[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 21104-21111]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                REPUBLICAN PLAN FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do is to take a few 
minutes this afternoon and to begin a discussion with those Members who 
have been a part of what we have been doing with economic development, 
a plan by the Republican Party, House and Senate. This plan gives us an 
opportunity

[[Page 21105]]

to lead this country into further economic development, an opportunity 
to develop not only the plans that we have had for quite some time on 
moving this country forward by stopping the deficit spending that has 
gone on, but also to turn the country to where we are able to look at 
ourselves and what we want in the future of this country so that we 
have economic development and prosperity in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to first talk to what this Congress began 
doing in 1995, after the election that took place in 1994 where we 
signed the Contract With America. Back in 1994, when the Republicans 
began the effort we called the Contract With America, we started this 
plan and idea, which I signed on to because I believed, as my 
Republican colleagues did, that it was a comprehensive way for us to 
begin the discussion about how we change the power structure from 
Washington, D.C. to move power back home; how we go about balancing the 
budget and still maintaining economic prosperity and, lastly, how we 
take the power that is in Washington and empower people back home to 
begin making their own decisions.

                              {time}  1430

  We knew in 1994, just as we do today, that money equals power, 
probably always has and probably always will, and that the people who 
have the money are the people that are the decision makers and they are 
the people that will control, many times, the destiny.
  Yet we understood that, back in 1994, the estimates were that this 
Congress, the Congress that was a Democratic Congress at that time, 
would continue not only spending every single penny that came to 
Washington, D.C., but they would also take that money and spend more 
than what we had. That was called deficit spending, creating a debt 
that would be long-term on this country. And in 1994, by and large, we 
had a debt in this country of $5.5 trillion.
  The Contract with America, which has been the baseline document for 
Republicans and this Congress to move forward on, has become really a 
contract with America that would lead to the development of where we 
are today.
  What happened as a result of that was that two different times this 
Republican Congress, understanding that welfare was a huge issue in 
this country, people on welfare needed to come and join what was going 
on not only in workplaces but would also be a better relationship that 
they would have with their families to go and create opportunities for 
those families, many times having a job where they had not had them in 
generations, and so what happened was we changed the dynamics by 
changing the law.
  What happened in that entire endeavor was we all of a sudden created 
economic opportunity. Instead of some seven million people being on 
welfare today, as they were back before 1996, there are now seven 
million people who get up every morning and leave their home and go to 
work. They go to work and they become taxpayers. They have become 
credible people that we can look at and say they have made our country 
better. Many times they may be doormen or cooks, they may be drivers, 
they may be involved in teaching our children. But they are people who 
have made a significant gain in their own personal life and for the 
life of our Nation.
  We are now at the point where these seven million people have created 
opportunities, because they are now taxpayers, to become a part of 
paying into what this country has with its system, Social Security, 
Medicare, the opportunity to pay school taxes, to have a strong voice 
because they now feel a greater responsibility, and they have been 
empowered to become a part of what we are doing.
  What has happened is that this Republican Congress went from 1996 to 
1997 and we had a package, an economic development package, it was 
called a tax cut package also, and we understood as conservatives that 
we would incent America to begin the process of wanting to not only 
invest in jobs and opportunities but also to invest in our stock market 
and the critical mass that was necessary to begin our infrastructure 
capitals, and we did this by first cutting taxes. It was a following up 
with what happened with us having our welfare changes. And we cut 
taxes. We cut the capital gains tax.
  Of course there were people that did not want us to do that. The tax 
collectors that were in Washington, D.C., said, we should not do that. 
That will ruin our deficit. We were told it would cost the tax 
collector $9 billion. In fact, what it did is it brought in $90 
billion. It was the catalyst for this country completely turning around 
to where we all of a sudden then had a surplus.
  For, you see, if you do not have a surplus, you cannot pay off your 
debts. What it did is it changed the direction to where we quit 
spending money on welfare and started spending more on education and on 
the infrastructure of this country.
  Point two: We looked at families and said, you are the most important 
asset America has; and we created what was then called a $500 per-child 
tax credit. It has been nothing less than marvelous to see my neighbors 
and friends who want to take care of their own family who now have a 
chance to get back their hard-earned money so that they can take care 
of their own children.
  Point three: We raised the exemption on what is called the death tax, 
estate tax. We looked at who was being hurt and we compromised with the 
President and said, we need to raise the exemption.
  We went immediately to farmers, people who own their only property 
for agriculture, and we raised the exemption. We changed this because 
we believed then and believe now that the people who own their own land 
and agriculture, for the people that own their own small businesses 
who, yes, may have assets and resources but are cash poor, should not, 
based upon death, have these assets taxed to the point to where their 
heirs have to sell the farm, sell the small business and break it up 
simply to pay the tax collector.
  These are the things that we did to bring us to the point where we 
are in America where we have created a surplus. We now have breathing 
room. We now know and are prepared as a Congress to move forward with 
the new President, a new President that has a bold plan about how we 
are going to not only make America sound by paying down the debt but by 
creating economic opportunity for the future.
  I am pleased to be joined today by my good friend, the majority 
leader of the United States Congress, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Armey). The gentleman from Texas has been a leader in the efforts to 
make sure that the plans that will develop America to where people get 
back more money in their pocket to where they have the power will be a 
key to our future because he is not only majority leader but he is also 
a grandfather and he recognizes that the future of this country rests 
with our grandchildren.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) on this 
matter.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Sessions) for taking this hour so that we can conduct this discussion.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we in America ought to recognize our heroes, we 
ought to recognize the people that help this Nation prosper and do 
well.
  There is no doubt in my mind that this Nation owes a debt of 
gratitude to Bill and Al. Bill and Al can rightfully be cited as the 
people that perhaps more than anybody else has made it possible for 
this Nation to be as prosperous as it is.
  More than any other two people, perhaps these two people, Bill and 
Al, are the people that we can credit for all the jobs, the prosperous 
economy, the fact that the Federal Government is running a surplus, the 
fact that that surplus combined with the fiscal restraint we have shown 
here in the House of Representatives has allowed us just on last 
Saturday to have paid down an astonishing, an astonishing $350 billion 
in debt in the last 3 fiscal years.

