macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 1997-06-19
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. I would like to continue on with the discussion that we had a few minutes ago just about this notion of the Federal Government. in fact. confiscating the wealth of American families through our excessive tax policy. bringing those dollars here to Washington and redirecting them to the charity of politicians choices. We hear all day long the discussions about whether we should spend money on one charity or another charity. These are all fine things. But the Republican vision and the Republican value. when it comes to this whole debate about taxation. is that we are the ones who fundamentally believe that every taxpayer. every family. every wage earner is eminently more capable of deciding how to spend those dollars in a free market economy than the government is. Mr. Speaker. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].
Date: 1997-06-19
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. if the gentleman will yield. I am glad the gentleman brings up this concept of the cost of regulation at the same time we talk about the cost of taxation. There is a very important date coming up just in the next few weeks. July 3rd is the Cost of Government Day. Now many of us will remember back to May 9. We worked up to May 9 to pay off all of the taxes to satisfy the government. We worked up to that point for the government. the rest of the year we work for our family and the things important to us. But further down the line. way into the 7th month of the year. July 3rd. is Cost of Government Day. That is the date after which we have surpassed all of our obligations to the Federal Government. not just for taxes but also for regulation. More than 50 percent of an average familys income goes to pay for taxes at the State. Federal. local level. and regulations at the State. Federal and local level. These new air quality standards the gentleman from Ohio mentions are estimated to cost the agriculture industry alone in America anywhere from $9 to $12 billion a year. That is the governments estimates. That is Carol Browners estimates. And the people in the industry suggest that those estimates are far too low.
Date: 1997-06-19
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

You know the middle class families of America feel left out primarily because the White House fails to acknowledge that they even exist. Listen to this: The Treasury Department says that they will not calculate income based on something they call family economic income. Now this is not the money you bring home. This is something else. This is how when you hear people talk about tax cuts for the rich. they are actually talking about just about everyone in America because congratulations. we are all rich now as a result of the calculation from the White House. Listen to this: They say income includes things like your IRA income. Keogh deductions. AFDC benefits. social security and one more thing. the imputed rent on an owner house. Now what this means is that if you own a home. the Federal Government. the Clinton administration. is going to assume that if you could earn rent on your house. that that is going to be calculated as your income. That is how a family earning $50.000 a year all of a sudden becomes in the rich category. So when you hear about tax cuts for the rich that you hear this term a lot. this really does apply to the average American family who the liberals in Washington all of a sudden want to demonize by calling you exceedingly wealthy. But you know these are the folks who we represent. This is my parents. my retired school teachers. my inlaws. the pipefitter. the Yates family in Mississippi. the Conklin family in Illinois. average American families who work hard every day making middle class incomes. We want to reduce their tax burden. The liberals in Washington want to call them millionaires somehow magically and suggest that they are somehow bad people who do not deserve a break.
Date: 1997-06-23
Speaker: SAM JOHNSON (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Chairman. as my colleagues know. we forgot what we are here for. and -that is to protect the United States of America. The B2 is expensive. but we know it is the only available system that can directly attack heavily defended areas anywhere in the world from the United States within hours. We do not have to deploy. we do not have to escort. we do not have to create a big force. It means that B2 Is likely to carry most of the burden in any war. To say that we have 21 and that should be enough is naive and dangerous. That number was kind of pulled out of the air anyway. I think. The gentleman from California. Mr. DUNCAN HUNTER. mentioned earlier that 10 percent of our B52s missions were destroyed in Vietnam. I was in Vietnam. I was a POW there for nearly 7 years. and let me tell my colleagues something. I watched the missiles fired around us until we thought the sky was going to be like daylight. It was night. I watched three B52s get hit in the air. Do my colleagues know what? That airplane is old. It cannot get in anywhere without getting hit. They exploded right there in the air. right in front of my eyes. and I saw some of our countrymen die on the spot. burn to death. and those that got out. bailed out. got to Earth. and do my colleagues know what? They got imprisoned just like I was. and one of the tail gunners had his leg cut off by a Vietnamese because they were mad at him. Do we want that? I do not think so. I think we want to protect our men. We need to provide the equipment. the military equipment. the most modern equipment that we can provide for them so that if we ever get into any situation like that again. and it does not have to be like Vietnam. it can be as was stated before. a mission to destroy the tanks in a place like Iraq before they get moving. We must protect our troops. Give them the airplane. Vote against this amendment.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: LINDA SMITH (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Washington

