[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 25, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7500-S7502]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to 
speak as in morning business, to extend the morning business for at 
least 5 minutes so I would have about 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit about taxes, as 
my Democratic colleagues have done already this morning. I want to go 
back over what the President said on Saturday in his weekly radio 
address to the Nation.
  I also had the honor this week to respond to the President's radio 
address. But at the time I wrote up the speech, I had not had an 
opportunity to see exactly what the President was going to say. I 
assumed he was going to be talking about taxes this week because that 
is what the Senate concentrated on last week. But I have now had the 
opportunity to look through the President's speech. I want to comment 
on some of the things the President talked about, now that I have had 
the opportunity to see it.
  I want to go back to Saturday morning, when the President gave his 
radio address. In his speech to the Nation he said:

       Now we have the chance to pass responsible tax cuts as we 
     continue to pursue solid economic policy.

  What the President is talking about is that he is willing to give 
some kind of tax relief to the American public but only the kind the 
President thinks you need; not what your family needs or not what you 
are looking at in your budget this month but what Washington, inside 
the beltway, has determined you should have and, by the way, what 
amounts you should have.
  But these are targeted tax cuts. In other words, you only can receive 
these dollars back, or this tax relief, if you do what the President 
tells you to do. If you invest here or if you do this or you do that, 
then you can receive back or be able to keep some of your hard-earned 
money. But if you don't, Washington is going to take it. It is telling 
you what to do, how to spend your money.
  Then he went on to say:

       Instead of following the sensible path that got us here, 
     congressional Republicans are treating the surplus as if they 
     had won the lottery.

  We are talking about giving the money back to the people who earned 
it, and by the way, the ``risky, budget-busting tax cuts'' we are 
talking about--that is eliminating the death tax and marriage penalty, 
the unfair taxes--would be less than 10 percent of the projected budget 
surplus. It is less than a dime on the dollar, and this is what the 
President is saying is going to create complete chaos because somehow 
we are going to give back to the American taxpayer about 10 percent of 
the projected surplus. But he says we are acting as if we won it in the 
lottery. It is the President and my colleagues on the Democratic side 
of the aisle who think this is a lottery that they have won; that the 
surplus is

[[Page S7501]]

there and they are somehow going to find the best way of spending it 
for you. They are going to determine the best way of spending it for 
you.
  They say we think it is a lottery when our proposal is to give the 
money back to those who earned it, not spending it. Even Alan 
Greenspan--and again we had him before our Banking Committee last week 
where we went over the same thing: The surplus is here; what's the best 
thing we can do with the surplus? Mr. Greenspan says: Pay down the 
debt.
  We are paying down the debt. A huge amount of these surplus dollars 
is targeted to reducing the debt, but also there is money left that can 
be and should be given back in the form of tax relief. But he said the 
worst thing we could do is what the President is advocating and my 
Democratic colleagues are advocating. The worst thing, Alan Greenspan 
said, that we could do is spend the money.

  That is what they want to do. They want to find new ways to spend 
it--but, of course, to benefit you. But they want to determine how to 
spend it, so they are going to enlarge Government or fatten existing 
programs. But who is going to pay the bill? It is going to be 
taxpayers. If we do not get tax relief today and we allow these dollars 
to be spent to enlarge or fatten the Government, who is going to 
support that larger, fatter Government tomorrow? It is going to have to 
come from possibly even in an increase in taxes. So if we miss this 
opportunity during times of surplus to cut taxes now, you can almost 
bet we are going to be facing the possibility of tax increases in the 
near future.
  We are talking about eliminating unfair taxes, and the majority of 
Americans agree with this. The marriage penalty and the death tax--even 
the President has called these unfair taxes.
  The President said in his speech:

       Taken together, the tax cuts passed last year and this year 
     by this Congress would completely erase the entire projected 
     surplus over 10 years.

