[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 AN IRRESPONSIBLE FINANCIAL FREEDOM ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 4 minutes.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, let me just say that I want to associate 
myself fully with the remarks just made by my Republican colleague, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns). He made some excellent points.
  Though it may not have been intended, I think he makes a very 
compelling case for how extremely irresponsible the Republican so-
called Financial Freedom Act is that is to be presented on this floor 
tomorrow.
  I, as a person who has for the last several sessions been among the 
leading deficit hawks, according to the Concord Coalition, refer to the 
comments of the founders of that organization, Warren Rudman, a former 
Republican Senator who wrote just within the last week remarks very 
similar to our Republican colleague, the gentleman from Florida, in 
saying that the surplus is only a projection that cannot be spent.
  If spending is increased, and he adds something my colleague, the 
gentleman from Florida, failed to mention, our taxes are cut based on 
the expectation of large surpluses, and the projection turns out to be 
wrong, deficits easily could reappear where surpluses are now forecast. 
Most economists have therefore advised that the best thing to do with 
the surplus is to pay down the debt, or to deal with this problem of 
the retirement security through security accounts.
  I believe that is correct. If we are to dissipate a surplus that may 
not even exist over the course of the next 10 years, we will be back 
into the years of Reagan red ink, where we have more and more deficits 
which we are finally, through responsible policies, being able to work 
ourselves out of.
  I think, though there is substantial competition in this Congress, it 
is very difficult to find anything more irresponsible than the so-
called Financial Freedom Act. It is really a bill that ought to be 
called ``the Freedom From Financial Reality Act,'' because it 
disregards the very realities our colleague, the gentleman from 
Florida, has just been pointing to.
  This bill proposes to have essentially a $1 trillion tax cut. It is 
the equivalent, in terms of financial responsibility, of our Republican 
colleagues piloting the SS Titanic through the deficits ahead, and the 
dance band playing the tune of ``We don't believe in icebergs,'' or in 
this case, ``We don't believe in deficits.''
  So irresponsible has their path been that they now find themselves 
proposing to reduce their own tax cut I think it is by approximately 
$72 billion, because they have exceeded their own irresponsible budget 
resolution, as noted by our colleagues across the Capitol.
  But shaving off $72 billion from a bill that is as irresponsible as 
the one our House Republican colleagues have proposed is little more 
than the equivalent of tossing the deck chairs off the Titanic after 
the iceberg has been hit.
  We face very perilous times if this Republican proposal is advanced, 
because it threatens the very security of our economic expansion. We 
have an unparalleled economic expansion going on at present in this 
country. Families all throughout this Nation have benefited in varying 
degrees, many just now beginning to share in the benefits of this 
economic expansion, and to threaten that by going back to the old 
deficit approach I think would be a real mistake.
  It is that same threat of irresponsible action in this Republican tax 
bill that also jeopardizes our ability to assure the security of 
Medicare and social security, and to address the concerns that our 
colleague, the gentleman from West Virginia, just raised about the lack 
of prescription drugs and the discrimination against seniors with 
reference to prescription drugs.
  All of these issues are at stake in this battle over the Republican 
tax bill. Indeed, it is not only our colleague, the gentleman from 
Florida, but the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, 
who has addressed this issue as he came before our Committee on Ways 
and Means.
  He had pointed out that, ``It would be a serious mistake to avoid 
reducing the surpluses and to yield to the short-term political 
temptation of a tax cut.'' I urge the rejection of this Republican 
mistake.

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