Date: 1997-05-21
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Well. tax cuts for the wealthy is really a joke when you hear people say that here becausewhat we are talking about here is your average American. I got to tell you I come from eastern Colorado. It is a very agrarian district. just farming and ranching is the primary industry. and when I go oh farms and meet farmers and ranchers in the small towns in the eastern plains of Colorado. what they tell me is about the impact of the capital gains tax. Now these are farmers who worked the land every day. they work hard. They are not wealtl. these are not rich people. If you look at their portfolio. you might come to that conclusion. but all of their assets. all of their hard earned income. is invested back into the farm. back into equipment. You know. expensive equipment. poured into the costs of just maintaining land any more with high property taxes. Endangered Species Act that you have to comply with. endless rules and regulations that come out of Washington. By the time the day is over the farmer has very little to show for the hard work that they have poured into their labor. but the impact of the capital gains tax is one that is critically important if they want to sell a certain portion of their farm. if they want to sell equipment. if they want to sell a home. sell anything tall of value that they have accumulated. First of all. they paid income on the income that they earned in the first place to put into those investments. and then when we cause that farmer to pay again .on the capital gains and the value of those assets. we tax tbiat farmer twice. It increases the failure rate of farms throughout the country. it increases the price of food and the price of production for consumers. Mr. Speaker. a capital gains tax cut is not about helping the rich. it is about helping me. it is about helping you. it is about helping just about anybody we meet on any given day as a Congressman in our district relating to constituents. And the inheritance tax. the same applies there as well. Again we have farmers with large acreages that when the farmer gets old and decides that he wants to get out of the business and leave the farm to his children. it is virtually impossible to keep that land in production any more. The cost of inheritance tax at over 50 percent of the value of a farm and the assets makes it almost just out of the question to have one of the children continue to keep that land in production. So these taxes. by cutting those taxes. we really will see the economy perform in a way that I described before that allow us to achieve these goals and objectives of lowering the deficit and eventually getting to the point where we begin to put more and more emphasis on paying off the national debt which is another huge problem that does need to be dealt with. But seeing a very liberal President like Bill Clinton and a conservative Congress like that we represent here come together to agree that the American people sent. for some reason sent a liberal President. a conservative Congress. they sent us all back here to Washington and stirred us up and said please get the job done. balance the budget. The fact that we have been able to come from those two positions to the center in such a commonsense approach that you see here represented today is a great day for America. Mr. Speaker I really believe that. We really are making life more promising for American children. for my kids. for your kids and for all those that we care about in our districts and throughout the country.