[[Page 21106]]

  Bill and Al, Mr. Speaker, have done so much more than any other two 
people I can think ever to warrant our applause and our appreciation 
for what they have done to make all this possible.
  So I would like this body to join me to give a special thank you to 
Bill and Al, Bill Gates and Alan Greenspan. Without their hard work, we 
could not have prospered the way we have done.
  That is not necessarily the voice that you will hear out of the 
campaign, Mr. Speaker. The Vice President is running for President, and 
the essence of his message is, this prosperity is the best idea I ever 
had. He is saying, without myself and the President, we could never 
have had this prosperity; and if you do not elect me President, you may 
lose your prosperity.
  It is a frightening thought, Mr. Speaker. When I listen to these 
speeches on the campaign trail and I realize that the argument that I 
am hearing is that, the President and I gave you the prosperity and if 
you lose us, you will lose the prosperity, I am haunted by this fear 
that on Tuesday we will win the election and I will wake up on 
Wednesday and discover the Internet has gone away.
  But let us look at this. The Vice President says, my plan will secure 
the prosperity, my plan will preserve the surplus, my plan will 
continue to buy down debt and save Social Security.
  We have taken the trouble to look at the Vice President's plan. And, 
Mr. Speaker, the Vice President is putting out an economic plan that 
would spend the on-budget surplus. Indeed he would not only spend all 
of the on-budget surplus, and this is what I refer to in common 
parlance as the income tax surplus, but he would even return us to 
those frightening days of yesteryear when this Government continuously 
raided the Social Security, and under the Vice President's plan, should 
he get elected and implement his plan, we would not only spend all of 
the income tax surplus, but he would go back to the days of raiding the 
Social Security trust fund and spending those monies, as well.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  The reason I am here is that, with two distinguished Texans having 
taken the floor, I think it is important to provide a little geographic 
perspective to this debate.
  The fact of the matter is my geographic perspective comes from 
California and the area which I am privileged to represent, Los 
Angeles, which happened to be the site of the Democratic National 
Convention.
  At the Staples Center, we saw the Vice President deliver a speech in 
which he unveiled about 37 different programs which, based on the 
studies we found, would cost a projected $2.3 trillion. And so, my 
friend is right on target when he talks about the fact that when we 
look at where it is we are going and the things that have been 
proposed, we are going back to a dramatic level of spending.
  In fact, I have argued that if, God forbid, Al Gore were to be 
elected President of the United States, there are many people, 
certainly on our side of the aisle, who might look back and think, my 
gosh, would it not be wonderful if we had the days of Bill Clinton 
again. Because we know that it has been President Clinton who has 
embraced the 1997 balanced budget agreement, putting us on the road 
towards balancing the budget not through the tax increase, much of 
which has been repealed in 1993 that he put through and which Vice 
President Gore was the deciding vote on in the United States Senate 
when they voted to do things like have a $48 billion cut in Medicare 
that was included in that package that they are so proud of, and at the 
same time we saw the President embrace our tax reduction effort in 
1997.
  He has embraced the traditional Republican themes of free trade, and 
we are very proud that he joined with us in doing a number of free 
trade things; and, of course, the welfare reform bill, which, as we all 
have said time and time again, he twice vetoed and ultimately signed.
  My point is that those bipartisan accomplishments which President 
Clinton has joined us on, would I believe in large part be reversed 
with many of the programs that my friend is referring to that have been 
unveiled by the Vice President.
  I think it is very important for the American people to know that, 
while people have said that the moniker of tax and spend which 
traditionally had been put around the necks of Democrats in the past 
and we Republicans have so often said tax-and-spend Democrats, it has 
been not as easy to do that over the past few years since President 
Clinton joined with us in a number of initiatives, but if we look at 
this proposal which has come forward from Vice President Gore, tax and 
spend would be an understatement for the pattern that we would have.
  I wonder if my friend would agree with that.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, yes, I would. I must say, if the gentleman 
from Texas will continue to yield to us, my colleague says the Vice 
President today embraces the welfare reform and he embraces the budget 
agreement we reached in 1997.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I said the President did.
  Mr. ARMEY. The President did.
  The fact of the matter is part of the story that the Vice President 
does not tell us is that he did in fact vote in 1993 for President 
Clinton's budget, that budget that increased taxes, a larger increase 
in taxes than any other time in the history of the world, increased 
taxes on gasoline, increased taxes on Social Security benefits, 
increased taxes across the Nation.

