[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 96 (Friday, July 21, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7429-S7431]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 TAXES

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I want to lay before the Senate two 
propositions. One, using a normal conventional budget approach, I want 
to

[[Page S7430]]

share with the Senate the incredible amount of money we are taking from 
our taxpayers each year, and for the foreseeable future, that the 
current Government doesn't need. The question is, How much of that 
extra money we are getting from our taxpayers should we give back to 
them, and how much should we spend, and how much should we put on the 
debt?
  That is a very important threesome, with everybody knowing one of the 
most significant things to do is to get the debt down. Pervasive in 
everybody's plan, whether it is a 10-year plan or whatever, is don't 
give it all back; put some on the debt.
  Those who know they want to spend a portion of it have to answer the 
question, Do you not want to give some back to the taxpayer? And a 
further question: Don't you want to try to fix the Tax Code where it is 
unfair and where it unfairly taxes Americans?
  I think the answer would be, if you have a very large surplus, that 
essentially belongs to the taxpayer--not the Government; it just 
happens we are putting in more taxes than we need. The question should 
be, Do you want to fix the marriage tax penalty?
  I believe almost anyone looking at the American Tax Code and taking 
into account our culture, what we live by, what we say is powerful 
about America, has to say that we honor and respect married life along 
with families. We are not saying it has to be every family structure, 
but I think nobody should disagree, we surely want to stay there and 
move in that direction and cherish that concept.
  If we do, then you have to answer a question: If that is the case, 
why would we leave a tax on the books that makes it more difficult for 
married couples to survive economically? We tax the working couple and 
the married couple more than we would tax two individuals who are not 
married, earning the same income.
  That is the essence of the problem. Most married husbands and wives 
are not quite aware, if they run into two people with whom they have 
been friends a long time and they have similar jobs to theirs, and the 
two who have a family are struggling, their friends are paying 
significantly less in taxes because they are not married. That is what 
we are asked: Do we have enough resources accumulated in surpluses to 
do that?
  Second, there is a very onerous tax called the death tax. Anybody 
looking at the Tax Code would have to say that deserves looking at, 
because at a point in time it is no longer considered to be very 
wealthy; or on an estate that has a lot of assets, citizens can wake up 
and find out that the Federal Government is going to take 55 percent of 
the accumulated worth that might have come over 40 years of work.
  Say you have parents, a mother and father living together, 
struggling, both working, and they now own two filling stations--I use 
that as an example--and a very nice house. Today, filling stations are 
not the little filling stations with two pumps that were on Highway 66 
when I grew up. If you were in the business, it was a pretty good 
enterprise, but you owned two of them because you worked at it. Both of 
them are in an airplane crash and die. They have five kids, three 
kids--whatever. What a shock when those two filling stations and the 
house are worth, just hypothetically, probably in today's market, $1.5 
million to $2 million.
  They are going to get whacked by the Federal Government on everything 
over $650,000. That is not fair. The Democrats can deny this and talk 
about all the rich people who are not going to pay, but most Americans 
say it is not fair to take it away. Believe it; I may get there myself. 
Things are happening so vibrantly in the American economy, maybe this 
person is looking at this and says: I might be rich enough for them to 
take away 55 percent of what I had left and accumulated in my life. So 
what the Republicans have done is they have said: Let's, over time, get 
rid of that. Let's take the marriage tax penalty and really take the ax 
and chop a bunch of it away.
  There can be two reasons the President will veto these bills, and two 
reasons that most of the Democrats who have voted against them would 
use as their excuses. No. 1, they say it is too big a tax cut and 
therefore it uses up too much of the surplus. They even use the word 
``risky.'' What is risky, in essence, to fix the marriage tax penalty? 
There is nothing risky about that. What is risky about getting rid of 
the death tax? That cannot be risky per se.
  So this is what happens. The answer is it is risky because it is 
giving too much back to the American taxpayer and we do not want to 
give that much because that is risky economics.
  I want to make one simple point today and that is for anybody who is 
listening, wondering: Is there money left for Medicare if we want to do 
something, small or large, about it? Is there money left if we decide 
to move in a direction of more defense money each year? Is there money 
if we were to decide on a little more assistance for education? I will 
tell everyone you should understand we do not participate, out of the 
National Treasury, in helping with education to any significant degree. 
So we have our debates about education but we are talking about 8 
percent of the funding for our public schools that comes out of Federal 
tax coffers. Maybe at one point it was 9, but it is now tottering 
between 7.5 and 8.5 percent. Maybe we want to change that and make it 2 
percent higher.
  I want to assure everyone, using conventional, acceptable budget 
analysis, if the President were to sign the Republican tax cuts which 
amount to $195 billion over 10 years--do you see this chart? You can 
hardly see the piece in red that the U.S. Government is giving back to 
the people. See the little sliver?
  All of this is money set aside for the Social Security trust fund or, 
believe it or not, a huge amount of money over the decade that the 
taxpayer has sent us that does not belong to Social Security. Therefore 
we say: Is that too much? We are calling this the love and death tax 
cuts. I don't know who nicknamed it that on the floor, but I borrowed 
it here. Only 5 percent of the non-Social Security surplus will be used 
over the decade. Five percent will be used for those two taxes.
  Frankly, I challenge anybody to say to the American people this is 
risky, giving back that much in tax cuts. All the rest of the money 
that we might need for anything--Social Security, Medicare--is all the 
rest of this surplus that is in white. Because that total is $3.15 
trillion--trillion--of which we are giving back, under our cuts, $195 
billion. You understand, the argument cannot be maintained that it is 
too big. The only argument that can be made is that we would like to 
use it for something else.
  I would like somebody to come down and we can talk about President 
Clinton's marriage tax penalty relief. It is so small, in his tax 
package; it is 10 percent of what he would do in his various tax relief 
targeted measures--10 percent. I believe the marriage tax penalty has 
to be solved, and it cannot be 10 percent of the tax package that you 
put before the Congress. It has to take care of the marriage tax 
penalty significantly, substantially, almost all.