Mr. Speaker. I rise today to give voice to millions of Americans who have grave concerns about Americas relationship with China. I guess the rainbow to this long debate over mostfavorednation status for China has ended with Americans realizing that something is wrong. deeply wrong. Americans know in their hearts and minds the difficult social. moral. and economic issues involved. We knew something was wrong when we watched our President change his mind and turn is back on the issue of slave labor. which he said he would change if he were elected. We knew something was wrong when he decided that it no longer made any difference that we saw more labels "Made in China" that used to be carrying proudly the "Made in U.S." label. Americans are weighing this issue. and they are thoughtfully. thoughtfully but adamantly. against giving MFN to China. Just this week. a poll came out and it is growing the opposition. It is now 67 percent against giving mostfavorednation status. It is not a third for. Only 18 percent would support it at this point after this long debate. Furthermore. Americans are dissatisfied with the current status quo. Recently. I got another letter from a union in my area. the Machinist Union. and they echoed the concerns of this poll. They echoed the concerns that China has to open up its markets. We have very few products and very few commodities now going into China. But they really had a loud voice in this letter. and also in the poll. that said a country that tortures its own to keep the rest terrified is not acceptable. I would urge my colleagues to join the American people and vote "yes" on this resolution.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker. I have been listening to the debate and came over here on the floor because I really wanted to get to this whole issue that we have been hearing day after day after day about how our tax plan supposedly only benefits a small sector of the economy. the taxpayers. and those somehow are the rich. I really wanted to focus in on that because I think when the American people begin to understand the numbers and the statistics that underlie that whole flawed philosophy. this silly notion that our tax cuts benefit only the rich. I think when the American public begins to understand that. first of all they get a glimpse of how things work in Washington. how the deception and the deceit is at an alltime high around here by those on the far left who are really afraid of this tax cut package because they understand the real numbers. I believe. they understand that we really are moving ourselves as a Nation toward a balanced budget. we are doing it not only by exercising fiscal sanity when it comes to balancing and spending but we are also focusing on ways to improve the performance of the economy by allowing those who work hardest and those who are able to apply the principles of the free market and the principles of success. those individuals are in fact becoming more productive. becoming more energetic and they really are becoming liberated by a tax policy which taxes them less and rewards greater productivity. be it in home businesses. small businesses or in the workplace. I Our tax package. the one the gentleman described just a moment ago. distributes 75 percent of those tax cuts to the middle class. These are people who earn $75.000 a year or less. Those are the individuals who are the target of our plan.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

I actually have the whole rundown here under this paper somewhere. I would love to go through that. Before I do that. though. and move on from that. I want to focus in on how it is that middleclass taxpayers are considered rich by the liberals and the Democrats here in Washington. because then I think it makes it easier for us to apply the Republican tax package to the average family. Realize that we really are talking about average families in America. There is a term that we are beginning to hear here. I heard it just a few weeks ago. It is called family economic income. This is an important one for taxpayers to remember. because this is not the income that we earn or that pay taxes on. This is a calculation that is an invention. really. by the Treasury Department. which has been adopted by the liberal Democrats here in Washington because family economic income suggests that we make more money as taxpayers than we really do. Here is how they do that. Again. I have only learned about this last week when I began looking into this term and this number and hearing these wild statistics that we are somehow only providing tax benefits. tax relief. for the rich. This category. family economic income. is a way to magically transform a family making $45.000 a year into a family making $75.000 a year. This is how they do it. My father used to warn me about these getrichquick schemes. overnight you become wealthy or you become a millionaire. Usually they are not true. In this case it is also the case that it is just not true. Here is how they do it. They take that $45.000 that a family may make and they add $12.000 for the rent you could get if you did not live in your home and you rented it out. It is $12.000 a year. Since your home. again. may generate $12.000 a year in rental income if you moved out and somebody else moved in. that $12.000 is added to your $45.000 in real income. That is the first step.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

