[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5591-5593]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                TAX DAY

  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, today is April 15. It is the day 
Americans are required by law to file their tax returns to pay their 
fair share to the Internal Revenue Service so that we can operate the 
Federal Government. I think it is appropriate on a day such as this to 
talk about the taxes and the efforts of Americans over the past months 
to put together their financial information to pay what they must pay 
to the government.
  Leading up to today, Americans have been involved in that effort of 
carefully preparing their income tax returns. It is estimated that 7.6 
billion hours of time and more than 1 million accountants were required 
to file this year's returns. Our Tax Code has become so complicated 
that it takes 7.6 billion hours for Americans to file and figure out 
those complicated returns, and more than 1 million accountants to help 
us in our efforts.
  I know my wife Meike last night was up late making sure we got 
everything in on time. We do our own taxes, and it is not easy to 
understand, even for someone like my wife who is an accountant and who 
is trained in it.
  It begs the question--why? Every time we do something in this 
government that does not necessarily help the folks we represent, it is 
our obligation to question those practices. Need the Tax Code be as 
difficult as it is? Need it take so many billions of hours of 
Americans' time, time that could be spent working, time that could be 
spent with their families? Need we employ 1 million service providers 
in the form of accountants to help us fill out all these taxes? Of 
course, the answer is no. There are good proposals in this Chamber and 
in the House to simplify the Tax Code, to make it so one can put it on 
one piece of paper.
  My colleagues, Senator Gregg and Senator Wyden, have such a proposal. 
There is a proposal in the House that offers the same type of clarity 
and simplicity to allow Americans, if they choose, to file taxes 
quickly and easily. Certainly, that is something we should undertake 
and be about.
  But let's also ask this question: Is the amount of money that 
Americans pay in tax actually going to something that is effectively 
and efficiently administered by the Federal Government? Let's think 
about all of the money that Washington is taking from Americans every 
day--and not just Washington, our State and local authorities. In fact, 
when you think about the number of taxes that people pay, it is quite 
amazing.
  First, they go to their jobs in the morning and they make a salary 
and they pay tax on their income. Then, if they choose to spend that 
money, they are taxed in a variety of different ways because, if not 
every State, virtually every State has a sales tax. So they are taxed 
on the money they make and then they are taxed on the money they spend. 
Of course, if they do not want to spend that money and save it, we are 
going to tax them on that too.

[[Page 5592]]