                              {time}  1445

  Then in 1997, in fact, he vehemently objected to our budget agreement 
where we reduced taxes and set us on the course to a balanced budget. 
The clear fact of the matter is that if you took the Congressional 
Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget at the White 
House, the projections that they made in 1994 for where we would be 
this fiscal year under the President's 1993 budget, that budget for 
which the Vice President so consistently claims credit by virtue of 
having cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, that under that budget 
had it continued, we would have had a $264 billion deficit this year. 
Now, that was not my projection. That was the projection made by the 
President's own Office of Management and Budget, which was agreed to by 
the Congressional Budget Office.
  It was only after 1995, 1996, and especially 1997 where we made this 
enormous change in direction in the budget that we began to see the 
projections change; and, indeed, rather than a $264 billion deficit 
that was projected for this year under the President's 1993 budget, 
today, thanks to the 1997 budget, the welfare reform and the other 
things that we did, we have an actual surplus of $250 billion. From 
$268 billion in deficit to $250 billion of actual surplus is a half a 
trillion dollars' worth of budget turnaround.
  Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman will yield on that point, I think it is 
important for us to note that with that $264 billion projected deficit, 
it pales in comparison to the projected spending level that we would 
see under these plans that have been unveiled by Vice President Gore. I 
think that is one of the most troubling things. As bad as those 
proposals were projecting a $264 billion deficit, they look wonderful, 
and almost like a surplus, compared to what has been put before us as 
far as projected spending.
  Mr. ARMEY. The gentleman is absolutely right. I am reminded of that 
wonderful song by another very important and colorful Californian, 
Merle Haggard, ``Rainbow Stew,'' where Merle Haggard bemoans the 
American fear that Presidents will go through the White House door and 
not do what they said they would do. In the case of the Vice 
President's budget proposal, I think, Mr. and Mrs. America, our fear 
should be that this President would go through the White House door and 
do what he said he would do.
  We all look at Bill Clinton, and we think of him as a big spender; 
but when

[[Page 21107]]

