[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 13, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2180-S2184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE ECONOMY AND TAX CUTS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I seek recognition as in morning business 
to address the Senate in reference to the state of the economy. I think 
most of us have read the press reports about what happened to the stock 
market yesterday. We certainly hope that was an anomaly and that it 
will not continue and that our economy rebounds quickly from what 
apparently has gone beyond a soft landing and is now headed toward what 
appears to be a harder landing.
  The news out of my home State of Illinois is not encouraging. This 
morning, Motorola announced it is cutting 7,000 more jobs in its 
cellular phone division, increasing to 12,000 the number it will have 
eliminated in operations since December. These reductions to its global 
workforce of more than 130,000 will take place over the next two 
quarters.
  We have seen this phenomenon not just at Motorola but at other 
industries across America. It raises a very important question about 
our responsibility in Washington to respond to what is clearly an 
economic challenge, if not more.
  I hope we in the Senate, as well as the House, working with the 
President, can take the current debate over a tax cut and make it part 
of a much larger question about economic growth in America. What is our 
plan? What are we, as a nation, prepared to do to turn around this 
economy and to start it moving forward again?
  We have just come off an extraordinary period of time when the 
economy of the United States reached record-breaking prosperity 
numbers, where we had some 22 million jobs created over the last 10 
years. Some 2 million more businesses were created over the last 10 
years, with more home ownership than any time in our history, with 
inflation under control, the welfare rolls coming down, and the number 
of violent crimes committed across America decreasing. All of the 
positive things we want to see in America occurred during the last 8 or 
10 years.
  But we seem to have taken a turn in the road. I am sorry to report 
that these numbers coming out of Motorola, and employers across 
America, as well as the Dow Jones index, and other stock indices, 
suggest to us we need to step back for a second and ask, What is right 
for this country?
  The economic prosperity we knew for so long has now been challenged. 
The feeling of optimism in America, which really had us in its thrall 
for such a long period of time, is now changing dramatically. We have 
seen $5 trillion of economic value that has been wiped out in the last 
few months because of this economic downturn. When I say $5 trillion 
wiped out, what am I talking about? I am talking about the pension 
plans, the 401(k)s, the IRAs, the savings, the mutual funds of families 
across America have all taken a plunge. My family has experienced this 
just as every other family.
  We know our value, our net worth in terms of what we have saved and 
what we hope to have for our future, has been diminished. The question, 
obviously, before us is, What are we going to do in response.
  I think the President has focused almost exclusively on one idea, and 
that idea is a tax cut. The general idea of a tax cut is popular. It is 
hard to think of two words that a politician can utter that would be 
more popular. But, clearly, the President is having a tough time 
closing the deal. To think that a President has to go out on a 
nationwide rally, crusade, campaign, to convince the American people of 
a tax cut suggests that it may not be as easy as it appears to him.

  People across America are skeptical of a tax cut that is based on 
projections of surpluses that may not occur for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 
years. They understand this idea of a tax cut was actually part of the 
President's campaign platform 2 years ago when America was in 
prosperity. This tax cut was not designed by President Bush as an 
economic stimulus then. Our economy had plenty of stimulation. It was 
doing well. But now the President has said: What I really meant to say 
is that the tax cut will breathe life back into the economy.
  Hold the phone here. Take a look at the tax cut President Bush is 
proposing. Even if he has his way and gets everything he wants, the tax 
cut will not kick in to our economy in full force for 5 years. I can 
tell you that the employees at Motorola can't wait 5 years. The people 
across America who have seen their savings dwindle can't wait 5 years. 
So the medicine which President Bush is prescribing does not fit the 
illness that currently affects America.
  Frankly, what we need at this point is a tax cut that is reasonable, 
that will create some stimulus, but is not too large as to really be 
irresponsible. The President has said $1.6 trillion over 10 years is 
not that much in a $5.6 trillion surplus. We know frankly, his number 
is much larger when you add in all the hidden costs. He wants to spend 
some $2.6 trillion on his tax cut.
  It is unfortunate but true that 43 percent of President Bush's tax 
cut goes to people making over $300,000 a year. Forty-three percent of 
the benefits go to people making over $300,000 a year.
  I believe everyone in America should have a tax cut, but for 
goodness' sake, do not shortchange families in middle-income categories 
and working families to give a bigger tax cut to the wealthiest among 
us. We have to look at this tax cut in terms of fairness and the fact 
that it could be an economic stimulus.
  On the Democratic side, we believe we should have an honest tax cut 
that we can afford. We should not overextend ourselves in anticipation 
of surpluses that may not arrive. How can we have day after day of bad 
news about the state of the economy, and the economists in this town 
not take that into consideration? If we are having more people laid 
off, that means fewer people paying their taxes into the Treasury 
creating surpluses.
  So this anticipation by the President of a great surplus, 
unfortunately, may not occur, as many economists have predicted.