This is a question that did not occur to the Treasury Department. apparently. It is really the fallacy in these numbers. This is imputed income. or imputed rent as they call it. This is just one way they bump up your income. Right now we are up to $57.000. The $45.000 family now. according to the Treasury Department and liberal Democrats. makes $57.000 a year because they may be able to get rental income on their house if they moved out and rented their home to somebody else. Bear in mind this is not money they are really making. it is just an estimate. I am not kidding. I first thought they were kidding when I heard about this. But let me continue. $12.000 for rent you could get if you did not live in your home. That is the first addition. Next they add $5.500 for the family health insurance that your employer provides. Again. if you are working and your employer provides a health insurance benefit. they assume that you are making an additional $5.500 over what your paycheck suggests you make. Next. they add $1.000 for something that they call unreported or underreported income. It is unclear as to what underreported or unreported income might be. It is never really assumed. They just throw that additional $1.000 in to bump the number up more. I continue. There really is more here. Next they add $10.000 for your share .of the Wall Street paper profits. How is that for money you did not even know you had? Next they add another $5.000 for your teenagers parttime summer job. If the student that you mentioned before happens to work in the summer. that is added to what the Democrats believe to be your family income.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Could be pension funds. Could be the savings account that you have or the checking account that you have at home. the notion that there is some financial value in the various savings of the income that you have already earned and paid taxes on. If you save it or invest it in one place or another. just the financial services that you are receiving. the fact that you have got dollars invested. there is an imputed value associated with just finances in general that may or may not affect a family. Again. it is not treated as income anywhere else except in this tax discussion here on the floor. These are invented revenues that a family supposedly has. according to the liberal Democrats. who are very frustrated that the American public loves our tax relief package that the Republicans are planning. Next they add $2.000 for your IRA deduction. They add $3.000 for the unrealized buildup in your pension or IRA. Who needs smoke and mirrors when you can just make this stuff.up? They add $1.500 for unrealized buildup in your life insurance policy. Unrealized buildups. This is income that you really have not even built up in these funds. but you have the potential to do that over time. so they impute that into your present day income. Here is the real kicker. proving that those who like to suggest that these tax cuts only occur to the rich have no shame. By taking a familys $45.000 income figure. adding all of the above numbers. and then add on that a final $600 into the calculation for things like your parking space at work. because there is presumably some value associated with a parking space that you have out there. It goes on. But this is how the Dem9crats come to suggest that the $45.000 in a familys income is over and above $75.000 in income. and. therefore. you are rich. Everybody who went to bed last night thinking they were middleclass taxpayers wakes up today and finds out that many people in their government believe them to be the beneficiaries of some kind of obscene wealth and therefore unworthy of a tax break. But we really are talking about middleclass families. People know what their income is. They can see the paycheck when they bring it home. It is those individuals. the middleclass hardworking Americans who go to Work every day. who toil to pay their taxes. stay within the confines of the law. go to see an accountant just to make sure they did not make some mistake on their IRS tax form because they are in fear of an IRS tax agent showing up at their homes. those are the folks we have in mind as Republicans. Those are the folks we want to assist. the folks we want to allow to keep more of their hardearned income and wealth. not steal it from them and confiscate it from them and bring it here to Washington D.C. so it ban be spent on all these goofy programs that we spend millions and billions on every day. We really are concerned about the middleclass families. Seventyfive percent of the individuals who benefit from our Republican tax package are middleclass wage earners earning $75.000 a year or less of real income.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Well. it does not exist. It truly does not exist. Now you know people who think I am joking. I would urge them to just call the Treasury Department and get a calculation of their explanation of family economic income. This is the term they use. They have a full description of it. All of these items that I went through. the costs of the parking space. the imputed rent on the home that you do not rent. the $12.000 that they assume you benefit from. things like that. all of that is described and listed there. I would encourage people to call the Clinton White House. the Treasury Department and see it for themselves because I know there are many people who really do not believe it. but when you see it. it is a sad occasion. I assure you.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