you think of President Clinton as a big spender, you have got to 
recognize that as a big spender, he is a piker next to Vice President 
Al Gore and his plans. Vice President Al Gore wants $3 for new 
government spending programs compared to every $1 in new programs 
requested by President Clinton. That is what I call an awful lot of 
risky, big government spending schemes.
  Vice President Gore's spending proposals add up to at least $2.7 
trillion in new Federal spending over the next 10 years. This is 
important for us to understand: he would spend the entire projected on-
budget surplus to pay for his massive expansion of government. That is 
not what he said the other night. He said the other night he is going 
to preserve the surplus. But the fact is if he got his way on the 
spending proposal that he is campaigning on, he would spend the entire 
income tax surplus.
  Mr. SESSIONS. It is interesting that what took place the other night 
with the discussion of what the Vice President said, and he looks right 
at the camera and says it. Yet he looked at the camera and talked about 
him being in our home State a year ago when we were having natural 
disasters and then admitted a day later, well, he was not there at all. 
He told us a story about the school where the girl who is the daughter 
of the restaurateur did not even have a desk to sit at. Yet the reason 
why, we now find out, after the fact, that 100 new computers were being 
delivered to the school that day and her desk was taken to put a 
computer on it.
  Which person can we trust? I would suggest to you it is the numbers 
that you have talked about that is his real plan and the real effects 
that it will have.
  Mr. ARMEY. That is what we are trying to do here. For example, one of 
the other things we discover when we look at the plan proposed by Vice 
President Gore is that for every dollar by which he would cut taxes, 
and I might mention, that would be a net tax cut because he has in fact 
more actual tax increases than he has tax reductions in his budget 
plan, but for every net dollar of tax reduction, he would raise 
government spending by $6.75.
  His spending spree would not stop there. His plan would also spend 
from the Social Security trust fund. We stopped the raid on Social 
Security, and we will not go back.
  Mr. Speaker, I think there is a fact we should recognize here. I 
think it is a telling statistical comparison. If we take the period of 
time from 1980 to 1990, the United States people sent to this 
government a doubling of the money they sent because of the economic 
growth that followed in the first couple of years of the Reagan 
administration in 1981 and 1982.
  Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman will yield, that was due to one measure. 
It was the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which Ronald Reagan 
pushed for and was able to get ultimately some southern Democrats and 
some of your Texas colleagues to vote in favor of. That laid the 
groundwork for a doubling of that flow of revenues to the Treasury 
through the decade of the 1980s.
  Mr. ARMEY. Through the decade of the 1980s. This incidentally is 
labeled by the Vice President and his friends as ``the decade of 
greed,'' where also incidentally you had charitable giving not only 
double but charitable giving to faith-based institutions triple during 
this period of time. The American people did a magnificent job. They 
not only built more, created more jobs, earned more, paid more in 
taxes; but they doubled what they gave to charities and tripled what 
they gave to faith-based charities. Yet they have the audacity to look 
at you and me and our families back home and indict us as having lived 
a decade of greed.
  We doubled what we sent to Washington. Bless us. What did Washington 
do with it? Washington increased spending by $1.68 for every increased 
dollar we sent them. It does not take any genius to figure this one 
out. Any time you increase the money coming in by a dollar and increase 
the money going out by $1.68, you are going to run a deficit. That is 
what we did. That deficit was so large that it not only spent all of 
the Social Security trust fund surpluses we generated in those areas, 
up to $60, $70, $80 billion a year; but it ran a $250 billion deficit.
  Let me just say, since 1994, after we put in the massive 
restructuring of what we call entitlement or mandatory spending, that 
spending that could never be touched by any President but it was 
required by Congress to restructure the actual spending programs, 
welfare reform being the most applauded incident of such reform, that 
has put 4 million people to work that up to that point had lived in the 
hopeless despair of welfare. But since that period of time, for every 
increased dollar the American people have sent in to Washington, 
spending has gone up by less than 50 cents. Once again, it does not 
take a genius to figure that one out. If you have got an increased 
dollar coming out and you are spending out less than 50 cents, you are 
running a surplus.
  That surplus was the product of two things: the prosperity of the 
American people, the job creation, the expansion, the invention that we 
see in this magnificent electronic revolution that we are surrounded by 
in America, the increased tax bonus that came to Washington because 
America was doing well; and a first time in my lifetime restraint of 
government spending by a responsible Congress that did the one thing 
that everybody by that time knew was imperative, reformed the 
institutionalized, mandatory government spending programs that had been 
constructed through all that period of time beginning in the mid-1960s 
called the Great Society programs of President Johnson, and added to 
quite often by, and most often by, Members of this body.
  Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman will yield on that point, when I heard 
him mention the Great Society, I was reminded of an analysis that I 
heard of the programs that have been put forward by the Vice President, 
and an independent analyst, I frankly have to admit I do not remember 
which one it was, I was either reading the newspaper or I may have 
listened to it on National Public Radio, they came on and talked about 
how these proposals which have come forward from the Vice President 
actually match, or in some cases even exceed, the level of spending 
that we saw launched as the Great Society.
  We do know full well that the spending on subventions that we saw 
launched with the Great Society were in excess of $5.2 trillion, as 
Speaker Hastert likes to say, with a T, that is trillion with a T, $5.2 
trillion in spending; and we saw during that period of time the poverty 
level in this country go from 14.7 percent to 15.2 percent. And so that 
pattern has clearly failed. And we all know very well that it has 
failed around the world, as we have seen people clawing toward self-
determination.
  We are watching the situation unfold at this moment in Belgrade where 
hundreds of thousands of people are storming to have self-determination 
because they feel that their votes were improperly counted there. The 
rest of the world is moving towards individual initiative, 
responsibility, self-determination, and the proposals that have come 
forward from Vice President Gore shift us back to the failed policies 
of the Great Society. That is something that I think again the American 
people need to know and it is an extraordinarily troubling situation.
  Mr. ARMEY. I want to ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), we 
all watched this debate the other night and we are always impressed 
with glib politicians. People who can turn a phrase impress us. I 
always like a wordsmith. But every time I see one of these politicians 
that can come along and so slickly recite expressions, phrases, 
numbers, I always have to stop and ask myself, can that fellow really 
be trusted with words and numbers?
  One of the things the Vice President made a big point of the other 
night was that if you elect me, we will never, ever, ever touch your 
Social Security trust funds. Now, first of all they have got a bad 
track record on that. But we take a look again at his budget proposals. 
And his very own proposals

[[Page 21108]]

when you score them out, they estimate that the Vice President would 
rob the trust fund of between $500 billion and $900 billion to pay for 
his new spending agenda.
  Mr. and Mrs. America, we are today celebrating the fact that we have 
made $350 billion in debt reduction; and here we have got a fellow that 
has come along and said, ``I'm going to spend between $500 billion and 
$900 billion to pay for my new programs.''
  Mr. SESSIONS. I think the gentleman is right. What is interesting is 
that I felt like that there should have been some tracer along the 
bottom about truth in advertising, because, in fact, what happened is 
that the Vice President made it seem like that he would support these 
lockboxes that would be available for Social Security and Medicare; and 
yet it is the Vice President's own party, the Senate minority leader 
Tom Daschle, that will not allow seniors today to be able to have their 
own lockbox for Social Security. And yet we are supposed to trust the 
Vice President to say if he were only President, he would accomplish 
what he cannot get done or President Clinton cannot get done today. 
Truth in advertising should be important.
  Mr. ARMEY. Yes, it should. Here is another case in point. The 
gentleman from California will recognize this distinguished professor 
from Stanford University, Dr. John Cogan. The Vice President says his 
plan would cost $200 billion over 10 years. We have already seen that 
the estimates are that it would rob the trust fund of between $500 
billion and $900 billion. The Vice President says it would cost only 
$200 billion over the next years. Let us not take my word for it. Let 
us not take his word for it. Perhaps I might be perceived as one of 
those glib politicians, such a good wordsmith. How about Dr. John Cogan 
of Stanford University. He says that the Vice President's plan would 
cost $160 billion in the very first year alone. Yet the Vice President 
says that it would be $200 billion over 10 years.
  Again, you have got to have an objective measure of these numbers. 
Ladies and gentlemen, be very, very careful when somebody says, ``I'm 
from Washington; I'm here to help you. Trust me, I'm from the 
government.'' I think it is better to get a second opinion and a second 
opinion from the professor from Stanford would be helpful here.