[[Page S2181]]

  President Bush, as Governor of Texas, faced this situation once 
before. When he became Governor of Texas, he had a surplus in his 
Treasury. He declared a tax cut that, unfortunately, was too large and 
now the State of Texas is back in the deficit ditch, with other States 
seeing the same thing happening.
  Why can't we learn from this experience on a national level and not 
overextend this surplus, not overextend this tax cut, to find ourselves 
returning to the days of deficits? I think that is the challenge for 
this Congress.
  Equally important, we have to take the tax cut as part of a larger 
discussion. What is it that we can do responsibly now to create 
economic growth again in America? To ignore what is happening with the 
layoffs and the situation in the stock market and the loss of savings 
by American families is to ignore reality.
  To take the President's tax cut that will not kick in for 5 years, 
that is no stimulus to the current economy.
  It is time we looked at things that can make a difference.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I am happy to yield to the Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. One of the problems I have had during the past 6 months or 
so is that we have heard from the man running for President, and now 
President, always bad news about the economy, always something negative 
about the economy. There are some economists and others who say that 
one of the reasons keeping the stock market high is optimism. As we 
know, the prior administration was very optimistic about the economy. 
Does the Senator think that the negative talk about the economy for 
such a long period of time has finally gotten the wish granted?
  Mr. DURBIN. I heard the observation of the Senator from Nevada 
yesterday along these same lines. I agree with the Senator from Nevada. 
For the leader of our country to repeatedly say that our economy is in 
trouble is to, frankly, have a self-fulfilling prophecy. In this 
situation I am afraid people lose confidence if the leader of our 
country doesn't have confidence. Some of the campaign rhetoric should 
have been abandoned as soon as the President took office. The spirit of 
optimism and growth, a positive feeling about the future is important 
for American families to feel they can do the right thing by perhaps 
buying a new home or putting an addition on their home, perhaps buying 
a car, whatever it might be that makes a difference in terms of 
economic growth. The Senator from Nevada is right.
  Mr. REID. If I could ask one more question, I spoke to the American 
Legion today. Prior to my going to the rostrum to speak, their national 
security director gave a long speech about the need for increased 
spending on the military and national missile defense. When I spoke 
about a number of issues, I said: All of you out there have to 
understand that we should have a tax cut, but it should be a modest tax 
cut. I have heard the Senator from Illinois say that. I think we all 
agree with that. We also have to pay down the debt. If we are going to 
have additional spending for the military and we want a prescription 
drug benefit for seniors, if we want to increase spending for 
education, does the Senator agree we are going to have to save some of 
that surplus for some of these things that our country badly needs?
  Mr. DURBIN. I agree with the Senator from Nevada. What the President 
has said to America is--he arrived initially to find a good, strong 
economy and a big buffet of opportunities--let's eat our dessert first. 
You don't have to eat your vegetables; eat your dessert first. Let's 
have a tax cut and a big one.
  A lot of us are saying: Isn't it better for America to have a 
sensibly sized tax cut that helps working families and middle-income 
families and not just the wealthy and one that also pays off our 
national debt and leaves money aside for important investments in our 
future? If we are going to have a plan for economic growth in America, 
the Senator from Nevada will agree with me that education ought to be 
the first item on the agenda.
  The American people, interestingly enough, when you ask them what we 
should do with the surplus, do not say: Give me a tax cut. Their first 
response is: Do something to help our schools and our teachers.
  When you look at these priorities and investments that can mean 
economic growth for a long period of time, we ought to start with 
education. As the Senator from Nevada says, if the President has his 
way, if the tax cut is too large, if it goes to the wealthiest people 
among us and doesn't help working families, we will squander the 
opportunity to invest in education, to invest in a prescription drug 
benefit under Medicare, to invest in Social Security and Medicare for 
the future. The American people understand that. If it sounds too good 
to be true, as the old saying goes, it probably is.

