[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 636]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 SOCIAL SECURITY, EDUCATION, AND TAXES

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to address 
this body for the first time in this legislative session. We will have 
an exciting session full of business that the American people need 
conducted in this body.
  I am particularly excited about the opportunity for us to deal with 
issues such as Social Security, creating a real Social Security trust 
fund instead of robbing from that trust fund, as has taken place for so 
many years. That money needs to be saved, needs to be used, needs to be 
kept for the senior citizens or those soon to retire in this Nation. In 
this legislative session we have that opportunity to create that new 
Social Security trust fund. That is the top agenda item for the 
Republicans in the U.S. Senate: Social Security preservation and 
protection. We need to fight and get it done and do it in a bipartisan 
fashion.
  Second is education, emphasizing local control of education. The 
notion of creating a national school board is not one that many of us 
are too enthusiastic about, feeling as if we have too much control out 
of Washington and not enough local control, not enough people on a 
localized basis saying here is what we need to do with education, and 
the notion that we are going to create a national school board is one 
that a number of us would be opposed to. But helping local units of 
government get access to Federal funds, more access to put more of that 
money in the classroom, is something many of us would be very 
supportive of and be excited about doing, and we are going to attack 
that tough issue of education to make the schools of this country 
better for the children of this country.
  Third is taxes. Taxes are too high. It is time to reduce the marginal 
rates. It is time to eliminate the marriage penalty that is a penalty 
on married couples in this country. That is a ridiculous tax, if you 
think about it and the difficulties we are facing as a nation. Those 
three top items--Social Security, education, taxes--are lead items the 
Republican Senate is going to be putting forward, and I look forward to 
a hearty session full of those meaty items, dealt with, hopefully, in a 
bipartisan fashion. I welcome colleagues from the other side of the 
aisle to help us in solving those difficult issues.

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