[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 30 (Thursday, March 8, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE TROJAN HORSE STRATEGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the leadership, the 
Republican leadership, saw fit to have such a limited debate on a $2 
trillion tax cut today. Basically, it worked out, for the portion of 
the tax cut adopted today, to about $5 billion a minute. I was one of 
many Members who is not a member of the Committee on Ways and Means who 
did not have an opportunity to speak and give my reasons for opposing 
this tax cut so I am going to lay them out now, because we know that 
this is not the end of the debate.
  The Senate will not even take this bill up until late this spring, if 
then.
  Now first, the tax cut is predicated upon a wish, a dream, a 
projection, a prediction, a prediction. Now, remember all the 
economists 10 years ago said we see deficits as far as the eye can see, 
huge and growing deficits. We were supposed to have a $400 billion 
deficit this year, but here we are fighting about how to spend the 
surplus. There is an actual real surplus this year. How long will it 
last? What are the assumptions behind it?
  This is a very interesting chart which comes from the official 
Congressional Budget Office chaired and headed up by a Republican 
appointee. This is what we are predicating a $2 trillion tax cut on. 
These are future projections. If one notices, there is a little bit of 
uncertainty here. In fact, when we get to the year 2006, according to 
the official projections of the Congressional Budget Office, we could 
be running anything from a $100 billion deficit to a $1.1 trillion 
surplus, but today the Republican leadership locked into place tax cuts 
that are going to spend this surplus even if it does not exist, and 
they did it under the rationale it is a stimulus for the economy.
  Now remember, the tax cuts do not even begin until next year. Well, 
they added a little bit for this year.
  Mr. Speaker, 1/100th of 1 percent of the GNP will be devoted to a so-
called retroactive tax cut this year; minuscule amount, totals just 
tens of dollars, for most families, $15 or $20. Yet what they have done 
here is begun the same strategy that fooled this Congress before I 
served here in the early 1980s, the Trojan horse strategy. Dress it up, 
get it inside the gate and then out pops a big surprise.
  The big surprise is most likely to be a return to huge and growing 
deficits a few years out.
  No, we should base tax cuts on actual surpluses received, not on 
projections by pointy-headed economists who are wrong a lot more times 
than they are right. If they can project the economy 10 years out, they 
would not be working at the Congressional Budget Office for a 
government salary. They would be living on their private island 
somewhere if they had that much knowledge about the future of our 
economy, and even they, with this chart, admit they really do not have 
a clue.
  So this Congress is being incredibly irresponsible in locking in 
place those tax cuts now heavily weighted toward people who earn over 
$329,000 a year, on the bet that these surpluses might exist or maybe 
knowing that the surpluses will not exist and not really caring that we 
could return to the huge days of deficits.
  Now, this is reality, folks, right here. This is reality. The United 
States of America's debt, that is black and white. We owe that. Every 
American from the tiniest baby to the oldest senior citizen owes a 
share of that, and if we divided it up equally it would be over $20,000 
per person.
  They are going to not even address that as effectively as the budget 
last year. They are proposing under their optimistic projections to 
leave a much bigger debt for future generations, not to reduce it as 
much. Under a worst case scenario, they are going to increase that debt 
and leave it as a gift or a burden to future generations. That is 
irresponsible.
  I have supported the plan to do one-third, one-third, one-third, once 
we have a surplus in hand. One-third to reduce the debt, and if these 
wild projections come true we could pay off the debt in 12 years; one-
third to invest, to invest in education, in infrastructure. I just got 
a report today from the National Society of Civil Engineers. We have a 
$1.3 trillion shortfall in infrastructure. Our infrastructure is 
crumbling over the next 5 years. That is about what they are spending 
here, betting that we are going to have these surpluses. We could be 
investing it. We could be investing it in education.
  Then finally, yes, let us have responsible tax relief. There was an 
alternative today. I voted and proposed other alternatives in the past. 
A tax relief based on reality, targeted at those who carry the heaviest 
burden, and that is middle-income families and lower-income families. 
When we look at the burden of the FICA tax, about more than half of 
American families pay more in Social Security taxes than they do income 
tax, they will get no relief under this proposal, even if it puts us 
massively in debt for the future. This was not a proud day for the 
United States House of Representatives.

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