  For the President to suggest we can have it all, we can give this tax 
cut of $2.6 trillion and take care of all of our other problems, really 
strains the credibility of his position.
  Mr. REID. One last question: In the western part of the United 
States--and it is coming back here--there is the high cost of 
purchasing electricity in the home. I have received a number of very 
sad letters--for lack of a better description--from people who are 
senior citizens saying: I have to have electricity in my home. I am now 
having to make the choice not only whether I am going to have food or a 
prescription drug but electricity.
  With the one-third that we are suggesting should be saved for taking 
care of some important programs in this country, would the Senator 
agree that one of the most important priorities, second only to 
education, would be a prescription drug benefit for the senior citizens 
of this country who certainly deserve a change in the Medicare program?
  Mr. DURBIN. I agree with the Senator from Nevada. The President's 
suggestion when it comes to prescription drugs is entirely inadequate. 
Once you have funded his tax cut, you don't have the resources 
available to create a universally affordable voluntary prescription 
drug benefit under Medicare, a position which the Senator from Nevada 
and I share. In fact, let me read from an article in the New Yorker 
which appeared March 12, 2001, by Henrik Hertzberg in which he 
describes President Bush's prescription drug plan as follows: When the 
President said that no senior in America should have to choose between 
buying food and buying prescriptions, he received quite a bit of 
applause at his State of the Union Address. But he omitted the details. 
For example, under President Bush's prescription drug plan, a widow 
living on as little as $15,000 a year would receive no help in paying 
for drugs until she has already spent $6,000 of her own money. That is, 
she would have to have already left more than a third of her income at 
the pharmacy to qualify for President Bush's prescription drug plan.
  To put it another way: Her deductible for the President's 
prescription drug plan, this lady living on a fixed income, would be 
$115 per week, not per year.
  That is what happens when you take a $2 trillion tax cut and ignore 
education, ignore prescription drugs. You can have something that is 
called a prescription drug benefit, but when you look at the details, 
is it reasonable that someone who is making $15,000 a year--imagine 
scraping by on that amount--who is a fixed-income senior, has to spend 
down $6,000 each year on their own pharmacy costs before the benefit 
helps them?
  I can tell the Senator from Nevada, who has spoken to a lot of 
seniors in his part of the world, that sort of approach is no benefit, 
and it isn't to most of the people to whom I have spoken in the State 
of Illinois.
  Let me speak for a moment about the national debt. The national debt 
is an important issue for us not to ignore. The President says out of 
the $5.6 trillion surplus, we can only spend down or pay down $2 
trillion of the national debt. I disagree. Much more can be spent down 
and should be. We collect $1 billion in taxes every single day in 
America; $1 billion from families, businesses, and individuals to pay 
interest on the old debt. We have a national mortgage of $5.7 trillion. 
Most of it did not occur until after 1980, when President Reagan and 
the former President Bush came to office.
  Under President Clinton, we started paying down this debt, but it is 
still a $5.7 trillion national mortgage. If we

