Date: 1997-04-15
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Good evening. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding. I am curious if the gentleman recognizes this. Before people get too confused. this is the red and white stripes without the stars. I am curious whether the gentleman recognizes this. Many people do. I assure the gentleman that around the founding days of our country. the British understood full well what this banner was. This is the flag of liberty. This is the flag that the Sons of Liberty had flown and had organized under. The Sons of Liberty. of course. being the ones who initiated the Boston Tea Party. I keep this flag in my office as a constant reminder. as well as several other things that I will be happy to share with the gentleman and others today. reminders that I keep in my office in the Fourth Congressional District office of Colorado. across the street. to remind me and my staff and all those who enter that office every day what our job here is and what the challenges are for the country and for the people that we represent. not just in Colorado or Missouri but throughout the country as well. The Sons of Liberty have been mentioned several times today. In fact. some of our colleagues went up to Boston and dumped the entire Tax Code into the Boston Harbor. I am going to leave this hanging up here. I hope people do not confuse this with our American flag. but let me tell the gentleman why recalling the Sons of Liberty and this banner are so important today and why I hope that more and more Americans begin to identify with the theory behind this. the theme behind the flag of liberty. the spirit of the revolution and what caused it to initiate. Because I have to tell the gentleman that we as Americans tolerate far more than what the colonists tolerated back 220 years ago. The terms which launched the Revolution against the British was the Stamp Act. the intolerable acts. these acts which. yes. resulted in excessive taxation and taxation without representation. but nowhere near the ext ent of confiscation that our tax policy represents today. They were in larger colonial cities. they sprang up in American communities. they largely opposed the Stamp Act of 1765. They circulated patriotic petitions. they harassed British tax officials. they denounced British tyranny and organized mass protests against increasing British control of the colonies. New York and Boston had the largest and most active Sons of Liberty chapters. They celebrated the opposition to the Stamp Act. August 14. 1773. they flew this flag over the tent where they were meeting. It consisted of 13 stripes. alternating red and white. the flags popular design. of course. before and after the Revolution. In fact. as my colleagues can see. this largely resembles with the addition of the stars to represent those colonies and eventually States. represents our U.S. flag today. Again I keep this in my office. I keep this plaque next to it. and I invite people to stop by and take a look at that and recall what it is that unites us today. You know the clock is running. It is 10 oclock here in Washington. DC. in the eastern time zone. 2 hours left for tax filers who have not made it to the post office* yet -to file their tax forms. In the central time zone they have got 3 hours. In the Rocky Mountain time zone. where my constituents live. they have 4 hours left. And so the clock is ticking. and it reminds me. since we talked about early Americans. I want to spend a little bit of time on a personal level speaking about some of the early Americans of my family. A couple of the other things I keep in my office are pictures of my grandparents. Now this is a picture of my Grandma Bednar. She is the little one here. She is just a few months old. This is a picture taken in her hut that she was born in up in Canada. She was Ukrainian and immigrated to the United States several years later with this man here who ended up being her husband. Now when they came here to the United States the Federal Government taxed their family at 3 percent of total income. Now 3 percent. when you think about that. and this is in fact one of the reasons they came here. for the search of liberty and the search of freedom and the opportunity for honest hard work and selfdetermination and selfsufficiency. and they achieved that. I have to say. I am very proud of these beginnings. and they have an awful lot to do with. I think. why I am here and what I think about when I think about America. And I think often about how hard they worked. what they created for our country. These are the people who are much like your parents. grandparents or anybody else in America. They are the ones who built the roads. who built the schools. who largely put the face on America as a place where we really do look within for internal greatness. In fact they are the reason the rest of the world still looks to us today for leadership and guidance because of what we represent. Now I can contrast what they came to America for. opportunity and liberty. taxed at 3 percent of their income in order to pay and fund for the Federal Government which they deeply believed in and were firmly committed to. and I contrast that with this crew here. These are three of my children. I have one more at home. And my family. as most American families. as op posed to the 3 percent that Americans paid. in family. of their income that they paid in taxes back in the early forties. my family