[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 30 (Friday, February 13, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H1595]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       INDIVIDUALS ARE SUFFERING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Following up on the very thoughtful remarks of my friend, 
Mr. McCotter, I'd like to say that we all have instance after instance 
of individuals who have been suffering greatly.
  I, this morning, as we opened this debate, talked about a great 
tragedy, that being the fact that a man called my office saying that 
his young son's best friend had just informed him that his father had 
committed suicide. That's clearly the most painful story you can hear 
of the impact of what we're feeling now with this economic downturn.
  It has been absolutely devastating. Friends who've lost their homes, 
lost their jobs, lost their savings; we are dealing with what obviously 
is a very, very difficult time. That's the reason that there is such 
passion on this debate.
  Now, I quoted earlier during the debate the words of Henry Morgenthau 
who was the Secretary of the Treasury under Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
who, in 1939 after going years through the New Deal, said the following 
before the House Ways and Means Committee in testimony. He said, ``We 
have tried spending money. We're spending more than we have ever spent, 
and it does not work. I say after 8 years of this Roosevelt 
administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, 
and an enormous debt to boot.''
  Now, Mr. Speaker, that is the reason that we feel that we can't just 
say ``no.'' We know that that is not the panacea that many people 
believe that it is, and instead we need to focus on what works. And 
instance after instance, Mr. Speaker, has shown what does work.
  In 1961, President John F. Kennedy--and this underscores this great 
quest for bipartisanship--delivered a speech to the Economic Club of 
New York--actually it was a year later in 1962. And in that speech, he 
said ``to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal 
government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of 
excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the 
incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.''
  Now, those are the words, Mr. Speaker, of Democratic President John 
F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. He had just brought about broad, across-
the-board, marginal rate reduction.
  Let me tell you what that brought about, too. It brought about an 
increase in the flow of revenues to the Federal Treasury. In fact, the 
top income tax rate was cut from the 90 percent to 70 percent, and 
revenues to the Federal Government increased by 62 percent. It actually 
grew revenues to the Treasury by reducing those rates.
  Also at that same period of time, tax collections from the top 
bracket, those in the top bracket, grew by 57 percent, meaning those 
who had marginal rate reduction at the top end actually paid more in 
taxes because of the economic growth and that was juxtaposed to tax 
collections all the way across the board from the Kennedy tax cuts 
which only grew revenues by only 11 percent.
  And then, Mr. Speaker, I was very privileged to come here following 
the 1980 election, and we had the last serious economic downturn that 
we faced as a Nation, nearly three decades ago, and Ronald Reagan 
pursued the same policies that were pursued by John F. Kennedy. He 
brought about sweeping marginal rate reduction; and Mr. Speaker, that 
grew the flow of revenues to the flow of Treasury nearly doubling that 
flow of revenues.
  And the share of tax payments by the top ten percent--again, the top 
10 percent of wage earners in this country grew from had 48 percent to 
more than 57 percent. That means those in the top ten percent of income 
levels actually had an increase of nearly 10 percentage points, nearly 
10 percentage points in the flow of revenues that came in from the 
Federal Treasury--or actually they were paying more in taxes, from 48 
percent to 57 percent while the share that was borne by the top 1 
percent--the very rich--grew even more dramatically, 17 percent to 
nearly 28 percent, thus, the flow of tax payments that came from those 
people who were the very richest in this country.
  That's why, Mr. Speaker, we are arguing that the economic stimulus 
working group that was put together by Leader Boehner and shared by our 
distinguished whip Mr. Cantor used these models of proven examples, not 
the failed policies that were pointed to by Secretary Morgenthau in 
1939, but the success following the 1961 cut and the 1981 cut. That's 
why we're not simply saying ``no,'' Mr. Speaker. We are saying, let's 
put a positive economic growth package together. We're going to 
continue to fight on behalf of that.

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