[[Page S2182]]

don't take this seriously, we are going to find ourselves in a 
predicament where that is a mortgage we are going to leave our kids. I 
take no comfort in promising a tax cut to myself or anyone else and 
then leaving my son, my daughters, or my grandson a national mortgage 
of $5.7 trillion.
  The President likes to say if we have a surplus in Washington, it 
belongs to the people. Well, I ask the President: To whom does the 
national debt belong? That belongs to our Nation as well. Do we not 
have a responsibility in good times of surplus to pay off the mortgage 
before we tell everybody go ahead and eat your dessert, go ahead and 
declare a dividend?
  What the Democratic side is suggesting, as the Senator from Nevada 
has said, is take a third of any real surplus, not any guess, and give 
it to people in the form of a tax cut that helps everybody across the 
board, not just the wealthy; take a third of it and pay down the 
national debt so this mortgage is reduced for our kids. And then take a 
third and invest in things that will get this country moving again: 
education, worker training, investments in technology. These are things 
which are good in the long term for America.
  Sadly, this President is stuck on a one-note song: Tax cut, tax cut, 
tax cut.
  The tax cut is not a plan for economic growth. It is not a plan for 
economic prosperity. The President proposed this tax cut in the 
campaign after he was challenged by Steve Forbes to come up with a 
massive tax cut. Well, he came up with one. He is still sticking with 
that song 2 years later.
  America has changed. Our needs have changed. The President's response 
is still the same. If he has his wish and this tax cut goes through, we 
will find ourselves realizing its benefits 5 years from now, not when 
we need it. And we will find ourselves short on funds to invest in 
things important for America, and we won't put the money necessary into 
paying down our national debt.

  This is not a popular thing I am preaching here. The most popular 
thing is to tell people we can give the biggest tax cut in the world 
and we are all for it. I guess you can get reelected on that platform. 
But part of our responsibility on Capitol Hill is to speak honestly to 
the people about the real problems facing our Nation.
  The real problems suggest that the President's tax cut goes too far. 
It is ironic to me that this President is traveling around the country, 
going to South Dakota and North Dakota, trying to sell this concept and 
having a tough go of it, because although Americans like tax cuts, they 
are genuinely skeptical when the President tells us we can have 
everything.
  The fact is that we need to use the same fiscal responsibility, we 
need to use the same fiscal conservatism that finally turned the corner 
a few years ago and got us out of the deficit world and into the 
surplus world. When you look at the state of our current economy, we 
need it now more than ever.
  I hope we can find a bipartisan agreement for a tax cut that is 
sensible. I look at families across Illinois, and I don't believe that 
two people, husband and wife, who are public school teachers in the 
city of Chicago, making about $100,000 a year, are wealthy people at 
all. I think they are struggling to pay their mortgage, to put kids 
through school, to make sure they put savings aside for the future. 
These people need to benefit from the tax cut as much as, if not more 
than, people making over $300,000 a year.
  I believe if you have an income of $25,000 a month, the idea of a 
President Bush tax cut that gives you $46,000 a year in tax cuts is 
something these people will hardly even notice, if they are making 
$300,000 a year. But I can tell you that several thousand dollars to a 
family making $100,000, or $75,000, or $50,000 a year can make a real 
difference.
  The President's tax cut, incidentally, leaves 30 million Americans 
behind--30 million Americans who pay no income tax. The President says, 
why should they get a tax cut? These 30 million Americans are paying 
payroll taxes, my friends. I don't think the President would like to 
look them in the eye and say they are not paying taxes. They are paying 
a lot of taxes. It is coming out of their paychecks.
  The President's tax cut provides no income tax benefit or other tax 
credit to help those wage earners. So let's come up with a balanced and 
fair tax cut, in a way to get the economy moving again. Let's not get 
stuck on the old rhetoric of the political campaign of 2 years ago. 
Let's have a vision that speaks honestly to the people and puts 
together investments and things that make a difference.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, how ironic it is that we hear about the 
negativism of the President toward the economy. And then, in turn, we 
hear all of this negative comment about the new President. It just 
doesn't quite add up.
  I can stand here and talk about the Clinton recession we might be in 
because the manufacturing index turned down in September and has been 
turning down since. I could talk about the Clinton recession from the 
standpoint of the confidence index, which started turning down in 
August. But I don't think blaming gets much accomplished.
  I think we have to look to the future, and the future is that we can 
pay down the national debt. We have a tax surplus. We can give tax 
relief to every taxpayer--the working men and women who have made a big 
difference, the entrepreneurs who have made a big difference over the 
last 10 years to help us pay down the national debt. We can fund our 
priorities.
  When we use the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan economist, 
to judge what the future is--and it is a difficult thing to do, but it 
is no more difficult than the young workers who are trying to look 
ahead to see what their income is going to be and convince the banker 
that they ought to get a 30-year mortgage. They put a lot of trust in 
the future in order to pay off that mortgage. We put a lot of trust in 
the future, too, to make a determination of how much income we are 
going to have coming in over the next 10 years. We determined that that 
is about $28 billion, $29 billion. Out of that, we will have a $5.6 
trillion surplus. Out of that $5.6 trillion surplus, we are going to 
take $3.1 trillion off because of trust funds--Social Security: Save 
Social Security income just for Social Security, Medicare money just 
for Medicare. And then we have money for a $1.6 trillion tax cut. Every 
American who pays income tax will get a tax cut. Every American who is 
at a $35,000 income--a family of four--will have a 100-percent tax 
reduction. A family of four at $50,000 will have a 50-percent tax 
reduction. Six million people who are now paying taxes won't pay any 
taxes after this program is passed.

