[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 8 (Wednesday, February 6, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           PARTISAN POLITICS

  Mr. MILLER. Mr. President, I hear today we are about to have a 
funeral, that the stimulus bill is on life support, and that the plug 
will be pulled sometime today. The cause of death? Partisan politics. 
It is a shame, although perhaps the money can now be applied to the 
deficit, which has concerned some of us, and we will be closer to a 
balanced budget.
  The soon-to-be-deceased could have been saved. We had a reasonable 
compromise right before we adjourned for Christmas. The President 
supported it. Some Democrats, including this one, supported it. It had 
a majority of the votes in the Senate. Right now, if it had passed, it 
could have already been signed, the rebates could be being prepared, a 
reasonable health care benefit could have been a reality--such promise. 
Who was it who wrote that the saddest words of word or pen are that it 
might have been--something like that?
  This week we could have made the tax cut permanent. We could have 
added a capital gains tax cut. That is what Senator Gramm and I have 
advocated for some time.
  No one ever stated so well how powerful an effect a cut in the 
capital gains tax could have on the economy as a Democrat, President 
John F. Kennedy. I quote:

       The tax on capital gains directly affects investment 
     decisions . . . the mobility and flow of risk capital from 
     static to more dynamic situations . . . the ease or 
     difficulty experienced by new ventures in obtaining capital . 
     . . and thereby the strength and potential for growth of the 
     economy.

  That was Jack Kennedy, not the Washington Times or the Wall Street 
Journal or Lawrence Kudlow or Phil Gramm or Bob Novak. That was John 
Kennedy, a Democrat.
  Over the years, he was not the only member of my party who advocated 
cutting the capital gains tax as a good way to stimulate the economy. 
Senator Patrick Moynihan, that wise and brilliant former Member of this 
body, consistently advocated it over the years.
  What history shows is that, once upon a time, Democrats were tax 
cutters. I wish I could bring that time back. I rise today to strongly 
advocate making the tax cut we passed last year permanent and to cut 
the capital gains tax rate.
  Unfortunately, the tax cut we passed last year, although it was a 
great tax cut, was compromised on its way to final passage. What 
started out as a broad, immediate, and permanent tax cut became one 
where some of the tax relief is delayed by several years. Then to add 
insult to injury, the whole thing is to be repealed in 2010.
  We do something that, to my knowledge, Congress never had the gall to 
do before on a broad basis. We sunset individual tax cuts. We have done 
that several times with business tax revisions. But to individuals, to 
families, we have never done it where we gave them their money back and 
then took it away again later. That is playing games with our 
taxpayers. We should never do that. Eliminate the uncertainty of this 
tax cut and you will stimulate our economy. How can anyone make any 
long-range plans for a business or for a family with a here-today, 
maybe-gone-tomorrow tax cut, a tax cut that has a perishable date on it 
like a quart of milk?
  The fastest way to show taxpayers we are serious about tax relief--
the only way, really--is to make the tax cut permanent. The fastest way 
to prompt businesses to expand and to invest is to cut the capital 
gains rate from 20 to 15 percent. We are not in a slump just because 
consumer sales are down. We are in a slump because venture capital fell 
74 percent in the past year. Capital spending by businesses is at its 
lowest in decades.
  As Senator Gramm said, every time we have cut the capital gains 
rate--every time--tax revenues have risen, not fallen, and asset values 
have always shot up.
  Today a capital gains tax cut would bring even better results because 
today's stock market is no longer the playground of the rich. Almost 
half of all Americans now own stock, and almost a third--one out of 
three--who earn less than $30,000 a year own stock. Aren't those the 
people whom we Democrats say we want to help? The American middle class 
has become, for the first time in our history, the American investment 
class.
  So as I eulogize this soon-to-be-deceased, I think of the bruised and 
battered Marlon Brando's ``On The Waterfront''--what could have been. 
We could have had a contender.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Corzine). The Senator from Missouri.

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