terms of families, a family making $30,000 a year 
would get less than $1 a day in tax reduction. A family making $50,000 
a year, two people working, second jobs whatever it happens to be but 
under $50,000 a year, at $50,000 a year they would get less than $2 a 
day in income. Yet the person who is making $1 million a year, that 
person would get $70,000 in that year. $200 a day in tax breaks.
  The Senate-passed plan is a little bit different. The wealthiest 5 
percent in the Senate plan gets almost the same amount as the 95 
percent, the 120 million people whose income is less than $125,000 a 
year. And, again, I would urge my colleagues to remember that the 
portion of the population that is getting most of the tax break 
includes every Member of the House and the Senate of the United States. 
I have to ask, does anyone think that that is a fair way to distribute 
tax reduction in this country?

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