  When we are all done passing this legislation, the wealthy, the 
higher income people of America, will actually be paying a higher share 
of the total income tax money coming into the Federal Treasury than 
before under present law.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes, I will.
  Mr. SANTORUM. The Senator made a point that I think has to be 
emphasized because you hear a lot of comments that this is a ``tax 
break for the rich'' or this is ``benefiting the wealthy.'' But the 
Senator said something that is probably the most important point of 
this entire debate about fairness. That is, if you look at all the 
taxes being paid and who pays them before the tax cut, and look at all 
the taxes being paid and who pays them after the tax cut, what he said 
is vitally important for people to understand. Would the Senator repeat 
what happens to the tax burden?
  This tax burden was set back in 1993 when we in the Senate raised the 
top tax bracket and President Clinton signed the bill that shifted the 
tax burden to higher income individuals, creating another rate at the 
top and, at the same time, increasing the top income tax credit which 
goes to people who don't pay income tax. So we raised taxes on people 
in higher income brackets and took that money and gave it to people who 
don't pay income taxes. At that point, Democrats said the distribution 
of taxes between the wealthy and lower income was now fair. What the 
Senator is saying is we are going to now take this fair distribution 
and change it. How are we going to change it?

[[Page S2183]]

  Mr. GRASSLEY. When we are all done passing the proposal the President 
has put before Congress, we will actually have the high-income people 
of America paying a higher percentage of the income tax coming into the 
Federal Treasury than right now.
  Mr. SANTORUM. So when the Democrats, in 1993, said, ``We have now 
fixed the Tax Code; we have now changed it so higher income individuals 
are going to pay more of their fair share''--I think that was the 
term--and that ``we have a fair Tax Code''--I heard that over and over 
again--what the Senator is suggesting is that we are going to make it 
even fairer by shifting the burden even more, and the argument on the 
other side is that isn't fair enough. Their argument is that we need to 
increase taxes even more on higher income individuals.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Yes. Let me tell you why we don't hear that from the 
other side. They talk about tax cuts, but they don't have a passion for 
tax cuts. They talk about reducing the national debt, but they don't 
have a passion for reducing the national debt. What they have a passion 
for is muddying the waters, maintaining the status quo, keeping the 
high level of taxation we have today, so that when we have 20.6 percent 
of the gross national product coming into the Federal Treasury in taxes 
today, at the highest level in the history of the country--if we 
maintain the status quo, in 10 years it will be at 22.7 percent. They 
are going to be able to spend that. They have a passion for spending. 
That is why they do not like this program that gives every working man 
and woman in America, every taxpayer in America who pays income taxes, 
a tax cut, and it has a larger share of tax cuts for lower and middle-
income people than for higher income people.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I thank the Senator for his clarification.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, we will have $28 trillion coming into 
the Federal Treasury over the next 10 years. We are taking $3.1 
trillion of that off the table for Social Security. Social Security 
money will only be spent on Social Security, and Medicare money will 
only be spent on Medicare.

