[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 18610]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         REPUBLICAN TAX RELIEF

  (Mr. ROYCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, the Republican Congress has reduced the debt 
by 51 billion this last year, by 102 billion as the sum that we will 
reduce the debt by this year. Over the next 10 years under the budget 
plan that we have put forward, we will reduce it by another $2 
trillion.
  Now the question that we are actually debating is whether we should 
use $1 out of every 4 of the surplus, of the budget surplus, in order 
to also give some tax relief, because as my colleagues know, what the 
Republicans want to do is to eliminate the marriage penalty and give a 
10 percent reduction on tax rates as well as phase down the death tax 
and reduce the capital gains tax. The question is whether we will use 
this $1 out of every 4 in the extra surplus to give this tax relief or 
whether the President and the administration is going to get its way 
and spend the additional dollars. They are not going to use it to pay 
down the debt; they want more social spending.
  Mr. Speaker, to that end, let me just remind my colleagues we have a 
trigger that if the surplus starts to decline, we do not phase in our 
tax reductions.
  So I wanted to make that point clear.

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