[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17020]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                                TAX BILL

  (Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, a Member of the Republican 
Party yesterday called the vote on the tax bill today a defining 
moment; and, by goodness, was he right.
  The position of the majority party can be best summarized in a 
paraphrase of the old, ``Extremism in the pursuit of a tax cut is no 
vice.'' That is the position they are taking today as a party.
  The tax bill they are proposing is the largest since 1981 when 
supply-side economics gave us an additional $3 trillion in debt. Both 
bills are based on economic assumptions which are notoriously chancy, 
and on budget projections that are just plain wrong.
  Democrats want a modest tax cut that the Nation can afford. We want 
to reserve the surplus until the issues of Social Security and 
Medicare, I repeat, Social Security and Medicare are dealt with, and 
until how we see this budget process in the end goes. We do not want to 
go back to an era of deep deficit spending, which is exactly where the 
Republican Party will take us today.
  Democrats cannot and will not vote for this bill, but it is only 
moderate elements within Republican Party today who can save us from 
it. We hope they will.

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