  Then let's look at this. The Clinton-Gore budget that we got showed 
10 years with new spending. Out of the $3.35 trillion, that plan would 
spend $1.35 trillion, leaving $1.99 trillion. I do not believe we are 
ever going to spend this much out of this surplus. But even if you gave 
them all that money, there is $1.99 trillion left, of which we are 
giving back $195 billion.
  I truly believe when we really get down to this, in order to make 
sense to the American people, the President and those who oppose this 
are going to have to say we really don't believe that a significant 
portion of this money that is accumulating, that the taxpayer has paid 
to us, that is in excess of our Government needs--you have to be saying 
we are not going to give much of it back. I believe that is a terrible 
mistake. Unless you could say--and nobody could say this--we are not 
going to touch any of it; we are going to put it all against the 
national debt.
  The next time I come to the floor I will tell you how much we are 
reducing the national debt already. It is the most significant 
reduction of the national debt, that will occur by the end of this 
year, for a 3-year period. And there is no comparable debt reduction 
period in American history; it is so big.
  So the only answer could be: Wait around for our plan and we will not 
give the taxpayers back that much money; or they will come to the floor

[[Page S7431]]

and say they want to give it all back to the poor taxpayer, the 
taxpayer who is middle income and poor. Before we are finished, that 
debate is going to be talked about, too.
  What we have to do when we have a tax cut, we have to give it back to 
people who are paying taxes. One would not think that tax relief would 
mean giving it back, in some way, so the people paying taxes do not get 
any relief, and those who are not paying, or paying very little, they 
get some relief--even a check from the Federal Government. To say we 
think you are paying too much taxes, even if you are not paying any, so 
we give you back more money--that may be one of the propositions. We 
ought to debate that for the American people. You can then say the tax 
relief is going to the working poor. Frankly, you are not giving it to 
anybody who earns money enough to pay a tax. I thought this all was 
about tax reduction. I thought the overage was giving back Americans 
who paid it a little more, a little bit more than what is being talked 
about by the other side.
  I close by saying some people think it is a mystery about all this 
new revenue we have, this surplus, part of which goes to Social 
Security and part of it is left over. There is no mystery about it. 
Cumulatively, all the taxpayers who are paying taxes, the American 
people, the combined amount has increased. Some will come up and say, 
``but the median income has not increased, this has not increased, and 
the tax on these people has not increased''--how does the tax take go 
up $3.35 trillion? Everybody out there combined is paying more taxes--
and is it really more? Yes, it is. On average, America existed and 
existed beautifully with 18 percent of the gross domestic product 
coming into the Government as taxes.
  We are now at 20.4 percent, 2.4 percent higher in terms of a tax take 
versus the gross domestic product of our Nation, a way to measure what 
we want to measure, and that is out of the total economy how much are 
we taking away and putting in our coffers. It is very high at 20.4 
percent, and the economy is booming. The reason we have the surplus is 
because we are taking more from the taxpayers.
  I believe if it can be understood and if we can get around ads that 
are confusing the issue and attack ads that have nothing to do with the 
real problems and issues, if we can boil it down to: Mr. and Mrs. 
America, if the surplus is this much, would it seem fair to you that we 
should give back 25 percent of it to the American people by way of tax 
relief? I think most people would probably end up saying: I guess that 
seems fair; maybe that is even a little low.
  That would leave 75 percent of this surplus for the things everybody 
says we will take care of when we get a new Congress. I submit that we 
cannot forget the taxpayers as we think about new ways to spend this 
surplus. We ought to probably start with them, not stop with them at 
the end of the line. That is what we will be talking about, it seems to 
me, in the next few months, at least I hope so.
  Then we can look at whose tax cuts are fair. We will see the other 
side stack up dollars and say the Republicans give it back to the rich 
people. The marriage tax penalty relief in this bill, in terms of to 
whom it goes--if the President of the United States would listen to us 
instead of listening to the technical advice of the Treasury 
Department--it is eminently fair; it is loaded at the bottom end of the 
earnings and yet gives people in the middle- and high-income categories 
something.
  If you do not want that, what do you want? Stack up the dollar 
bills--rich versus the poor--all you want when it comes to the marriage 
tax penalty, which is a very big and fair tax cut and tax reform at the 
same time.
  Obviously, I am on a subject on which I could talk for a long time, 
and I continue to have a lot of interest buildup in me. Sooner or 
later, people listening cannot pay attention, and I believe we are 
getting close to that.
  I yield the floor and thank the Senate for giving me the privilege of 
speaking.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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