[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20941-20942]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              CHUMP CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who preceded me in the well 
said it very well. He said he talked about American people getting 
change back, and that, in fact, is what the Republican tax bill would 
provide for the vast majority of Americans. He then went on to say:
  Hello? Should not the wealthy people get back more? They pay more.
  But guess what? They have already gotten their tax cuts.
  A study that was just published yesterday and is coming to the 
attention of the Congress and the American people shows that because of 
the tax cuts back in the 1970s and the 1980s the wealthiest 1 percent 
of the American people have already realized an average tax cut of 
$40,000 a year from their 1977 tax rate, $40,000 a year. That is more 
than two-thirds of the American people earn for an entire year let 
alone pay in taxes, and he is saying: Of course those people should get 
more tax relief.
  Why should they get more tax relief? Their average tax bill is 
already greatly reduced from the tax bill that was assessed against 
those same incomes in this country 20 years ago.

[[Page 20942]]

  But in order to provide that tax relief, guess what? Programs that 
most American families value whether it is the Veterans Administration 
which we are debating today on the floor of the House, today and again 
tomorrow, which, yes, they have made it whole in terms of last year's 
budget, but guess what? There is not enough money there to cover the 
aging World War II vets and the care they need and my generation, the 
Vietnam vets. There is not enough money in that budget. But that money 
will not be appropriated.
  They are actually cutting housing. Is America well housed? Does the 
average young family who wants to have an opportunity to get into what 
is record-priced housing in the western United States, in my district 
and elsewhere? Are they getting a little bit of help from the 
government that they could use to get into that first house? Are other 
families over housed or well housed in the middle third or so of the 
incomes in this country? Those programs are being cut.
  Medicare is being cut. The home health program is a disgrace; the 
cuts that were put into place 2 years ago, which I voted against, but a 
majority here and, sadly, a large number of Democrats voted for and the 
President signed is still going to be dramatically underfunded, and 
home health care benefits will not be extended to millions of seniors 
who need them in order to give a tax cut to the wealthiest 1 percent of 
the American people who have already gotten a very generous tax cut 
over the last 20 years.
  Mr. Speaker, the result of all this is that we are seeing an 
unprecedented concentration of wealth in that 1 percent. More than 40 
percent of the wealth in this country, levels not seen since the great 
depression are owned by 1 percent of the people, and the response of 
the gentleman from Georgia is: Hello? They should get their taxes cut 
more so they can accumulate an even bigger portion of the pie while 
middle-income families have both parents working and still cannot 
afford to send their kids to college without the kid incurring a huge 
mountain of debt, while seniors are not able to pay for their 
prescription drugs and cannot get the home health care they need, while 
our veterans go unserved. All those things will be reduced so that 
those people, hello, that top 1 percent who are suffering horribly, 
and, you know, they are paying only 20 percent less taxes than they 
paid 20 years ago in this country who are accumulating unprecedented 
amounts of wealth so they can see yet another tax cut.
  This is change, chump change for average American workers. For the 
vast majority of people in this country the Republican tax bill 
delivers, as the gentleman said, change, chump change, 116 bucks a year 
for two-thirds of the American workers on average, many of them getting 
nothing, but $116 on average per year for people earning less than 
$34,000 a year. But yet, if you earn over $350,000 a year, you will get 
a $31,800 tax cut, more than most of those other families earn 
altogether.
  Do those people, are they suffering? Are they struggling to make ends 
meet on $350,000 a year? Do they really need that tax cut? Do we have 
to reduce those programs in order to deliver that tax cut? Do we need 
such an unfair tax cut? If you want to have a tax cut that is fair, let 
us reduce the burden of the FICA tax, the Social Security tax. You 
could do that. You could actually do that and still safeguard Social 
Security. That would provide tax relief to 96 percent of wage-earning 
Americans in a bill I have proposed.
  But guess what? It does not help out those people in the top 1 
percent, those earning over $350,000 a year who are paying almost 80 
percent of the level of taxes that they paid 20 years ago. They need 
more tax relief. That is the bottom line in the Republican bill. It is 
delivering to the people who fund their campaigns, it is delivering to 
the people who run the corporations that fund their campaigns, and it 
is delivering, as the gentleman said, chump change to average 
Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to reject the Republican tax bill, I am certain 
the President will veto it, and let us get back to reality here in 
Washington, get back to our work, fund the veterans programs, fund the 
housing programs, set up fair priorities and give tax relief to average 
families who could use a tax break because they are not even keeping up 
with inflation.

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