[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 16 (Monday, February 4, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S450]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SPENDING CONTROL

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the American people are deeply unhappy 
with the way Washington operates these days. They are tired of people 
telling them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. 
They are tired of all of the political games and gimmicks that 
substitute for real action on the problems we face as a Nation. Given 
what we have seen from the White House and Congressional Democrats, 
frankly, it is hard to blame them. As I have said repeatedly in recent 
weeks, we need to find a way to control runaway Federal spending and 
debt. We need to do it quickly. This is absolutely essential if we are 
to avoid a European-style catastrophe. It is what we need to do if we 
are serious about removing government obstacles that stand in the way 
of a robust recovery and new jobs.
  Reducing the debt will throw off a wet blanket that has been weighing 
on our economy for entirely too long. This is a serious challenge. It 
demands serious spending reforms from both parties here in Washington. 
Yet if you were to listen to the Democrats, you would think all of our 
ills could be solved by raising taxes on private jets or energy 
companies.
  These are not real solutions. They are poll-tested gimmicks. Just 
take the tax hike on so-called corporate jets. It would not raise 
enough revenue to offset more than 1 week--1 week--of the decade-long 
sequester--1 week. Of course, anytime you have a tax hike, there are 
going to be negative repercussions for growth and jobs. We do not have 
to look too far into the past to see how disruptive those consequences 
can be. In 1990, Washington politicians tried to enact a ``luxury tax'' 
on just about everything you could associate with the upper class, 
including yachts and aircraft. It was a total failure. Not only was it 
linked to the destruction of literally thousands of jobs in the boating 
industry, but, according to one study, the government actually--listen 
to this--spent more in unemployment benefits and in lost taxes than it 
was able to raise through the luxury tax itself. In other words, while 
the tax may have seemed to serve as a useful wedge issue for Democratic 
politicians, it made just about everyone worse off than they were 
before it passed. Workers, consumers, taxpayers, and the government 
were all worse off. That is why a number of Members of today's Senate 
Democratic caucus voted to repeal that particular tax a few years later 
in 1993. They even agreed to send refund checks to some of those 
impacted by it.
  So why are they proposing to go down this same sorry road one more 
time? Well, in a variation of the old saying, you can conclude that 
they do not want the facts to get in the way of a good political 
talking point.
  But the larger point is this: The challenge we face right now is the 
fact that government spending is completely and totally out of control. 
So to focus on a tax of any kind is to miss the point entirely. The 
amount of revenue we bring in as a percentage of GDP is set to return 
to the historical average of the past few decades. Spending, on the 
other hand, is way above historic norms, and spending is projected to 
actually get much worse in the years to come; that is, unless we do 
something about it today.
  The American people elected a divided government. They expect it to 
work. That means both parties need to engage and offer serious 
solutions. Proposing a return to failed tax gimmicks of the past is not 
by any measure a serious solution. If White House officials want to 
replace the same sequester they themselves proposed in 2011, it is 
their responsibility to lay out what concrete spending cuts they would 
be willing to consider as potential offsets, as House Republicans 
already have. If they do, then we Republicans are happy to hear them 
out and to work collaboratively on effective reforms. But if this is 
just another opportunity to trot out the Democrats' focus-group-
approved policy stunt, if this is another fake fight designed by the 
White House to push us to the brink, then Republicans are not 
interested in playing along. We are going to keep fighting for real 
spending reform, because that is what the American people expect us to 
do.
  Every day spent talking about corporate jets is a day wasted. Given 
that the President again missed the deadline to submit a budget on time 
this year, there is not much time to spare. The clock is ticking. It is 
past time to get serious.
  I yield the floor.

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