[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 528-529]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE PRESIDENT'S TAX PLAN

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I also want to comment, if I have another 
moment, on the recklessness of this administration in considering 
economic policy. The extraordinary recklessness of offering a tax plan, 
that has yet to be unveiled but was certainly outlined by 
administration officials, leaves me with a great deal of concern and I 
think ought to be a source of anxiety for the American people.
  The President has said we need stimulus. Yet the plan he has outlined 
has almost no stimulative value at the very time when it is required. 
We lost 190,000 jobs in November and December. Mr. President, 190,000 
jobs were lost. There are 190,000 families unemployed. That was just in 
the last 2 months of last year. And 2.2 million Americans have lost 
their jobs since the President was sworn in.
  The Wall Street Journal, the other day, noted you have to go back 
decades to find an economic record as serious and, in many respects, as 
dislocating to working families as this one. Yet the President's so-
called stimulus plan provides for 190,000 jobs in the remaining 11 
months of this year. That is their figure. That is what they say they 
will generate. For the next 11 months, they will generate the same 
number of jobs, under their plan, that they lost in the last 2 months 
of last year.
  How, in Heaven's name, can anyone suggest that is a stimulus? In 
fact, by their own acknowledgement, over 91 percent of whatever 
stimulative value there is in what the President has proposed does not 
take place until next year and the year after that.
  So, No. 1, it fails with a capital letter F with regard to its 
stimulus value and its stimulus potential as we look at reviving the 
economy at the end of January of the year 2003.
  The second question is: How fair is a plan of this kind? We are told 
we have 226,000 millionaires. We have 92 million people who fit the 
income category of $50,000 a year or less. Mr. President, 92 million 
Americans are in that category. And 226,000 are in the millionaire 
category in our country today.

[[Page 529]]