  We have the $1.6 trillion tax cut because Americans are overtaxed. We 
are going to give tax relief to every taxpayer.
  We have $900 billion left over. That is a rainy day fund. When they 
raise questions, as they have just now, on the other side of the 
aisle--Will we be able to afford it? Will we have the money for 
prescription drugs for seniors in America?--we will have a plan that 
will give universal coverage to seniors in America. It will be 
affordable, and we will improve Medicare so that Medicare fits the 
practice of medicine today. When it was passed in 1965, the practice of 
medicine was to put everybody in the hospital. Today, the practice of 
medicine is to keep people out of the hospital.
  Obviously, prescription drugs are a big part of why not so many 
people are going the expensive route of hospitalization.
  I hope it is clear that this is well thought out, and we will be able 
to do the things we have said we would do. If we do nothing and that 
money is in the pockets of Congressmen and Senators in Washington, it 
is surely burning a hole, and if it is burning a hole, it has to be 
spent.
  If we keep up the level of spending that recent remarks indicate we 
ought to, at 6 percent growth each of the last 3 years, and continue 
that for 10 years instead of a $1.6 trillion tax relief, we will not 
only eat up the $1.6 trillion, we will eat up a half trillion dollars 
more. Then we get that level of expenditure up to where we are now at 
20.6 percent of gross national product, and we see a downturn in the 
economy about which these nervous nellies are concerned.
  The income is going to go down but the expenditures never go down. We 
do not operate as a business in the sense of when there is a change of 
income, we change our spending behavior.
  That is what needs to be considered by everybody. By having a surplus 
of only 5.6 percent of the $28 trillion coming in over the next 10 
years, a little bit less than one-third is going to go to the 
taxpayers, some of it is for a rainy day, and the rest of it is to keep 
our commitment to Social Security and Medicare.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to respond to the statements 
that have been made by my friend from Iowa, as well as the Senator from 
Pennsylvania. I think the Senator from Iowa realizes the honest 
measurement of the size of the Federal Government is the proportion of 
the gross domestic product--the total value of goods and services in 
America--against the amount we spend in the Federal Government.
  When President Bush's father left office, we were spending 22 percent 
of our gross domestic product on the Federal Government. During the 
Clinton years, that was reduced to 18 percent. We have seen a steady 
decline in the size of Government against the size of America's 
economy.
  We have to ask ourselves: Is this a trend which we should criticize? 
I think not. It is a good trend. We have shown we can be more 
efficient, but when the Senator from Iowa stands before us and supports 
plans, as I do, for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, that 
will be more Federal spending. He and I will support that. We believe 
the seniors and disabled across America are entitled to it.
  We have to make sure we reserve enough money, in terms of what our 
plans are for tax cuts and deficits and debt reduction, so we can still 
make investments to make sure there is a prescription drug benefit 
under Medicare.
  Let me add another point. The Senator from Iowa understands as well 
as anyone that we are going to face a balloon payment in Social 
Security and Medicare when the baby boomers all show up. If we do not 
make plans right now to protect Medicare and Social Security, we will 
find ourselves without the resources to take care of these people. We 
made a promise that throughout their working lives, if they paid into 
Social Security and Medicare, it would be there when they needed it. We 
are not providing for that with President Bush's tax cut. In fact, in 
order to fund his tax cut, he has to reach into the Medicare trust fund 
and take out money. If you take the money out of this trust fund, it 
will not be there when the baby boomers show up. The balloon payment 
will be there.
  We will have to pay it to keep our contract with the American people, 
and the President's tax cut and his strategy will have eaten up the 
Medicare trust fund.
  Senator Conrad of North Dakota is going to offer an amendment to 
protect the Medicare trust fund, and Members on both sides of the aisle 
will have a chance to stand up and say: We are not going to raid the 
Medicare trust fund to pay for President Bush's tax cut. I am anxious 
to see how that vote comes out.
  If Members of Congress believe as strongly as I do about protecting 
Medicare and Social Security, then they should vote in favor of Senator 
Conrad's amendment, which will be offered this afternoon.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DURBIN. I will be happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mr. REID. One of the points the Senator from Illinois made during his 
initial statement was that he believes it is time we had a bipartisan 
agreement on the budget and on taxes generally.
  I heard the Senator say--and I am commenting on the comment my friend 
from Iowa, the chairman of the very important Finance Committee, made--
we are talking negatively. I say to my friend from Iowa, the Senator 
from Nevada and the Senator from Illinois are talking about the 
economy. We are talking about the need to do something about it.