                              {time}  1500

  Mr. DREIER. I am going to give a second opinion, but it is my opinion 
of what Professor Cogan had to say on the issue of tax reduction. My 
friend, another Dallas friend of mine here, the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Sessions), just handed me a clip from the editorial page of the 
``Wall Street Journal.''
  First, I see we are joined by another gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Hall).
  Mr. SESSIONS. All conservatives.
  Mr. DREIER. I am happy to have the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) 
joining us. Let me say as we look at where we stand on this tax 
proposal, the thing that was very, very troubling was this argument 
that, of course, every bit of benefit goes to the richest 1 percent of 
the American people. We continue to have that argument put forward.
  Professor Cogan has really blown the top right off of that argument, 
as was pointed out, in this piece in the Journal the day before 
yesterday, in which it talks about the fact that people at the lowest 
end of economic spectrum are those that have the greatest percentage 
reduction.
  I guess if you look at the fact that there are people who make large 
amounts of money and maybe pay $500,000, $1 million in taxes, you have 
got to ask if someone does pay $500,000 in taxes, as Michael Reagan 
posed last night on his radio program when I was talking to him, are 
they not entitled to some type of reduction? Well, under the plan that 
Governor Bush has put forward, they would get about a 10 percent 
reduction in their tax burden.
  Yet those who are earning less than $35,000 a year get how much, 
based on this assessment that Professor Cogan has put forward? A 100 
percent reduction. Why? Because if you couple the doubling of the child 
tax credit from $500 to $1,000, along with the overall rate reduction, 
it is very, very clear that those who are earning less than $35,000 are 
the greatest percentage beneficiaries from this program that has been 
put forward by Governor Bush.
  Again, that has not gotten out there, but Professor Cogan very 
correctly points to that, those who are in the upper-income levels have 
the lowest percentage reduction. But it does seem to me that the 
argument that we have been getting for the past several months on this 
us-versus-them class warfare, that is why I think George Bush is right 
on target when he describes himself as a uniter and not a divider.
  I have oft quoted our former colleague, the late Senator Paul 
Tsongas, who said it so well. He said, ``The problem with my Democratic 
Party is that they love employees, but they hate employers.'' So that 
has created a situation where we do not recognize what my friend from 
Dallas, Texas (Mr. Armey) has just mentioned, where the people in, for 
example, the technology sector of the economy, 45 percent of our 
Nation's gross domestic product growth in the past 3 years has come 
from these job creators.
  Yes, there are a lot of very rich people, and I know my friend opened 
by talking about Bill and Al. Bill Gates is one of them, who has been 
very successful financially. But look at what he has created in jobs, 
in improving the quality of life and standard of living, not only here 
in the United States, but around the world. So they are tremendous 
beneficiaries of this successful man, who has had the incentive to try 
and look at creative ways to deal with challenges that are out there. 
And these proposals, which would be so divisive, that the Vice 
President has put forward, would do little more than stifle that kind 
of creativity. I find it very troubling.
  Mr. HALL of Texas. If the gentleman would yield, does the gentleman 
remember when it was indicated that a George McKinney, who was a friend 
of the Vice President, had to go to Canada, as a $25,000 a year man, 
had to go to Canada to get satisfaction in the health field. I just 
wondered, who sent him up there for the last 8 years? I think a real 
good answer would have been, you know, 8\1/2\ years is long enough for 
that to happen. If they put the right folks in position and then charge 
up here, he will not have to go to Canada; he can go to his corner 
drugstore.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Reclaiming my time, there has been a good question that 
has been thrown on the floor, and certainly the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Hall), a man of great stature and also with grandchildren at home, 
as I looked at just in being the father of two little boys, I heard Al 
Gore talk about the top 1 percent. He was running against success in 
America, people who are successful, people who obviously have made so 
much money that, by golly, we should run against them.
  In fact, I have always taught as a parent, as a scoutmaster, and even 
as an employer and certainly in my congressional district, we want and 
need people who will come and work hard. Yes, they will be rewarded for 
what they do, but expect them to give back to their community.
  Bill Gates, incredible amounts of money that he has given for 
learning projects, for opportunity to employ people, and yet what do we 
hear? We hear Vice President Gore attack Bill Gates, attack the top 1 
percent.
  It is a philosophy that then flows directly to the Attorney General 
of the United States, who, rather than trying to encourage competition, 
goes and beats up the largest, most value-packed company in the world, 
that has created millions of jobs.
  Since that time, it is the Attorney General and her actions of 
government that have put the economy at risk. It is the high-tech 
companies that today are worried about their profits, that are worried 
about it.
  Of course, the question that came from Mr. Lehrer was about the world 
economy. I believe the answer is it is the United States Government and 
Al Gore, through the policies and procedures because they do not like 
people