  Yet, under the President's plan, $20 billion goes to the 226,000 
people; $15 billion goes to the 92 million people. How that can be 
described in any way, shape, or form as fair is something I can't 
answer, something I hope the administration tries to answer.
  Also, there is a real question of fairness when it comes to sacrifice 
in this country. I have heard my colleagues--I know the Senator from 
Illinois and others, the Senator from Nevada--talk about the fairness 
question this morning. I think of fairness in a different context: not 
only economic but in the commitment to the country.
  We are asking young men and women to go to the Persian Gulf and put 
their lives on the line, perhaps in the next few weeks. We are asking 
them to sacrifice, perhaps their lives, for this country. How in the 
world can we ask them to sacrifice their lives and turn around and tell 
every millionaire in this country: You get an $89,000 tax break at the 
same time--at the same time--not only this year but next year and next 
year and the year after that?
  Where is the sacrifice? Where is the fairness? How, in Heaven's name, 
can we possibly look at one of those young troops in the face and say, 
you are going to sacrifice, but don't ask those who have wealth to do 
so?
  There is also the economic question. If we are going to give a tax 
break to anybody, maybe we ought to give it to those who are asked to 
defend this country. If anybody deserves one, they do. Their incomes 
are maybe $20,000 a year. We have not calculated what little, if any, 
tax relief they are going to get, but here they are sitting in the 
Persian Gulf with little or no tax benefit at the very same time these 
226,000 millionaires get $89,000 a year.
  Certainly the ``Leave No Millionaire Behind Act'' is an appropriate 
title for the President's proposal. We are not leaving one millionaire 
behind.
  There is also the question of recklessness. What makes this all the 
more troubling is that we are borrowing the money. Every dollar is 
borrowed so that we can turn right around and give it out in the form 
of fat checks to fat cats. It does not make sense. It does not make 
sense when you recognize that this is going to have a huge fiscal 
effect on every State in the country.
  We have a deficit in South Dakota, a deficit that is unusual for our 
State. There are deficits in virtually every State. We are told the 
accumulated State deficits are now about $90 billion. And we are told 
this is going to exacerbate that debt by anywhere from $5 to $10 
billion more.
  So from the point of view of recklessness, I cannot imagine how 
anything could be more reckless than borrowing almost $1 trillion, when 
you calculate the interest costs associated with this tax plan, robbing 
Social Security and Medicare, and exacerbating the problems at the 
State level. This is not right. This ought not be done.
  I am encouraged by some of the public comments made by many of our 
Republican colleagues with regard to their concern about this 
particular package of tax proposals.
  I think anyone would have a right to ask: Well, what do the Democrats 
support? What is our plan? Our plan is very simple. It has five 
components.
  The first is that it has to be immediate. We believe that if you are 
going to stimulate the economy in 2003, you ought to have policies that 
stimulate the economy in 2003, not 2004, 2005, or 2006.
  We think it ought to be for 1 year. Let's focus on this year. If we 
need another stimulus in 2004 or 2005, let's focus on it in 2004 or 
2005, but let's limit what we are going to do now to this year because 
we know we need it now--not a year from now but now.
  Third, let's target it to where we can do the most good, not only 
from a fairness point of view but from an economic point of view. 
Virtually every single economist says, if you want to make sure you get 
the biggest bang for the buck, put it in the hands of those who will 
spend it, not in the hands of those who will save it. So we want to 
target these resources from a fairness point of view as well as from an 
economic clout point of view by ensuring that those in the middle 
incomes, $50,000 and $60,000 a year, get the benefit.
  Fourth, we ought to make this a fiscally responsible proposal. How is 
it fiscally responsible that we would borrow nearly $1 trillion at a 
time when we are already $200- to $300-billion in debt? How is that 
fiscally responsible?
  Let's limit the fiscal exposure. Keeping it for 1 year and in 
targeting the benefits, that is exactly what we can do.
  Then finally, let's recognize that the States are in a very serious 
fiscal condition today, perhaps the worst fiscal condition they have 
been in, we are told, in 70 years. Let's ensure that we work with the 
States and create the kind of fiscal partnership that is required.
  So there you have it--helping the States; limiting the fiscal 
exposure; targeting the benefits; ensuring that we do it this year; and 
making sure that it is immediate. Those principles will serve us well. 
I urge my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to adopt them.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. REID. I listened closely to the Senator's speech on civil rights. 
I ask the Senator if there appears to be a pattern developing from our 
friends on the other side of the aisle? You will recall last year there 
were efforts made, and I don't know if they have dropped those efforts 
but it was spread through all the papers in the country that they were 
going to change title IX. That is the ability for women to be involved 
in sports. We had tremendous difficulty last year and the year before 
trying to get up the hate crimes legislation. We were stopped from 
doing that.
  There is no group that is hurt more than minorities with not funding 
education the way it should be funded. Here on the floor the last few 
days it has been brought out that 34 percent of African-American 
teenagers are without jobs. These are kids who want to work.
  We passed voter reform. Who is affected more than anyone else by our 
not funding that? The President promised us he would fund it. It has 
not come yet. The minority communities throughout America are affected 
by that.
  The minimum wage, who is affected more? Women and minorities.
  And finally, judges. We know the Judiciary Committee turned down one 
judge they thought had a very bad civil rights record. We have him 
leading the pack of renominations that have come forward.
  I ask the leader, does there appear to be a pattern here, with just 
the few things I mentioned while the Senator was speaking, I jotted 
those down. Does there appear to be a pattern here that this 
administration is not concerned about women and other minorities?
  Mr. DASCHLE. I would say to the distinguished Senator from Nevada 
that one would conclude there is a pattern. I was hopeful, given the 
President's public comments last month, that maybe that pattern would 
be broken, that maybe their words would be supported by their actions. 
But everything that has happened since the President uttered those 
words has been contrary to those words--the renomination of Judge 
Pickering, the unwillingness to commit the resources on education, at 
least so far, the unwillingness to support hate crimes.
  Now we get the public report in the papers and in the media this 
morning, a determination to oppose the Michigan case on matters of 
educational diversity.
  There is, without a doubt, a pattern. That pattern stands in stark 
contrast to the rhetoric. Rhetoric means nothing if actions do not 
support it. Unfortunately, so far, the rhetoric has meant nothing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sununu). The Senator from Utah.

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