[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17017]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         SHARE OF TAX PAYMENTS REMAINS UNCHANGED UNDER GOP PLAN

  (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleagues to look at this 
graph. The folks on this side of the aisle say the tax cut is for the 
wealthy, but let me show my colleagues: the yellow line is before tax 
cuts, the red is after tax cuts. If one is making $10,000 to $20,000, 
one is only paying 2 percent of the overall taxes for this country and 
that is the same before or after our tax cuts, and if one is making 
$100,000 and above, one is paying 46 percent of the tax burden of this 
Nation, before tax cuts or after tax cuts.
  So our proposal that these folks are saying are for the wealthy makes 
no difference in how much these folks pay after or before our tax cuts. 
So in the main, one has to realize that the burden of this tax is going 
to those folks that are very wealthy, who are making between $100 and 
$200,000. So when we hear on that side of the aisle that this is tax 
cuts for the wealthy, I say that the wealthy are going to continue to 
pay 46 percent of the tax burden before our tax cut or after our tax 
cut.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask the Democrats, can someone on this side of the 
aisle tell us what part of the tax burden they should pay?

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