[[Page 21109]]

to be rich, they do not want people to be successful, for envy reasons, 
that would destroy what we have built up in this country.
  Mr. ARMEY. Maybe the gentleman from Texas might make a point. I would 
like to come back to that point too.
  Mr. HALL of Texas. I thank the majority leader and the gentleman from 
Dallas. Everybody, from a young man like Calvin Clyde from Tyler, 
Texas, who sits by my side, to people past my age, are a little sick of 
pitting class against class. I think that is old stock. I do not think 
it sets well. I think the American people can see through that.
  Mr. ARMEY. I want to talk about this 1 percent. I am getting tired of 
hearing it. When we tried to do the $500 per child tax credit, they 
said that is for the top 1 percent richest people of America. Give me a 
break on that. I raised five children. I never felt rich at any time 
when one of those babies came along. I perhaps had blessings beyond my 
wildest dreams in all five of them, but I do not remember feeling rich.
  We said, well, we will eliminate the marriage penalty. They came back 
and said, that is a tax break for your rich friends. Again, come on, 
how many young people getting married feel rich? They may feel blessed, 
but, bless their hearts, they do not feel rich. If they do get married, 
why stick them with a $1,400 tax penalty? I laugh at our Tax Code. It 
just tickles me.
  We have got a generous, although constantly eroding, home mortgage 
deduction to encourage us to buy a house, and then we have got a 
marriage penalty to encourage us to live in it out of wedlock. The 
government cannot make up their mind as to what they want to do in 
their social engineering. But that top 1 percent, this has become a 
mantra. No matter what tax reduction you talk about, it gets the same 
indictment.
  Here is the real story. The real story of the debate is whose money 
is it? If I reduce taxes, I thereby will take less of your money. It is 
your money. But how is it characterized? As me having a big tax 
giveaway.
  I cannot give away what is not mine to give. It is your money. And 
that is the fundamental message. Why is it if they take 90 percent of 
the budget surplus and we commit to buying down debt, and then take 
from that 10 percent that remains the essential spending for a lot of 
our emergencies, like the fires and floods you have been seeing, to 
restore our military readiness so our children will be safe on the job 
as they defend liberty here and abroad, a few of the other things, and 
then say another 5 percent of it we give back in taxes, or just refuse 
to take it away in taxes, why is that going to blow a hole in the 
budget when you have got, by alternative, a spending proposal that is 
$1.2 trillion over the next 10 years? Why is it they always say, when I 
spend more of your money, that is good for the economy; but if I leave 
you to spend more of your money, that is bad for the economy?
  Let me just finish my point. In the end, whether I spend the money or 
the government spends the money, the acid test is, am I getting what I 
need for myself and my family?
  Now, the Vice President, he presumes he knows better. He thinks he 
can, through the government, buy better for me and my family than I 
can. My response to that is, oh, yeah? When was the last time you got 
your wife the right birthday present? I cannot even figure it out for 
my wife, who I know better than any other person in the world and love 
more than all other people in the world. And I cannot get the right 
birthday present. Why does somebody in Washington think they can do a 
better job for my wife than I can, or, for that matter, for me? The 
audacity of that just amazes me.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the majority leader for being here today, and I 
will tell the gentleman that I believe his time as a professor of 
economics not only pays often, has paid off in the past, but will pay 
off in the future. It is a matter of freedom. It is a matter of freedom 
about who is going to make decisions for who.
  One of the things which we as conservatives repeatedly speak about is 
that we believe it is not only our money, but it should be our 
decision-making process also. I think it really gets back to this 
question of who is going to make the decisions for us. It is either 
going to be the tax collector or the taxpayer. And money still equals 
power, and the opportunity to have money in your pocket means that you 
cannot only engage in the debate and be a part of what is happening, 
but you can have a say in the final answer. And when Washington, D.C. 
gets all the money, which is what Al Gore wants, then they will be the 
decision maker in life.
  If we give the money back to the taxpayer, which is what George Bush 
and the Republican Party wants, then we will have an opportunity for 
people to not only come and participate in America, but for their 
answer to be the winning answer, their dream to be the bigger dream.
  I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I appreciate the gentleman having this special order. 
I have been absolutely fascinated with some of the claims I see being 
made by our liberal Democrat brethren, and one of them is that the big 
thing now is to attack our tax cut plan, because we are giving a tax 
cut to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. Of course, they never 
point out those are the Americans who paid a lot of the taxes, and, in 
fact, I believe the figures are that the top 5 percent of taxpayers 
paid a majority of the income taxes in this country.
  So it is really Marxist class warfare, is what it is. In fact, I do 
not like to use the term ``middle class,'' and I hear Vice President 
Gore use that term over and over and over again. It is a Marxist term. 
You will never find in the U.S. Constitution any reference to 
``class.'' In fact, it says all men are created equal. It is the very 
opposite of this idea of classes that are to be pitted against each 
other, somehow using government to redistribute benefits from one to go 
to the other.
  I was absolutely fascinated to hear the attack levied recently by the 
Vice President on Republicans, and specifically Governor Bush, over 
this 1 percent, over giving the tax cut to all Americans, including the 
1 percent of the wealthiest, and yet he then turns around and attacks 
the Republicans for not giving free prescription drugs to the top 1 
percent of wealthiest Americans.
  Figure that one out. If that is not the height of hypocrisy and 
nonsense, I do not know what is. His socialistic disastrous plan for 
prescription drugs would destroy the surplus that we have worked so 
hard in the 6 years of Republican administration of this Congress to 
build up. He would create just another huge entitlement program that 
would result pretty much in government price fixing, and the drug 
industry would drop innovation and would be giving all these free 
prescription drugs to people who do not need them, and all the time he 
is telling us what a great fiscal conservative he is.
  Mr. SESSIONS. It is interesting that the facts of what George Bush's 
own tax plan is all about was in the ``Wall Street Journal,'' a review 
of it, on September 5 of this year. Here is what it does. I quote from 
this article. ``The Bush tax cut does not favor the rich.''
  The ``Wall Street Journal'' says, ``The Bush tax cut does not favor 
the rich. This is not a flat tax, or even a proportional cut, though 
such cuts would be more efficient in economic terms. Rather, higher 
income families get lower percentage reductions.''

