[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 32 (Monday, March 12, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2141-S2142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX CUTS

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will return to the bankruptcy bill. 
We marked up an education bill in the HELP Committee. There were a 
number of us who said we will vote for the bill out of committee in 
part because I do think Senator Jeffords, Senator Kennedy, and others 
did yeoman work in trying to work together, and in part because there 
are some parts of this bill that are very important.
  For my own part, for several years now, I have been trying to get us 
to adopt legislation which deals with children who witness violence in 
their homes. There has been, thank God, more of a focus on the violence 
against women--sometimes men, almost always women. Every 13 seconds 
during the day, a woman is battered. Home should be a safe place.
  There has not been a whole lot of focus on children who witness this 
violence and the ways in which it affects their work in schools. All 
too often, these children fall between the cracks.
  An amendment was adopted to bring together out of the schools some 
critical support services for these children.
  I want to repeat what I said during the committee markup, which is, 
if this bill, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 
Education Act, comes to the floor before we have had an honest and 
thorough discussion of the budget and before we have some idea of the 
context of the tax cuts to the budget, then I will be in strong 
opposition. I hope Senators on our side and on the other side will be 
as well. Let me explain.
  First, I find the President's tax cut proposal to be Robin Hood in 
reverse. Anytime over 40 percent of the benefits go to the top 1 
percent and anytime one-third of the children in our country are living 
in homes that do not get a dime from this, and over 50 percent of 
African American children live in families that do not get a dime, and 
56 percent of Hispanic children live in homes that do not receive one 
dime from this ``tax relief'' because it is not refundable, then 
something is terribly wrong with such a piece of legislation. I do not 
think it meets any standard of fairness. That is part of the problem.
  But there is another part of the problem. I hope Democrats will be 
strong on this because the fact of the matter is, here is where you 
draw the line: If you are saying that we are going to have Robin-Hood-
in-reverse tax cuts with over 40 percent of the benefits going to the 
top 1 percent, but we are not going to be able to afford prescription 
drug costs for elderly and other families, then I think Democrats draw 
a line there.
  If we are going to have Robin Hood in reverse, with over 40 percent 
of the benefits going to the top 1 percent, but, as a matter of fact, 
we are not going to realize the goal of leaving no child behind, and, 
as a matter of fact, we are going to have a tin-cup budget for 
education, and, as a matter of fact, we are not going to expand the 
title I program where only 30 percent of low-income children are able 
to get any help right

[[Page S2142]]

now, and we are not going to make the kind of commitment to the IDEA 
program, children with special needs, funded at only 14 percent when it 
should be funded at the 40-percent level, or we are not going to make 
the commitment to decent, affordable child care so children can come to 
school, kindergarten ready, or we are not going to make a commitment to 
expanding health care coverage for citizens in our country when so many 
people go without health security, either because they have no coverage 
or they can't afford their coverage--it seems to me this is the place 
where Democrats can draw the line. We don't need to have acrimonious 
debate, but we do need to have substantive debate, I argue passionate 
debate.

  Frankly, I put all of my faith in people in Minnesota and around the 
country, when it comes to the question of priorities. To me, what we 
have is distorted priorities. We have a tax cut program, Robin Hood in 
reverse. Over 40 percent of the benefits are going to the top 1 
percent. There is no standard of fairness when it comes to tax relief 
for people, tax relief for families. Moreover, nobody should kid 
anybody; this will erode the revenue base and make it practically 
impossible to make any of the investments that we say we are going to 
make when it comes to children, when it comes to education, when it 
comes to health care, when it comes to affordable prescription drug 
costs.
  The vast majority of the people in the country, if they understand 
this is the choice, want to see us do more by way of investing in 
education, investing in children, investing in health care, investing 
in their families, investing in our communities.
  This will become the axis of the debate of the Senate and I think 
American politics. I believe it is very important the Democrats draw 
the line in a very firm way.
  I say to my colleague, Senator Grassley, I have some amendments I am 
ready to introduce to the bankruptcy bill. I asked unanimous consent I 
be able to proceed. I assume that is all right with the manager.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I wonder if the Senator will provide copies of the 
amendments. We want to know with what we are working.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I am more than pleased to provide copies. Many 
requests are unreasonable, but this is not.

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