[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14641]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR THE TAXPAYERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOSSELLA. Mr. Speaker, in today's papers across the country 
typically it would be among the leading stories, if not the leading 
story, was that the Federal Government is now awash in a trillion 
dollar surplus.
  Now I have been here a year and a half, and it is amazing how many 
projections there are when it comes to the budget surplus. It seems as 
if every month there is a new projection, and I have a feeling, if we 
wait long enough, it will be a zillion dollar surplus.
  The point is that with the American people and I would hope that 
Members on either side of the aisle here remember is that those 
surpluses are the results of the hard work of the American taxpayer, 
whether it is from where I am from in Staten Island or Brooklyn, 
anywhere across New York and across this country. It is the folks who 
get up every morning 5, 6 o'clock, working two, sometimes three jobs, 
to put food on their table, to send their children to school, to pay 
the mortgage on their house, and then enough left over to send to Uncle 
Sam.
  And I understand the temptation in Washington for the most part to 
spend that money, and by the way, when you project a lot, you get to 
spend a lot. I would hope that we would exercise responsibility, 
understand that the basis for the surplus is not because in the last 
several years the Congress, controlled by the Republicans, has spent so 
much money, but has taken the responsible approach of not spending all 
the taxpayer money, and the seeds of this prosperity I would argue were 
sowed in the eighties, when we cut taxes, when we decided that 
regulations or too much regulation, only stifled productivity and 
creativity and inhibited growth, and I think that is what laid the 
foundation to this surplus.
  Now there are those who can argue that, well, we raised taxes, and 
that is why we have a huge surplus. What I think that does is 
underestimates the American people. We need to understand that when we 
lower taxes, when we reduce regulation, when we allow the American 
taxpayer, the small business owner, employee or the employer, to 
unleash their spirit to produce and to create and, yes, to give back to 
their local community; that is the America that we should all be proud 
of, not when we sit in Washington and say how are we going to divvy up 
this trillion dollars that the people across this country are working 
so hard to generate?
  We are fortunate enough these days that there is a lot of prosperity 
around, but the best days lie ahead, and again I can only urge those in 
Congress and in the White House that it is the taxpayer money that we 
are the stewards of here, and it is our obligation to do what is 
responsible, to promote economic growth and to lower taxes when we can, 
and if we want to keep this economy growing, we use a big chunk of this 
so-called surplus to cut taxes.
  And there is a lot of proposals on the table. The elimination of the 
marriage penalty tax or the capital gains tax to spur investment, which 
is a tax on capital. I would like to see a reduction in the personal 
income tax across the board, so that way any American who pays taxes 
receives a benefit, or, in short, more of their hard-earned money in 
their pocket because frankly when we provide the freedom and the 
liberty and the opportunity to the hard-working American to spend his 
or her hard-earned money as they see fit on their vacation or their 
child's education or a second home or whatever they desire, we are 
doing the right thing for America, the right thing for the taxpayer, 
and I hope in the days ahead the Congress and the White House 
recognizes the seeds of that prosperity are not sown here in Washington 
but across Main Street, across this great country of ours, the United 
States of America.

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