                              {time}  1515

  This is household income. Those earning $50,000 to $75,000 a year 
would see an average cut of 30 percent. My colleagues, I will tell you 
that this is exactly in line with what our economics have been, to take 
the burden away from people who earn between $50,000 and $75,000. 
Families earning $75,000 to $100,000 would see an average cut of 18 
percent, and those earning more than $100,000 would have an average 
reduction of 10 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, what this does very clearly is say that where you have 
two people, perhaps they are both teachers

[[Page 21110]]

making $35,000 and $35,000, they would receive a cut of 30 percent.
  All the time in my district, wherever I go, I try and talk about how 
teachers are great for not only our schools and our children, but for 
America; and they talk about they want a pay raise, they need more 
money, they need more money. The George Bush tax plan would give the 
average teacher and a spouse a 30 percent tax cut.
  I cannot imagine any school board giving their teachers a 30 percent 
tax increase. We need to have a tax cut. This government is too big and 
costs too much money. We need to give the power back, yes, even to our 
own teachers.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey).
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Texas also makes a 
point, you have to define your terms. What is a tax cut? George Bush 
suggests, like most of us would and the common sense parlance, that a 
tax cut is a reduced tax bill to those people who pay taxes. Is not 
that what most Americans would think?
  Vice President Gore has one scheme here where he asks the IRS to 
actually write checks to people who do not even pay taxes, and he calls 
that a tax cut. Now, I call that a spending spree. It seems to me that 
there is a very definitional thing.
  Can you imagine when the Vice President talks about his tax cuts that 
what is featured in there is this risky scheme where he is going to say 
to the IRS, you write checks to people who do not even pay taxes, and 
we will call it a tax cut. I would not call it that at all. I would 
call that a funds distribution.
  Mr. Speaker, I pay taxes. The IRS has taken my tax money and given it 
to somebody else, but they are certainly not reducing anybody's taxes 
in the process. Let us start with making a fundamental thing. A tax cut 
should be, by definition, a reduction in the tax liability of somebody 
who pays a tax. Is that not a fair definition?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the gentleman. I would 
agree with that.
  Mr. ARMEY. I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) is 
here with us.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would like 
to add to this discussion the following thought: clearly, Governor Bush 
made the case, I thought very persuasively, and the choice between Vice 
President Al Gore and what Governor Bush comes down to is will we be a 
freer society in which the men and women who produce the assets and 
resources of our country get to decide how to allocate those assets and 
resources, or will it be a less free society and we will see the 
Federal Government's massive new powers, massive new spending that the 
Vice President has proposed and believes in?
  I would just like to make two observations. First, if we believe in 
the very central premise on which our Nation was founded, the principle 
of individual liability, then that is a very compelling reason in and 
of itself to support Governor Bush, because he wants to expand the 
freedom of the men and women of our country. But if we are not 
persuaded by that principle, then I would suggest that we ask 
ourselves, what does the empirical evidence suggest? What does the data 
suggest about the results of economic freedom?
  The fact is, the jury is in, the verdict is in. The outcome is very, 
very clear. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to my colleagues that they 
might want to read an annual report that is produced by the Heritage 
Foundation in cooperation with the Wall Street Journal, and it is a 
fascinating report. What it does, it measures the extent to which 
various societies around the world are economically free.
  It measures things such as the level of government expenditures in an 
economy, the level of the tax burden, the amount of the regulatory 
burden, whether or not currencies are exchangeable. It takes this 
measurement, and it evaluates those countries which are essentially 
free economies, and it analyzes those which are essentially unfree, and 
then it shows an astonishing interesting correlation between economic 
freedom and wealth and prosperity.
  In fact, I would suggest my colleagues turn to page 21 of this 
report, it is the 2000 Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage 
Foundation and Wall Street Journal, and what it demonstrates is 
empirically and objectively beyond a dispute that those economies, 
those societies that are most free are also most prosperous, allow 
their people to create the most wealth, have the highest standard of 
living, and the greatest opportunity in the world. And those societies 
which are least free have the greatest poverty and misery.
  We know that that happens on the extremes. We know that the Soviet 
Union was an economic disaster, and the United States has been an 
economic miracle, but the important point that this study illustrates 
is that it is not only true on the extremes, but it is true on the 
continuum in between.
  Mr. Speaker, just to finish and to conclude, the point that it makes 
is that if we move in the direction of greater economic freedom, 
lowering the tax burden, lowering government regulation, limiting 
Federal spending, limiting the control of our society in the hands of 
politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, if we limit that and we 
expand personal freedom and economic freedom, we will have more 
prosperity, more economic growth, more opportunity, more people with 
bigger take-home paychecks able to do the things that work best for 
their families; and that is the society that I think we all want.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Toomey). The gentleman hits right to the point, and that is, we 
want to be in an America where we have opportunity and faith in each 
other and faith in our future.
  I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), to talk about the 
surplus dollars.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Sessions) for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I serve on the Committee on the Budget, and we work very 
closely at taking a look at whose numbers add up, what we are going to 
do with the Federal budget surplus. I have here an apples-to-apples 
comparison of the Bush plan for the surplus and the Gore plan for the 
surplus.
  I think it is very important to put aside all the rhetoric you hear, 
because a lot of times when you listen to politicians' rhetoric, when 
you listen to the presidential campaign rhetoric or the media's 
interpretation of the rhetoric, you do not actually see what is being 
proposed. Let us take a look at what is actually being proposed.
  We have a monumental chance, a historic opportunity to use this 
surplus to address the many challenges facing our Nation. We have a 
chance to pay off our national debt. We have a chance to shore up 
Social Security. We have a chance to modernize and fix Medicare, and we 
have a chance to let people keep more of their hard-earned money as 
they continue to overpay their taxes.
  What the Gore plan does is it says for every dollar coming into the 
Federal Government in the form of a budget surplus for the next 10 
years, we are going to take 46 cents out of that surplus dollar, 46 
cents out of every surplus dollar will go toward Washington, will go 
toward new spending.
  Mr. Speaker, 36 cents of every surplus dollar will go towards Social 
Security and Medicare and paying down the debt. You take a look at the 
Gore plan, he has said in his speech and I notice in the debate we are 
going to pay off the debt by 2012.
  The Bush plans the debt off even faster. It puts more money towards 
preserving Social Security and Medicare and paying off the debt. It 
puts 58 cents of every surplus dollar toward paying off the debt, 
preserving Social Security and Medicare.
  The point is, if my colleagues take a look at the blue slice of this 
pie in the Bush plan, after paying off the debt, after stopping the 
raid on Social Security, paying off the debt in 12 years, after having 
a meaningful prescription drug benefit, people are still going to

