Date: 1982-08-19
Speaker: WILLIAM J. COYNE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. In the best of all .possible worlds. this would not be the measure I would prefer. This is not. however. from my perspective. the best of all possible worlds. We have a conservative Republican administration. We have a conservative Republican Senate. We have a House which. in matters of budget and taxes over the last 18 months. has had a working administration majority. For . the administration. legislative victory has followed legislative victory. This has meant that. in the last session. Congress reduced taxes by more than $760 billion over 5 years. while it embarked on a military spending program of more than $1.6 trillion over the same period. For the administration and its supporters. it has been. if not the best of all possible worlds. certainly a better world for them than for those who opposed them. Congress has gone to the well for the administration: it is now coming up dry. Despite adminitration promises to the contrary. the number of unemployed has risen from 8 million In January 1981 to 10.8 million in July 1982a 35 percent Increase. Tax reductions. It was argued. would aid small business. The numbers say otherwise. In the first 7 months of 1982. nearly 2.000 businesses failed each month. In 1980. the last year of the Carter administration. the average was 978 per month. The annual growth rate of the gross national product was 7.9 percent when the Reagan administration took office in the first quarter of 1981. In the second quarter of 1982. it stood at 1.7 percent. In one of the most dismal indicators of all for those of us from western Pennaylvania. steel production stands at 44 percent of capacitythe lowest on record. I opposed the administrations tax and budget bills last year not simply because they were fiscally unsound. but because the administrations proposals lacked any notion of social justice. That opposition. of course. had a partisan nature. as well it should. The views of an urban Democrat and a conservative Republican administration rarely coincide. This opposition of principle should not be reduced to a strategy based principally on opposition. For those who oppose this tax measure with an eye toward electoral gain in November. I would commend the observation of Governor Adlai Stevenson: More important than winning the election is governing the nation. That is the test of a political partythe acid. final test. The measure we consider today is Indeed our acid test. I strongly object to a number of provisions. as do most Members of the House. in one manner or another. I must commend the conferees. however. for extending the time period for unemployment benefits. I regret that the benefits were not extended for a longer period of time. This tax measure is before us because the economic policies of this administration have failed. We. as responsible Members of. Congress. must address that issue. The large number of unemployed individuals in the country today are there because the administration has failed them. Simple justice dictates that we address their situation in a fair .manner. And Mr. Speaker. a 10week extension is simply not fair. We. in Congress. will .be judged by what we fall to do as much as by what we do. Failure to enact a responsible revenue measure at this time. by this Congress. would be irresponsible. Congress assisted in creating this fiscal fiasco. It is our responsibility to find a way out. By offering this measure. the administration has. to its credit. admitted that the economic program it so successfully sold to Congress has been a failurean observation I have made more than a few times in recent months. A vote against this measure. flawed though this bill may be. would be a vote to sustain the economic failure achieved thus far. I urge a yes vote on the Tax Equity and Responsibility Act of 1982.