Date: 2003-03-12
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. Congressional Daily reports today that in a speech to the bankers. Majority Leader TOM DELAY said that "nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." Not only does that defy the history of great leaders in the Western world who understood the necessity of harboring our resources in times of uncertainty and times of war. but it also defies what the American community expects at a time of war. That is the notion of a shared sacrifice. At a time when we are on the eve of sending our young men and women in harms way. we have to think about what the contribution is of the rest of us. We understand the implications of this war in terms of costs are now said it could exceed $100 billion. but we do not know that. because the war has not been fought yet. We also understand that there is going to have to be a longterm commitment in Iraq after the war. and we do not have any idea of what that cost is going to be. We know that. in fact. these costs. whatever they are. are not in the budget as submitted by the President of the United States. nor are they in the budget that is being formulated by the committees in the House and the Senate. but what this does suggest is that this tax cut and when we add to them the tax cuts that the President has proposed. ending with the taxation on dividends by providing huge amounts of tax free income for the wealthiest people in this country. what it suggests is when the bill comes due for this war. when the $5 trillion debt comes due because of the spending and because of the war and because of the Bush economy. that one group of Americans will not have to participate in that shared sacrifice. Those individuals. because of these tax cuts. will live in a tax free world. So when the interest mounts on the debt year after year. when we have seen in a matter of 2 short years going from almost a $5 trillion surplus to a $2 trillion deficit. when we see the deficit reestimated into the hundreds of millions of dollars within a matter of months. apparently our colleague the gentleman from Texas and the President believe that somehow the wealthiest Americans in this country should not share in that sacrifice. they should not be burdened with the responsibility of helping to pay that back. That will be left to people who earn their income through wages. They will continue to be taxed. They will continue to pay high rates of Social Security taxes. but the wealthy will not. They will escape that. No. that is not the most important thing in the face of war. It cannot be cutting taxes. It cannot be how this country works its way through that war. It is more importantly how we make the decision to go to war. The President has offered a number of rationales for going to war. Most of them have been stripped away in the debate that is taking place in the international community. in the debate that is taking place in this country. We have seen evidence offered and the evidence falls apart time and again. We have seen connections trying to be made between the war on terrorism and Iraq. The evidence has not been sustained. and yet as we proceed into that war the one thing that is on the gentleman from Texas mind is cutting taxes. I think it defies what we know this country has done in the past when we have engaged in these conflicts and the necessity of what must be done. and I would hope that once again we would understand that the burden must. be shared across American society because there are those who will be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice and that will be their lives and their futures in pursuit of this war should the President decide to go forward. Clearly those who are at home must continue to engage in the kind of effort to pull this Nation through this period of time. and so we cannot embrace the philosophy of the gentleman from Texas that somehow the most important thing that we can do is to cut taxes and our most important obligation is somehow to tell the wealthiest people in America that they will not share in that sacrifice. they will not be there when the bill comes due for future generations. AUTISM