  Think about that. What kind of incentive should we be creating for 
Americans? Should we be saying they should save their money or should 
we be saying they should spend it? We tax them, albeit at a lower rate, 
even to save their money.
  Any interest they receive on money they put in the bank, or if they 
invest in a mutual fund or a stock and they receive returns on that 
investment--they sell that stock, they pay tax again. Of course, we 
know when they die they pay death taxes.
  But that is not all. Do you have a phone? You are paying a tax on 
that. Do you have a cell phone? You pay tax on that. Do you have cable 
television? You pay tax on that. Do you want to buy property in the 
State of Florida where I am from? You pay tax on that. Do you want to 
own and hold property? You pay tax on that.
  For some Americans, more than 50 percent of what they make, more than 
half is paid in taxes. I contend that it is immoral to take from 
anybody more than half of what they make in taxes, especially if how 
that money is being spent is not being spent wisely.
  Here in Washington we are very good at taxing. Now we have become 
very good at spending. This year we are figuring the 2011 budget. We 
are going to take in an estimated $2.2 trillion, but we are going to 
spend $3.8 trillion--$1.6 trillion more than we are going to take in. 
We are not looking at the money we are taking in in taxes and trying to 
figure out how much we should spend based upon that baseline. We spend 
based upon what this Congress decides it needs.
  We have a Budget Committee in the Senate. There is one in the House, 
too. But the truth of it is we do not operate under a budget. American 
families sit down at the kitchen table and figure out how much they 
make and therefore how much they can spend. American businesses do the 
same thing. So do State governments, by the way. State governments that 
have balanced budget requirements like my home State of Florida right 
now are in their legislative session, and they are evaluating how much 
they can spend based upon how much they are going to have from tax 
receipts. Guess what. They only spend what they take in. They have 
three choices: They can cut spending, they can raise taxes, or find new 
sources of revenue.
  Here in Washington it is like it is a different conversation, if 
there is a conversation even at all, because we do not talk about 
spending based upon what we take in. We talk about spending based upon 
what people in this Chamber want to spend money on. That system, 
unfortunately, threatens the very viability of this country.
  We know right now that we have a nearly $13 trillion national debt. 
Remember, 1 trillion is 1,000 billion. These numbers are so staggering, 
it is hard to comprehend them. We know if we continue to spend the way 
we are projected to spend, this administration has told us that by 2020 
we will be $22 trillion in debt. Why is that important? It is important 
because it hurts investment in our country, and it is important because 
more and more of what we spend each year goes to paying interest on the 
debt. This year, we are going to spend more than $200 billion just 
paying interest on money we should not have spent in the past. If we 
keep going, by 2020 we will spend $900 billion a year on interest. And, 
my friends, by the time we get to that point, the system will have 
failed because, with mandatory spending, spending on Social Security, 
Medicare, and Medicaid, plus $900 billion in interest payments, there 
will not be any money left for anything else. There will not be any 
money left for defense. There will not be any money left for homeland 
security. There will not be any money left for commerce or agriculture 
or any of the other programs, and the system will have failed. So do we 
wait until 2020 when the system fails or do we do something about it 
now?
  We do not have a problem on the revenue side. We are taxing people 
plenty, and today is a day when most Americans realize that. There is a 
real problem in this country that we do not think about taxes more 
because they are sort of hidden from us. We have something called 
withholding. Most people work for somebody else, they are employees, 
and they get their check every week, every 2 weeks, once a month. And 
what do they look at? They want to know what the bottom-line number is. 
They think that is what they make. They think that is what their 
employer is paying them, in effect. They do not realize--and none of us 
do--that they make the top-line number. What is in our check is after 
everything else has been paid.
  Imagine if we got rid of withholding. Imagine if every American was 
required, at the end of the month or at the end of a quarter, as small 
businesspeople have to do, to write a check to the Federal Government 
to actually pay their taxes, to take that affirmative act instead of 
having it withheld out of their check. I think Americans would be in 
the streets. I think they would be protesting because they would 
finally realize how much money they are actually paying in taxes.
  Our problem in this country isn't not enough tax. We do not need to, 
as members of this administration have suggested, add a value added tax 
or the equivalent of a national sales tax to help get us out of our 
deficit and debt problems. What we need to do is stop spending money we 
do not have.
  By the way, this body and the body down the hall--you would think we 
would be focused on oversight, trying to figure out how the money is 
being spent in these agencies. Sadly, I tell you that is a topic of 
little interest to many of the people in either of these two bodies. My 
colleagues for the most part--and there are notable exceptions--care 
more about creating new programs than focusing on the programs we have.
  So what we need is a construct. We need something that is going to 
focus us on spending--spending less. Legislation comes to the floor, 
and we have a Member of the Senate champion and shepherd that 
legislation through to spend money. What we do not have is a procedure 
to focus us on spending less. All the mechanisms here, all the 
directions flow toward spending money. They never flow toward saving 
money. We have to change the structure around here, even if just a 
little. We have to change the focus. What we need to focus on is not 
spending as much money so that we can have a balanced budget.
  Yesterday, I proposed a solution called the 2007 solution and filed 
legislation to this end, that we would freeze spending at the 2007 
spending levels because if we did that, we could balance the budget by 
2013 and by 2020 we could cut our national debt in half--not the $22 
trillion that is estimated but $6 trillion, half of the $12 trillion 
debt we have now--and we could save America for our children because if 
we continue down the path we are on, they are not going to have the 
opportunities we have. We have been able to enjoy an America where 
anything is possible, where you are not limited by anything but your 
hopes and dreams. But for our children--I have four little ones: Max, 
Taylor, Chase, and Madeleine. Madeleine is 2 weeks old. They are not 
going to have the same opportunities I have enjoyed if their country 
cannot afford to meet its obligations; if investors from around the 
world no longer come here because we are no longer a good investment; 
if we have to raise taxes to such an incredibly high level that it 
stifles innovation and entrepreneurship, where my kids come to me, when 
they are 18 or 22, when they are done with school, and say: Dad, I am 
going to Ireland or India or Brazil or some other country because the 
promise of that country is greater than that of the United States of 
America. So it is incumbent upon us in this time--not tomorrow, not 
next week, not next year, not when we think the economy is doing 
better, but today--to start getting our spending under control.
  Why can't we live off of what we lived off of in 2007? When I go back 
to Florida--and I talked to some folks today from Florida who are here 
from Bartow, which is in central Florida, in Polk County, and I said to 
these business leaders: Could you live off what you had in 2007? They 
all shook their

[[Page 5593]]

heads affirmatively because they had more money in 2007 than they have 
today.
  So now that we have gotten past the stimulus and that big bulge in 
our spending, hopefully, is over, why can't we go back to 2007 levels, 
before the economy declined? Remember, it was not until December of 
2007 that the recession started. Why can't we go back to that robust 
year and say: This is our baseline. We took in $2.7 trillion that year. 
That is more than we expect to take in this year by $\1/2\ trillion. 
Why can't we live on that level? Guess what. Then we would have to come 
to the floor of the Senate--and our colleagues would have to do it in 
the House of Representatives--and have a discussion about priorities: 
Do we need to spend as much money as we are spending today in our 
various agencies? Are we getting bang for the buck?
  When is the last time a Cabinet Secretary, an agency head went inside 
their department and said: I want you to find cuts of 10 percent, 20 
percent. I want you to use technology to create efficiencies. Let's 
impose a hiring freeze until we can figure out whether we can do more 
with less.
  American businesses have been doing this for the past 3 years during 
this recession. They have been cutting in order to make ends meet. 
Government is going to have to do the same. And I guarantee you that 
there are hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and inefficiency and 
fraud in the system; that if we spent as much money and attention and 
time focusing on that as we do on creating new programs, we could right 
our fiscal house.
  So I have offered this legislation to bring us back to 2007, really 
just to have a debate, have a focus and a structure to talk about it 
every year for 50 hours on the floor of this Chamber and in the House 
so that we can begin to focus on what matters; that is, putting our 
fiscal house in order so that our children have the same opportunities 
we have because, frankly, that is our solemn obligation in this 
country. Our obligation is to make sure our children have equal or 
greater opportunities than we had. Everything else that we do, by 
comparison, will not measure up if we fail to meet that solemn and 
sacred vow.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen.) The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SANDERS. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________