I met a young woman just right over here off to the side of the Chamber. She is from North Carolina. She is 16 years old. And I asked hershe was observing this debate and watching the whole discussion on tax. on the extent to which Congress ought to provide tax relief to the American taxpayers. and I asked her. I said what do you think about this whole debate? She said that if people are willing to work hard and earn more money and apply themselves in a way that allows them to provide for their family that they ought to be permitted to keep more of their income for themselves. That is quite a statement. She is 16 years old. She says she expects to major in English and maybe be a writer. possibly a teacher and has hopes and dreams like many 16yearolds across this country. and she happens to be from North Carolina. and there are millions of young people just like this in Colorado and in your State. I am sure. and throughout the country who really do look forward to a day when they are going to be selfsufficient. be able to work hard. be able to bring home the majority of the income that they earn. put it toward their family. their selfsufficiency. buying a home. buying a car. living the American dream and contributing to our economy. It is their ambition. it is their hope for the future that helps us get to this balanced budget quite frankly. and I think after generation after generation after generation of people who have entered the work force to be taxed more and more and more. is it any wonder that there are those who choose not to work? Is it any wonder that there are those who in the end do the calculation. as all Americans do. and come to the conclusion that sometimes it is easier not to work than it is to apply yourself and use your Godgiven talents to bolster an economy like ours? I think the greatest thing we can do for the future generation is restore hope. restore the energy and the enthusiasm for being a participant in a free market economy by taxing families less by allowing people to keep more of what they earn. to send less money to us here in Washington and allow them to keep it at home and spend it on the private charities of their choice at home. spend it on their church or synagogue. spend it in their school. spend it on their children. spend it in a way that reinvigorates and restores the American dream to all young people and all individuals throughout our country.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Let me contrast that future that you just described to what would happen if we do nothing. if we really do what the -left wing in Washington wants. which is no tax cuts. which is not to balance the budget. which is to continue running this Government on auto pilot as if there is not a care in the world and no problems down the road. You know the statistic that I hope Americans remember is that a child born today owes approximately $20.000 to the debt that we have today. Now as with the Federal debt. it is no different than any debt that anybody has on the mortgage on their home or their car loan or whatever. You have to pay interest on that. the cost of the cash that you use for whatever purpose. There is a cost associated with the debt that we have now. and the interest on the debt just continues to build and build and build unless we decide now to get serious about it. That $20.000 that a child born today owes to the Federal debt. over the course of that childs working life becomes a debt of upwards of $200.000 once we calculate the interest associated with that. Now. think of that. A child born today. with the budget scenario that we have in the current law. has an obligation to the Federal Government of $200.000. That is what they are faced with. Mr. Speaker. we talked a little earlier about the hope and the opportunity and the excitement that we hope to build into the future of every young American. and getting at reducing that $200.000 debt over the course of a childs working life is something that we are very serious about here in Washington. This new wave of conservative budgeting. conservative tax policy that the gentleman mentioned. started in 1994 and really got to work here in 1995. I think was reinforced in the 1996 election with those of us who came in my class. is offering the real prospect of getting a budget balanced. The numbers that we have seen are very clear. They are very exciting. By seeing these charts and graphs which show us that we are on a glidepath toward not only balancing the budget. but a plan beyond that. even beyond that. to start looking at what do we do with the savings. what do we do with the economic prosperity in America after that? Getting that burden off of every childs back. that $200.000 obligation to the debt. and removing that by 2026. is something that is great cause for optimism to. I am sure. everybody who has children. every middle class family. and certainly those of. us here who are dedicated and committed to working so hard. to seeing these three stages of our tax relief. our balanced budget relief and our debt repayment relief plan enacted.
Date: 1997-06-24
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. it really is. Again. I have to say. the way we see certain folks responding to this plan. once they realize that it really is going to work. that the numbers are real. that the glidepath towards a balanced budget is something that we really can touch and get our hands around. those who oppose that notion. those who really do want us to spend more and tax more and continue business as usual. they are screaming like a bag of cats on the way to the river. because they realize the power of this particular plan and that the American people really do embrace it. That is why they come up with these phoney numbers about how our tax cuts only benefit the rich. They do not. They benefit middle class. Those numbers are very clear. very solid. The Joint Committee on Taxation tells us very directly. 75 percent of these tax cuts go to households with incomes below $75.000 in real income. the income that people bring home from their jobs and their work everyday and as calculated from their paychecks. not some phoney income that makes us all millionaires overnight.