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[Page: S7112] GPO's PDF---
Mr. DURBIN. The United States has changed a lot in the last 7 1/2 years. Mr. President, 7 1/2 years ago we were deep into deficits. We were spending more each year than we collected in taxes. We were running up the largest national debt in the history of the United States. We have $6 trillion in debt to show for that experience.
Many people have lost faith in the ability of this institution to correct this problem and to respond to what was truly a national crisis. In fact, some went so far as to suggest we should amend the Constitution of the United States to pass what was known as the balanced budget amendment.
On the floor today with me is Senator ROBERT BYRD of West Virginia, acknowledged to be probably the most gifted Senator when it comes to the rules of this body and knowledge of the Constitution. He fought a battle, sometimes lonely but ultimately successful, in stopping Members from amending the Constitution and giving power to the Federal courts to tell the Congress to stop spending. Some in this body thought that was the only way we could stop the red ink cascading over the Treasury in Washington, DC. Senator BYRD prevailed. The amendment was defeated.
Amazingly, we stand today in this Senate, in this Capitol, in Washington, DC, with a complete change of events. We are no longer talking about the yearly deficits. We are talking about the yearly surpluses, the fact that the economy is so strong, so many people are working, so many people are earning a good income, businesses are successful, people are building homes, America is on the move. For 7 1/2 years or more now, we have seen that prosperity not only lift the boats of the American people but also bring a new opportunity in Congress. For the first time in many years, we can honestly sit back and discuss and debate what to do with the surplus in the Treasury.
I think many Democrats share the feeling that we should be conservative in our approach with this surplus. I am not sure what tomorrow, next year, 3 years, or 5 years down the line will bring. I think the decisions we should make as to this surplus should be thoughtful. First and foremost, let's retire our national debt, the $6 trillion debt. We collect $1 billion a day in taxes from Americans, businesses, families, and individuals to pay interest on our old national debt. It is as if to say to our children, we are going to leave you the mortgage on the home we enjoyed our entire lives.
I agree with President Clinton and most Democrats; our first priority should be reduce the publicly held national debt to zero. We can do it. We can do it in a short period of time. It will call for some discipline and some honest dialog with the American people. We can take the money from our surplus, pay down the debt in Social Security, pay down the debt in Medicare, strengthen those two very important programs, and bring down our national debt. That is our policy on the Democratic side of the aisle. That, we think, should be the first step that we make, the most important, the most conservative, the most disciplined.
The Republican side sees things quite differently. They believe if we are going to have a
surplus, the first and most important thing we should do with that surplus is to give tax cuts. There isn't a politician alive who wouldn't like to address a crowd in his hometown and announce a tax cut. There is just no more popular set of words we can use in this business than: I'm going to cut your taxes. Is it the right thing to do? Is it the responsible thing to do?
Equally important, if we are to give tax cuts, who should be the beneficiaries? If we are going to have a surplus for the first time virtually in modern memory, what are we going to do with that surplus? Who will benefit from that surplus?
Over the last week and a half, we have heard the Republican answer to those questions. They have suggested if we have a surplus in America, if times are good and we can help somebody in America, the very first people in line for help should be the wealthiest in America. Now, is that the conclusion most American families would reach? I don't think so.
If you take a look at the proposal of the Republicans to eliminate the estate tax , and the bill that just passed to eliminate the so-called marriage penalty, you can see who the winners are. This chart I am presenting shows the Republican tax plan, their spending of our surplus. Almost half of our surplus is going to benefit the wealthiest people in America. The biggest winners? Mr. President, 43 percent of the total tax cut proposed by the Republicans goes to people making over $319,000 a year. They get 43 percent of the tax breaks. It means for them, on average, an annual tax cut of $23,000. That is almost $2,000 a month.
The Republicans believe in good times, after we have been through all this pain, and we now have a surplus, the first group who deserves a break, the first group to deserve a benefit is the wealthiest people in America, those making over $319,000 a year.
