[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20941]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             TAX RELIEF, IT IS GOOD FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayworth). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address tonight the Republican 
budget and the tax relief package which Americans certainly deserve and 
is long overdue to them and particularly in respect to the rhetorical 
terrorism that we seem to hear from the White House.
  I guess it is the fall. Everybody is back on the football field. The 
kids are back in school and the White House hot air machine is in full 
force spreading the lies which they seem to be so good about. Now here 
we have a budget which is a three-point budget, Mr. Speaker; and 
basically what it does, as a triangle, the apex of the triangle does 
one thing, protects Social Security and Medicare, setting aside $1.9 
trillion for Social Security and Medicare protection. Unlike the 
President's proposal that he made in January of this year, standing 
right in front of where the Speaker is, saying let us put aside 62 
percent of the Social Security surplus, the Republican plan puts aside 
100 percent.
  Now, even if someone is a liberal over at the White House, they know 
that 100 percent is more than 62 percent, and this is good for your 
grandmother and my grandmother.
  So we have the first point, Social Security and Medicare is 
protected, $1.9 trillion under the Republican plan.
  The second corner of the triangle is to pay down the debt, $2.2 
trillion to pay down the debt. This budget allows us to look one's 
grandmother in the eye and say we are taking care of them and also look 
our children in the eye and say we are taking care of their future.
  Now we had a $5 trillion debt. I would love to see us pay all of that 
off but, Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the votes are not there. The 
political will is not there. I would love to see the money go to debt 
reduction, but the math in terms of getting 200 votes in the House, 51 
in the Senate and the signature of the White House is just not there. 
So we do have some debt reduction.
  Now, after we have paid that portion of the debt down in 
installments, it triggers tax relief, not only afterwards. So we have 
the $2.2 trillion in debt relief. Then we get $792 billion in tax 
relief. The way I look at that, Mr. Speaker, if someone goes to Wal-
Mart and they buy a $7 hammer, and they give the cashier $10 they 
expect their change. They do not expect the cashier to load their cart 
up with more goods and services.
  Yet that is what the liberals over at the White House want to do. 
They say the American people do not deserve their change back for their 
hard-earned pay, and I think that they do.
  This change, this tax relief, is in the form of capital gains tax 
relief, 20 to 18 percent; if someone is in the lower income bracket, 10 
to 7 percent. Income tax relief across the board, 2.9 percent for upper 
income, 7 percent for lower income. Death tax relief so that if a 
person dies they can pass their small business or family farm on to 
their children so that they too can carry on the family enterprise; and 
then marriage tax relief.
  It is ridiculous, Mr. Speaker, that we live in a society that says, 
if people get married they are going to pay more in taxes than if they 
are just living together, and yet we out of the other side of our mouth 
are talking about what a great institution marriage is. These are 
common sense, across-the-board, middle-class tax reductions, one thing 
the Democrats have trouble understanding.
  They say, yes, but the rich are going to get money out of the tax 
relief.

                              {time}  2045

  Well, as my colleagues know. Hello? Who pays taxes? If you pay taxes, 
you are going to get tax relief; I am sorry, there is no way around it. 
But that seems to be the concept wasted over there at the White House.
  So, Mr. Speaker, this is a budget that takes care of Social Security 
and Medicare first, debt relief second, and after that and only after 
that, tax relief for the hard-working middle-class Americans. It is a 
good budget.
  The President says he wants a budget that takes care of Social 
Security, Medicare, and debt relief. This is the budget for him to 
sign. I wish that he would sign it because do my colleagues know what, 
Mr. Speaker? We do not really have to be here. If the President would 
go ahead and say: You know what, this is a common sense budget; and I 
agree with my Democrat comrade and friend, Senator Bob Kerrey, the 
liberal senator who said this is reasonable, and I am going to support 
it. And if he could, we would go home, and we would not be passing a 
whole bunch of other new laws and regulations that are crippling 
American industry, American education, and school systems and hurting 
middle-class Americans.
  And that would be the greatest part. We could all go home, and I do 
not think there is anybody outside of Washington, D.C., who would 
regret Congress adjourning early.
  So, Mr. Speaker, with that let me just say I urge the President to 
get off the rhetoric, I urge the President to get into reality, and I 
urge him to sign this bill. But if he does not, at least sit down in 
good faith, and let us try to work out something because the American 
taxpayers deserve it.

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