[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3473-3474]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, this week we are taking up the 
budget. We are going to increase the limit on how deep this government 
can go into debt. Every year we spend more tax dollars and we add more 
government services, and my concern is that too many Americans are 
becoming too dependent on government.
  By the next election, this fall, a majority of Americans will be 
dependent on Federal Government for their health, their education, 
their income, or their retirement benefits. Some suggest that as many 
as 60 percent of households receive more than $10,000 a year from 
government in the form of retirement, health care, welfare or other 
benefits. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, the number of taxpayers paying 
for these benefits is rapidly shrinking.
  The question is, how well can any free nation survive when a majority 
of its citizens heavily dependent on government services no longer have 
the incentive to restrain the growth of government? As we all know, 
over the last 50 years, American attitudes have been shifting from 
cherishing self-sufficiency and personal responsibility to wanting a 
little more security from the Federal Government to assure them of a 
certain number of benefits. Government benefits, once concentrated on 
the needy, now extend into the middle and upper-middle class 
households, even as more and more Americans see their income tax 
liabilities decrease.
  Today, the majority of Americans can vote themselves more generous 
government benefits at little or no cost to themselves. As a result, 
they have really little incentive to restrain the continued growth of 
big government and the benefits big government dangles before them. 
Fifty percent of Americans now pay less than 4 percent of the total 
individual income taxes, while the top 5 percent pay nearly 55 percent 
of the individual income taxes. At the same time, the folks who are 
paying the least for government are receiving the most benefits. 
Americans who receive nearly half of the Federal Government benefits 
pay only, listen to this, Mr. Speaker, pay only 1 percent of the 
individual income taxes.

                              {time}  1245

  Many of these beneficiaries are poor, but an increasing number are 
middle-class retirees who enjoy extra income and health care through 
Social Security and Medicare. This is help we say from government, but 
it is from the other taxpayers of this country.
  Our founders created a system where taxes are the price for 
government benefits and services. The idea is that voters would 
restrain the growth and expansion of government because of the personal 
costs to themselves in taxes. Our founders built into the original 
Constitution a provision that prohibited taxes based on income because 
they wanted people to achieve. That was the motivation. This provision, 
however, was amended by the 16th amendment. As a result, a near 
majority of voters now pay little or no income taxes while they receive 
an increasing number of government benefits.
  The extreme progressiveness of our Tax Code has reduced, and in some 
cases eliminated, any cost of government for a growing number of 
voters. At the same time, many of these voters are dependent on 
government for much of their income, their health care, and other 
government services. It is like

[[Page 3474]]

handing someone a menu at a restaurant and saying this bill is already 
paid for, and then asking them to make an order. I think it is a 
difficult offer to refuse, and it is the same way with government.
  Limited government is ultimately essential to our economy's strength 
and freedom. The success of the United States is built on the free 
enterprise motivation that those who learn, work hard, and save are 
better off than those who do not. As that becomes less true with bigger 
and more intrusive government, we not only diminish that motivation, we 
lose more of our personal liberty and freedom. This is a growing threat 
to our way of life, and we can no longer ignore the kind of influence 
that it generates.

                          ____________________