What about those on the other end? What about the people who get up and go to work every single day and may make a minimum wage or a little better than that? How will they fare under the Republican proposal? How were they considered when the Republicans sat down and said where our priorities will be, here are the people we will help. The lowest 20 percent of wage earners in America, those making less than $13,600 a year, get less than 1 percent of the Republican tax cut. It is worth $24 a year to them, $2 a month. The Republicans didn't forget them, they will send them $2 a month. For the wealthiest, it is almost $2,000 a month.
The next group, those making up to $24,400, see about $82 a year from the Republican tax cuts. That comes to $7 a month. Think about that for a second. If we are going to help the people in America who need help the most, shouldn't we be rewarding hard-working families who get up and go to work every single day, play by the rules, try to buy a home, try to build a community, try to provide for their children and their future or should we take this surplus and give it, first, to those who are making over $300,000 a year?
Some people say that being in Congress is about a question of being ``in touch'' or ``out of touch.'' The Republican tax plan is in touch with the wealthiest people. It is out of touch with regular families.
The Democratic side believes after bringing down the national debt, we should target tax cuts to help these working families who have been virtually ignored by the Republicans in their tax benefits.
On the floor of the Senate, we offered an amendment to say every family in America, every single family, can deduct every year $12,000 in college education expenses. I have seen a lot of families with new babies. Everybody is happy to see the child arrive. After a few minutes, people turn and say: What a cute little boy. How in the world are we ever going to pay for his college in 18 years? People know that cost is going up. The average family knows how tough it is to pay it.
We say on this side, you deserve a helping hand to help your son or daughter be the absolute best they can be. We offered an amendment. Instead of the Republican plan for the wealthiest, we said let the people of America deduct $12,000 a year in college education expenses from their taxes. It is a deduction which would mean, for some families, as much as $3,000, and a helping hand to pay for tuition. Rejected, rejected on the floor of the Senate last week. They don't want that kind of tax cut. They want the kind of tax cut that gives $23,000 a year to the wealthiest people in America but would not give to average families, worried about their kids going to good schools and having a bright future, a helping hand.
We also considered a prescription drug benefit. I think everybody knows what that is about. Your parent and your grandparents, on Medicare, are struggling to pay for their prescription drugs. On the Democratic side, we think there should be a program under Medicare to make sure the elderly have a chance to fill those prescriptions, stay healthy, stay strong, stay independent. We have been fighting for that. We offered it as an alternative. Instead of giving money to the wealthiest in this country, why don't you help those under Medicare, give them a helping hand in paying for some of the drugs? Rejected. The Republicans had a chance to vote for that tax benefit and rejected it on the floor of the Senate.
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Having been across the State of Illinois, with public hearings on prescription drug benefits, the stories will break your heart. Men and women coming to those hearings get their prescription from the doctor. They go to the pharmacy, and before they ask them to fill it they ask how much will it cost. If it is too much, they either don't fill it or take half the prescription many times, depriving themselves of the basics of life so they can have prescription drugs.
That was the choice: To give to people earning over $300,000 a year in income a tax break of $23,000 or to give to seniors and the disabled a chance to pay for the prescription drugs.
These are the values we tested on the floor of the Senate, and Republicans rejected the idea of a prescription drug benefit proposed by the Democrats.
On child care, do you know a working family with small children? Unless they have someone in the family they can count on, who doesn't worry about safe, quality child care for the kids? I think about it as a grandfather. I have a little 4-year-old grandson, and it finally dawned on me when my daughter told me she was looking for day care, somebody was going to have my little Alex for 8 hours a day. I said, ``Who are these people? I want to know who they are if they are going to have my grandson.''
Every mother and father asks that same question, and they struggle to come up with the money to pay for good child care to guard each day the most precious thing in their lives, and Senator DODD said, can't we give a tax break to working families to help them pay for child care? Wouldn't that be something good for America, so the kids are in good, safe hands during the course of the day so working families have that peace of mind? Rejected by the Republicans in the Senate. No, sir, we are not going to give a child care tax break for working families. We are going to give to the wealthiest in America $23,000 a year in tax cuts.
