Date: 1999-07-20
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I enjoyed listening to my colleague from Georgia who was just at the microphone talking about how the Republicans are working on an agenda and one of the parts of their BEST program was saving Social Security. I also note with interest that right after the Republicans passed their $3 trillion tax bill. the Wall Street Journal wrote that in order to pay for it. they are going to have to dip into Social Security and take $25 billion out of Social Security to pay for this tax bill. The fact of the matter is that America is enjoying the greatest economy in the history of our country. the longest economic recovery since the Second World War. we have more people working. more people are buying houses. more people are entering the workforce from people who historically have not been able to find a place in our economy than any time in the country and we have had relatively low interest rates. All of that has happened since the 1993 economic program of the ClintonGore administration when this Congress took a courageous vote but was only able to pass it with Democratic Members of the House and Senate. not a single Republican voted for that. When we voted for that and the ClintonGore plan passed. they said that everything was going to go downhill. that interest rates were going to soar. that people were going to be unemployed. the economy is going in the tank. the Dow is going to crasjh. None of that has come to pass over the last 8 years. It has taken us 20 years to get out. of the hole that Ronald Reagans tax cuts put us in in 1981. In 1981. we had a huge tax cut that we could not afford. It was sort of like increasing your kids allowance after you have been unemployed. It sounds good. but it does not make a lot of sense. For 20 years. we .have tried to dig our way out of that hole. For the first time we are now looking at surpluses and we are looking at surpluses over the coming years. But what the Republicans are asking us to do is to take all that economic prosperity. to take those low interest rates. to take that job creation. to take that employment. to take those new homes and roll the dice with those with the tax bill that is $800 billion in the first 10 years and then goes to $3 trillion in the second 10 years. Now. in order to do that. they tell you that everything is going to stay the same over the next 15 years. You have to believe that nothing is going to change in a negative fashion over the next 15 years. But if you go back to the Wall Street Journal. we already see that the Republicans are starting to think of ways of breaking the current budget caps because they cannot live within them. But the surplus that they want to give people back in tax cuts is predicated upon the fact that those budget caps will not only be enforced at their current levels. they will be reduced so there will be less spending. and yet the Republicans are trying to figure out ways to increase the spending this year because they cannot live under the cap. I think the American people are on to something. When we look at all of the data. what the American people are saying is we know we have a $5 trillion debt that has been run up over the past history of this country. Now the sun is shining on our economy and people are working and they are buying houses and taxes are being generated. Why do we not pay down the debt? Why do we not save that $150 billion in interest? Why do we not take that interest and apply it to the debt just like a family would if they had a windfall? You would pay off the MasterCard. you would pay off the Visa bill. you would try to get out of debt. and the interest you save. you might use to buy your kids some clothes or you might use for whatever purposes you want. And the interest you save on low interest rates would be applied to your family income. You would be able to refinance your home that so. many millions of Americans already have under this economic recovery. For all of this we are going to pass a $3 trillion tax bill that the Washington Post tells :usmainly benefitsrelatively few people. The wealthiest people In the country get most of that tax cut. But whatdoes it put at risk? It puts at risk every familys wellbeing. Because even Alan Greenspan said that if he had his way. he would not cut taxes. he would not increase spending. he would just take the savings we are making now in the surplus and apply it to the debt and let the surpluses continue to run because he knows that not every day is going to be a sunny day for the American economy. The clouds are going to come. the economic cycles are going to reoccur and we are going to have some bad times. What better to go into bad times with than a little bit of extra in your savings account to tide you over? Just like a.family does. that is what a Nation has to do. We are going to have some options over tomorrow and the next day. We can decide whether we are going to be prudent. whether we are going to take care of this economic recovery. whether we are going to allow it to last longer so more people can participate. or whether we are going to pick up those dice and just roll them out there on the crap table and see whether we can put it all at risk. I vote to believe. I vote to believe that we ought to be prudent. that we ought not to take Social Security and Medicare and the education of our children and put it at risk because. understand. if you take the Republican proposal. and you take a $3 trillion tax cut. there is no money for anything else. That is why again. as the Wall Street journal points out. they are already trying to play shenanigans with the spending programs to hide spending. they are already prepared to go in and take $25 billion out of a Social Security Trust. Fund that is already broke. That is how they finance their tax cut. Mr. Speaker. I do not think that is a program that American families want to endorse.