  If we, with a 50-50 Senate, butt heads here, we are going to get 
nothing done.
  Will the Senator elaborate a little bit on one of his initial 
statements that we need to work on a bipartisan agreement to come up 
with something that is good for the American people?
  Mr. DURBIN. The Senator understands President Bush was elected 
promising he was going to change the tone in Washington--more civil and 
more bipartisan. I actually thought he got off to a good start. He 
invited Democratic Congressmen and Senators to the White House. They 
had a good time. They watched movies, he gave them all nicknames, and 
it looked as if it was going to be a great change in atmosphere.

[[Page S2184]]

  In the last week or two, things have not improved. They have gone the 
other way: The decision in the House of Representatives by the 
Republican leadership on the tax cut vote they would not even allow 
amendments from Democrats or Republicans on the floor. They allowed one 
substitute vote. Their hearings in the Ways and Means Committee did not 
allow any bipartisan exchange.
  Frankly, I do not think that is in keeping with the President's 
promise of more bipartisanship. It is going to occur over here. There 
will be a real debate on taxes in the Senate. Senator Grassley, as 
chairman of the Finance Committee, is going to provide an opportunity 
for amendments and discussion in his committee. We will have a chance 
to offer amendments on the floor, and a 50-50 Senate finally will 
debate this bill.
  The last week has not been promising. The decision of the President 
to go to the home State of the minority leader, Tom Daschle, was an 
interesting choice. I do not think it was the best political decision 
for a President preaching bipartisanship, but it was his decision. I 
hope we can return to his promise of bipartisanship.
  I guess the Senator from Nevada heard the comment of the Senator from 
Pennsylvania a few minutes ago about the decision in 1993 by the 
Clinton administration to put together a package to do something about 
our deficits. That package, which passed in the House and the Senate, 
did not have a single Republican in support of it. Many of the 
Republicans who are saying President Bush's tax cut is the best 
medicine for America also voted against President Clinton's plan in 
1993.
  That plan turned it around. We got out of the deficit mentality and 
deficit experience and started creating surpluses.
  The Senator from Pennsylvania talked earlier about the unfair tax 
burden. I will read from the same New Yorker article I quoted earlier 
about that tax plan in 1993:

       From 1992, the year before a supposedly onerous new 
     marginal tax rate kicked in, through 1998, the most recent 
     figure for which the IRS has information available, the 
     average after-tax income of the richest 1 percent in America 
     rose from $400,000 to just under $600,000--

  That is in a 6-year period of time.

     and from 12.2 percent of the national net income to 15.7 
     percent.

  Our friends on the Republican side do not want to acknowledge that we 
not only put a plan in place that ended the deficits in this country 
but also created income, wealth, and prosperity, the likes of which we 
have not seen in modern history. Now comes President Bush saying I want 
to return to the concept that I tried in Texas, where I started with a 
surplus, put in a tax cut, and ended up with a deficit.

  Excuse me if many Members of the Senate are skeptical of that 
approach.

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