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

Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the gentleman. I want to continue on the observations that the gentleman from South Dakota observed. Mr. Speaker. we talk about what cutting spending and slowing the rate of growth in government means for the American people. and it really is dollars in the pockets of American families and American individuals. Well. this is how this works. What occurred in 1995 when the Republicans took over the Congress and began to become serious and make this institution serious about shrinking the size of the. Federal Government. the impact of that was to put more cash. more wealth npt in Washingtons pocket. not centralized here in Washington. DC. and in big government. but to move that wealth out to the country again and put it back in the hands of the people who are earning it and working hard. who. in fact. spend those dollars more wisely and better on things that are more important for their children. for their farms. for their businesses and so on. When you look at these blue bars here. again this is the levels of the deficit. and these are the charts of the gentleman from Wisconsin that was here a few minutes ago. The red lines. the red bars. are what in 1995. under the Republican plan. what we projected our deficit to be. As you can see. our deficits are much lower all the way out through 2002 as a result of less spending. Now this was far and above beyond our projections and our hopes and what we had aspired to accomplish with deficit reduction. and again. what this shows: this was a surprise to many people. so there are many people that still do not believe this. They still cannot believe that the deficit actually shrunk more than we had hoped. even with the new Congress taking over back in 1995. And we expect that to go down even more. This is the real effect of moving wealth out of Washington and strengthening the financial positions of every American family. not by giving families handouts or by giving more Federal benefits or creating more gov-. ernment programs. but just by leaving people alone. just by taxing them less. by allowing the dollars in their pockets to be more productive. _ And you -know the deficit projections. even the blue bars that we have projected out in 1998. 1999. 2000. 2001- and way over there at the end in 2002. and let me point that out. This way over here at the end. the far left of the graph in 2002. you cannot see the line here. right over there. That is because we projected that deficit will be a negative deficit in 2002 by about $1 billion at this point in time. But even these projections have the possibility. the outside prospect. of even coming in lower than we project here today. Now these are conservative numbers because we are a conservative legisla�ture. We want to be careful. We do not want to over promise and then end up under delivering at some point in time. But just as these projections here for declining deficits were far surpassed and far exceeded by reducing the deficit more than we had anticipated. that opportunity. that chance. still exists here. In fact. if the economy continues to perform as strong as it is today over that next 7year period out to 2002. we will see deficits come into a balanced budget period before the end of the decade. And again that is all predicated on some assumptions that turning wealth. turning authority. turning of power away from Washington. DC. and toward the States and toward families and communities is in the long run beneficial for communities. Now the gentleman from Missouri mentioned tax cuts before. You know. many people did not believe this either. They did not believe that we could actually cut taxes and see us glide. put ourselves on a glidepath towards a balanced budget. Even the President during the course of the 1996 campaign said this is ridiculous. you canhot cut taxes and balance the budget at the same time. But. lo and behold. we come here to Washington. and when forced to compromise and sit down at the table with reasonable Republicans and those who understand full well the economic history of America. that President came to the conclusion that cutting taxes is indeed necessary to achieve our common goal of balancing the budget. Now there are those. as we mentioned before. in the outside. the fringes. of those represented here in this body who oppose the idea of tax cutting. They do not Want to put more authority into the hands of families throughout the country. They like holding it here because it puts them in charge here in Washington and in the Congress. Well. fortunately this morning. when we voted on this package. the reasonable voters. .the reasonable thinkers. the reasonable Members of Congress who are dedicated to balancing the budget. came to their right conclusion. that cutting taxes. reducing spending. reforming entitlements and making government smarter will accomplish a balanced budget by 2002. That is the promise of the agreement that was reached this morning and that was confirmed by this House and will soon be. I am confident. over in the Senate as well. It is the capital gains tax. the inher.itance tax. the S500 per child tax credit. the tax relief for college students. families who send their children to college. those kinds of reductions in tax policy. that tax relief that we provide to families. that is the seed corn that really helps us start our economic engine to go a little faster. to be a little more productive. to run a little stronger. This case was proven a couple times. There are many economists and many liberal thinkers who really believe that when you move authority out of Washington that it causes the country to undergo some kind of damage. But President Kennedy. a Democrat. President Reagan. a Republican. both proved to the American people that when you cut tax rates. you effectively increase tax revenues to the Federal Government. Now what I mean by that is that when you tax people less. they go out and make better investments. They pour their income and their wealth into more productive activities. They buy new businesses. they buy that new piece of equipment that allows you to be more efficient. they put their child or their children into better schools. or maybe go invest in getting the better college degree. or getting the masters degree and so on. They put this wealth into more productive activities. What President Kennedy and President Reagan proved is that this trend is something we should expect that is a real promise to the American people. Cutting spending. cutting taxation. making government more efficient results in more liberty. results in more wealth for the American family. more independence and more freedom.