  Of course, he is talking about the $800 billion tax cut package last 
year which he vetoed, that is dead and in the wastebasket, and combines 
it with the cuts we have this year, only 10 percent of the surplus. But 
he puts them together and says Republicans want to give it all back.
  That is not all bad. It should be given back. We are talking about 
overcharges, surpluses. These are dollars over and above what the 
Government has projected to need to carry out all of its 
responsibilities.
  We have $1.8-plus trillion earmarked to pay for programs the 
Government has said we need to do.
  These dollars are over and above that. Taxpayers fund every agency, 
every program, every project, every bureaucrat in that $1.8 trillion 
budget. Taxpayers are the most used, abused, and underappreciated 
people in our society. In other words, if they can get more money from 
you by twisting you a little bit harder, they are going to do that.
  One of my colleagues earlier this morning said if you make $75,000 a 
month and you receive through this tax cut another $2,000 a month, 
would that really make a difference? That is not for him to decide. 
These are dollars that somebody has worked for and earned.
  By the way, they are not talking about how much in taxes this 
individual is already paying on that $75,000, but they are saying: 
$2,000, what difference would it make to them? In other words, 
Washington can use it and spend it better than they can, so it should 
be no problem that we take these tax dollars away from them, even if 
they are unfair.
  Again, the majority of Americans agree, the death tax is unfair. You 
have paid all your taxes all your life to accumulate your estate, and 
the Government wants to come in after you die and take more than half 
of it again. It is the same with the marriage tax penalty. Because you 
are married, you are going to be taxed at a higher rate--on average, 
per couple, $1,400 per year--and somehow that is fair.
  Think of it. If someone asked you, what is your projected income over 
the next 10 years, would you want to sign a contract committing you to 
spend every single penny of it right now? The President is distorting 
this whole story. We are talking about a surplus, the overcharge. We 
are not talking about the base wage which the Government is receiving 
in taxes, but he is talking about the surplus.
  We should give the surplus back. I like to use a story about finding 
a wallet. Say this family is sitting around their kitchen table. They 
find a wallet, and it has $1,000 in it. They say: If we take our 
regular budget and now add this $1,000 to it, we can buy that big-
screen TV we always wanted. They say: We have the money; we found it.
  Congress has found this wallet with all these surplus tax dollars in 
it. I was taught--and I think most parents continue to teach their 
children today--that if you find a wallet with money in it, you should 
do your best to find the owner and give it back, not to run with it and 
say: Oh, we found this money; how can we better spend it? We can spend 
this money.
  That is what is happening here. These are overcharges. Would you 
spend all your money now? All we are saying is we should give it back 
to the taxpayers so they can decide how to spend it best.
  The President said:

       We should have tax cuts this year, but they should be the 
     right ones.

  We should have tax cuts, but they should be the right ones. The 
President 2 years ago in Buffalo, NY, said something to this effect, 
and I will paraphrase it: We could give back all of this surplus, but 
what if Americans do not spend it right?
  That is the same thing he is doing here: We could have tax cuts, but 
they should be the right ones. In other words, if we give the taxes 
back to the American people, the overcharge, the surplus--we are not 
even talking tax cuts here. That is a misused term. We are not cutting 
taxes. What we are trying to decide is how much of the surplus should 
go back to you, the taxpayer, that you have been overcharged.

  The President said: We could give it all back, but what if you don't 
spend it right? In other words, you are smart enough to go out and earn 
your money, but somehow you are too dumb to know how to spend your 
money, and Washington can do that for you and do it better and do it in 
these targeted programs that are going to help everybody. But it will 
not let you have the opportunity to spend the money the way that will 
best benefit your family.
  Every family is a little different. Your needs are different from 
mine and your neighbors' or even your brothers' and sisters' in raising 
their families. You should have the opportunity to decide how this 
prosperity, these extra dollars, should be spent.
  What the President is saying is, send them to Washington, or keep 
sending this surplus to Washington, and we will decide what is best for 
you and how best to spend it.
  The President said: In good conscience, I cannot sign one expensive 
tax break--again, it is not a tax break; it is an overcharge--after 
another without coherent strategy. In other words, they want to control 
how these extra tax dollars are spent --not you, taking it out of your 
control. They want to determine exactly how these tax dollars should be 
spent.
  The President also says he supports this marriage tax penalty we 
passed, but he said it should be a carefully targeted marriage tax 
penalty that will cost less. Why will it cost less? Because the 
President eliminates a great number of these couples who currently 
qualify for the marriage tax penalty. He is saying that if you make too 
much money, if you itemize, or do not itemize, somehow you will not 
qualify.
  The President says ``targeted.'' Again we hear that word 
``targeted.'' When we hear that, it means Washington believes it can 
best determine what you need or what program the Government can create 
or how the Government can spend your tax money.
  I want to say one other thing before I close, and that is what the 
President said at the end of his speech. I agree with these last few 
lines:

       The surplus comes from the hard work and ingenuity of the 
     American people. We owe it to them to make the best use of 
     it, for all of them and for our children's future.

  I agree with that statement. The only thing is we disagree on how to 
accomplish it. ``The surplus comes from hard work and ingenuity of the 
American people. We owe it to them to make the best use of it. . . .'' 
To me, the best use would be to give the surplus back.

[[Page S7502]]

  We are not talking tax cuts at all. We are not talking about reducing 
the revenues Washington needs to run this Government and its programs. 
What we are talking about is the surplus. We owe it to them to make the 
best use of it. That will be in rebating, returning those dollars to 
you so you can then decide what is best for your family. Is it braces 
for one of your children, or dancing lessons? Is it to begin an 
educational fund for your child? He is 5 years old, and you want to 
prepare for his college. You will make that decision, and you will not 
have to worry or wait for a Government program and then stand there 
with a hand out asking: Do I qualify, and can I get some of my tax 
dollars back?
  You will have to wait for somebody in Washington to say yes or no. 
That is not what should be happening. You should have control over your 
dollars. We all need to pay taxes. We know that. There are a lot of 
good things the Federal Government does. We know that. But Washington 
should not have the control of determining how to spend the additional 
dollars, the surplus.

  I strongly urge the President to sign our two tax bills that we want 
to send him: the death tax repeal and the marriage tax penalty. I hope 
the President will consider them and, as he said in the last line of 
his speech--again I will read it--we owe it to them to make the best 
use of it for all of them. And my opinion is to give it in tax relief.
  I thank the Chair.

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