[[Page 21111]]

be overpaying their taxes, and Governor Bush is proposing that 29 cents 
of every surplus dollar go back to the people who gave us the surplus, 
the taxpayers.
  What is the alternative to that vision? It is not paying down debt. 
It is not a question of cutting taxes or paying off debt. It is a 
question of after paying off the debt and shoring up Social Security 
and Medicare, giving people their money back or spending it on new 
programs in Washington, which is what the Vice President is proposing.
  He is proposing a minor 7 cents out of every surplus dollar going 
back to the taxpayers who gave us the surplus in the first place and a 
whopping 46 cents of new spending out of every surplus dollar. So the 
question that the Vice President has answered, is, it is not a question 
of paying off debt, it is a question of not giving anybody their money 
back or spending more money on new programs in Washington.
  If my colleagues take a look at the amount of spending, Bush wants to 
spend $278 billion over the next 10 years above and beyond the current 
budgets for national defense, for education, for fixing Medicare. Gore 
wants to increase spending by $2.1 trillion. He is proposing the 
largest spending increase in 35 years to double the size of the Federal 
Government in 10 years. That is the proposal you see with the Gore 
budget.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a huge election. This is about philosophy and 
vision. The question is, do you want your money to come to Washington 
and to stay in Washington, so that Washington then can give you some of 
your money back if you engage in behavior that they approve of; or do 
you want to keep some more of your own money in your paycheck to begin 
with? Do you want us to become fiscally responsible and pay off our 
debts before we launch into new spending sprees and creating more 
programs?
  These are the questions that are being answered that are going to be 
on line in the ballot this November between Bush and Gore.
  I would like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), who 
has orchestrated this hour and thank him for the time he has given.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Ryan). I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman 
of the Committee on Rules, and also the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Armey), the majority leader. We have had an opportunity today to speak 
about the differences between what is Al Gore's old tax and scheme 
plans versus confidence and security that we will make sure that people 
make their own decisions back at home which is called the George Bush 
plan.
  I want to thank my colleagues for not only participating today, but 
for the fervency of their belief that America's greatest days lie ahead 
of us; that I believe that America's greatest days and no problem that 
cannot be solved in America, because America will be responsible for 
its own destiny and the future, not the government.

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