[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 164 (Monday, December 13, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8838-S8839]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     BIPARTISAN TAX CUT COMPROMISE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, over the past few years, the American 
people have been engaged in a great national debate about the proper 
role of government. This debate is as old as our Nation itself, but it 
has reemerged with new intensity amidst a prolonged economic downturn 
that continues to affect millions of Americans.
  On the one side are those who argue the solution to our present 
troubles lies in giving more to Washington. They say if only Washington 
had more power, we could have averted these challenges altogether; and 
the only way to get us out of this and to put us on stronger economic 
footing is to hand over more of our freedoms--and more of our 
paychecks--to Washington.
  On the other side of this debate are those who say in order for 
individuals to prosper and move up the economic ladder, they must be 
free to take risks. They must be free to fail. They argue for 
government limits and restraint and for making as many decisions as 
possible close to home.
  Now, it is no secret most Americans fall into the second group. 
Whenever asked, most Americans say they will take a system of free 
enterprise and limited government over the alternative any day. But, 
occasionally, people find the first group's message appealing, too, 
especially in times of distress. That is why 2 years ago, Americans 
chose what they viewed as the safer route. Yet since then many have 
come to regret that decision.
  We have all seen the deep discontent with Washington spread over the 
last year and a half as lawmakers here assumed more and more authority 
and spent more and more taxpayer money on wasteful projects and dubious 
long-term programs which couldn't possibly deliver what Democratic 
leaders said they would. Early last month, we watched as Americans told 
Democratic leaders in Washington they had had enough of their 2-year 
experiment in big government. On election day, our debate about 
government took yet another turn, and the bipartisan compromise the 
White House agreed to last week on taxes is a clear sign that it has 
had an impact.

  In some ways, it has shifted the debate entirely. Here is how: For 2 
years, Democrats in Washington have argued that the solution to our 
Nation's economic problems is to give bureaucrats in Washington 
trillions of dollars and then have them spend it for us. But with this 
bipartisan compromise, we are taking a different approach. We are 
telling the American people to keep money that is rightfully theirs so 
they can spend it and invest it as they please. This is an important 
shift, and the White House should be applauded for agreeing to it.
  There are parts of this agreement I don't like such as the Democrats' 
insistence that we borrow the money we need to pay for a further 
extension of unemployment insurance. In my view, if both parties agree 
the debt is a serious problem, we shouldn't be writing checks we don't 
have the money to cover.
  Yet, in another way, this bipartisan compromise represents an 
essential first step in tackling the debt because in keeping taxes 
where they are, we are officially cutting off that spigot. Taxes are 
going to stay right where they are for the next 2 years, and until we 
did that, Democrats in Washington were never going to be serious about 
cutting spending or debt. As long as more revenue was coming in, they 
would always have an excuse to spend more. With this agreement, Members 
of Congress no longer have that excuse.
  History is very clear on that point. From World War II through 2009, 
every dollar of new tax revenue that the government has collected has 
been associated with $1.17 in new spending. This means for decades, 
lawmakers in both parties have spent every dime of revenue that came in 
from taxpayers, then borrowed a little bit more on top of it to set a 
higher baseline for the next year.
  But the American people have caught on to the game and they have had 
it. They know the root of our problem lies not in the fact that 
Washington taxes too little but that it spends too much. They want the 
wasteful spending to stop.
  Mark my words, if Republicans had gone along with the Democratic plan 
on taxes, they would have done the same thing they have always done. 
They would have spent it all, and then some. They had no intention of 
using any new tax revenue to pay down the

[[Page S8839]]

debt. The President has already said he has better ways to spend the 
taxpayers' money than they do.
  Nobody expected the same Democrats who more than tripled the deficit 
to suddenly get serious about cutting it if they expected more tax 
revenue to come in next year as a result of higher taxes. So it never 
made sense to take money from job creators in order to hand it over to 
politicians who would only waste it. Nobody ever created a job by 
punishing a job creator, and we simply had to turn off the spigot--not 
from some but from everyone--to remove the temptation to spend it.
  For the past 2 years, Democrats in Washington worked hand in hand 
with the White House spending trillions we didn't have on programs 
Americans didn't want. They wrote future budgets presuming Americans 
would agree to a tax hike to pay for it all. They cashed the checks 
before Americans had even written them like an employee who demands a 
raise on the grounds that he and his wife had already budgeted for a 
speed boat and a three-car garage. But the American people have 
rebelled against this way of doing business, and now we are going to 
move in another direction.
  Some may continue to deny that Washington has a spending problem. 
Those are the people who are still out there arguing for a tax hike. 
But the only argument they appear to be making is that it is only fair 
for certain people to be punished with higher taxes.
  I have heard a lot of Democrats in recent days say this group or that 
group doesn't ``deserve'' to have their current tax rates extended. 
But, of course, that has always been a losing argument in America. You 
can count me among those who want everybody in this country to succeed, 
and I suspect most Americans agree with that.
  There may be some in Washington who are only satisfied if somebody or 
some group loses out, which either means they think there is a finite 
amount of success to be had out there, which is nonsense, or they are 
looking for an excuse to spend more money on turtle tunnels or 
researching the drug preferences of monkeys. But either way, Americans 
aren't interested in that point of view.
  Americans aren't interested in scapegoats. They are interested in 
regaining our prosperity. They have lost faith in government's ability 
to get us through with more and more government spending. With this 
bipartisan compromise, we are finally giving these people a voice in 
this debate.
  So today's vote is a step in the right direction. But it is only a 
first step. Unless we use it to pivot to the deficit and the debt, we 
will have only pushed the larger problem down the road, and no one sent 
us here to do that. It is time to come together to cut the debt in the 
same way we have come together to prevent a tax hike. It won't be easy, 
but we have laid the groundwork. I will vote in favor of this 
bipartisan compromise, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate and in 
the House to do the same.

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