pays 40 percent of our total family budget to taxes. and I say that as an average American. That is what most Americans who have 2 hours left in the eastern time zone pay their taxes. that is what they pay. I also am reminded in that same Ukrainian heritage. I keep in close contact with lots of people who come from Ukraine and have immigrated to the United States. there is a man named Ivan Stebelski who lives out in Colorado. a very good friend of mine. And one day we were speaking about the revolution here in the United States and contrasting that with what occurs throughout the rest of the world. why he left Ukraine to come to the United States. and we talked about tax policy obviously. He mentioned that. and I asked. I said. "Well. why dont the people in these oppressed countries just revolt?" This is prior to the revolution in those countries. "Why dont they just revolt and stand up against the tyranny of their government and oppressive taxation and so on?" He said something that I remember especially this evening. He said that the strategy of the Communists and the Soviets was to keep their citizens occupied by standing in line for groceries. for food. to comply with the rules and regulations to pay taxes. He said people who are spending their time standing in line have no time to make revolution. And so I think of that vision. and I think of that image and how similar that vision is to what most people are going to see tonight when they are lined up at the post office to make the Governmentimposed deadline to get their taxes filed in time to avoid any penalties of their Government. 40 percent of their family income. And let me just put that into real numbers as those are people perhaps keeping one eye on their Government tonight and the other eye on their tax forms. Americans this year will spend in excess of 5.4 billion hours complying with their tax forms. 5.4 billion hours. and along with that thit 5.4 billion hours compels $200 billion every year in compliance costs. Now these are not dollars that go to Uncle Sam. come here to Washington. These are dollars that go to tax preparers and accountants and attorneys of all sorts to help people understand just what these tax rules say. We are still smarting. frankly. from the last two tax increases of the Bush administration and in the Clinton administration as well in 1990 and 1993. that latter one being the largest in the history of the United States. It raised $285 billion. and we are paying for that not just in our taxes today. but we pay for that in. as I mentioned. compliance costs. We are also paying that in lost jobs. forfeited income. lower living standards. anemic economic security. good farmland that is taken out of production. on. and on. and on. We just cannot afford it anymore. and for anybody who believes that we cannot talk about balancing the budget in this Congress and at this point in time without a discussion ofwithout also engaging in a discussion of tax cuts. they are just wrong. In fact I would suggest that we. as Americans. look back to the Kennedy administration. the Reagan administration. two Presidents of different parties. different viewpoints politically who proved that. when you cut taxes and implement progrowth economic policies. that you in fact earn more revenue. generate more revenue through economic productivity to the Federal Government to allow us to put toward the task of balancing the budget. So we do need spending cuts certainly. there is no denying that. and we need to focus on that. But at the same time. and I say simultaneously. we need to focus on tax relief as well in an effort not just to provide relief but also to stimulate economic growth. Our deficit. $5.5 trillion. and I would submit a challenge to anybody here tonight to show that our deficit was. caused by not taxing enough. This policy we have of confiscatory tax policy sapping 40 percent of the average familys income tonight. this very night. is the final step in that effort. is just unconscionable. It needs a change. I know it is something that people in Colorado care very deeply about. and it is the primary mission they sent me to accomplish. was to remember the value that went behind this flag and what it stands for. the flag of liberty. the sons of liberty who flew it proudly. risked their lives. as a matter of fact. and. again I submit. for far less than what we are willing to tolerate as Americans today. We need a rebellion of sorts. We need to use the occasion of April 15. tax day. to launch small rebellions in every community. Politically I am speaking. I am not suggesting people get up in arms again or risk their lives directly. We do not need to do that today thanks to those grandparents that I mentioned before and others like them. but to resolve tonight that they will no longer vote for politicians who go to raise taxes in Washington. will no longer vote for elected officials who will go to Washington or their State legislature or county commissioners or city councils to increase spending and waste and so on and to make it a personal point to get politically involved personally. not just to vote. but to be angry customers of their Government. to be demanding customers. and. when all else fails. to run for office themselves. I hope that that is what we are able to inspire here today along with the very clear and decisive message that this tax system is undeniably broken and it needs to be fixed. and I think we are just the people to do it.