When it comes to putting people in the front of the line for help from this Government, the Republican leadership has said time and again: We are not there helping working families pay for college education. We are not there helping working families pay for child care. We are not there for prescription drug benefits. We are there for changes in the Tax Code that literally help the wealthiest people in America.
Another challenge many of us face is the whole question of taking care of aging parents. If you are a baby boomer, you probably know what I am talking about. Your parents, now, who want to live as long as they possibly can as independently as they can, basically come to you at some point and say, ``We are going to need a hand.'' People make sacrifices for their parents in those circumstances. We think the Tax Code should recognize that, and reward that as well, and give to families who are struggling to take care of their aging parents and those with serious illness a helping hand. That is another idea for a tax cut that helps real American families, another idea rejected by the Republican leadership in the Senate. No, these people are not on their radar screen. First and foremost, the tax break suggested by the Republicans has to go to the very wealthiest among us.
So half the surplus we are now generating and hope to see in the next 10 or 20 years is not going to the working families of America. It is going to those who already are well off, those who are doing well, those who, frankly, don't need a helping hand.
Imagine, if you will, if you are making $300,000 a year, what an extra $2,000 a month means to you. What are you going to do with it? Surely you will find something to do with it. But could it possibly be as valuable as providing what a family needs to help pay for a college education expenses? Prescription drugs? Day care? Taking care of an aging parent? That is the battle that is underway.
President Clinton said he is going to veto these bills, and he should, because he was elected by people across America, 98 percent of whom will see no benefit whatsoever from these bills.
Let us at least start listening to families across America when it comes to our tax policy. Let us sit down and correct the inequities in the Tax Code. But also let us decide who is most deserving of our tax assistance. I do not believe it is people making over $300,000 a year. They are doing quite fine by themselves. Let's be sensitive, though, to those families struggling every day to realize the American dream and to have opportunity.
When you take a look at this Nation we live in, it is the greatest on Earth. God blessed each one of us who had a chance to call this home. But we have an obligation to people who live in this country to make sure they have a chance for opportunity, too. You heard the wonderful story Senator JACK REED of Rhode Island told about John O. Pastore, one of the giants in the history of the Senate. A son of immigrants, he rose to serve in this Chamber and be an ideal and to serve as a model for so many people and so many generations.
There are many others like John Pastore out there who need their chance to prove themselves in America. They are not worried about estate taxes paid by fewer than 2 percent of the American people. They are folks who are worried about making sure they have a safe, healthy home, making sure they have health care, have college education expenses taken care of. Those people have been forgotten in the debate over the last 2 weeks. It is up to President Clinton to remind us of our priorities. It is up to him to lead us, now, into meaningful tax relief targeted to help families who really need it.
When it comes to prescription drug benefits, I do not think there is a more important issue we can consider during the course of this remaining congressional session. Prescription drug expenditures have been growing at double-digit rates for almost every year since 1980, and the drugs that seniors need the most have increased at four times the rate of inflation. The average prescription drug cost for Medicare beneficiaries will reach $1,100 per year this year.
The Republicans have proposed, in a manner to try to deal with this, the suggestion that we should turn to the health insurance companies to let them take care of prescription drugs. Pardon me, we have seen what those same managed care companies and health insurance companies do to families when the families really need help. They turn them down when they need medical care. They let decisions be made by insurance clerks rather than doctors. They force people to go to court to sue for basic health care. That is the same group to whom Republicans would turn over the prescription drug benefit. That will never work. It is best for us to put together a plan that is guaranteed and universal and under Medicare that we can count on.
It is also important we have the leverage and the power to make sure we can negotiate for reasonable drug prices. It is just inconceivable to me that some of the same drugs we approve in the United States, some of which we spent taxpayers' dollars to research and develop, end up being sold in Canada for a fraction of the cost. Americans are now getting in buses and driving over the Canadian border to buy their drugs, fill their prescriptions for prescription drugs made by American drug companies at taxpayers' expense because they have to pay three and four times as much in the United States as they would in Canada. That is disgraceful. If this Congress does not address it with not only a prescription drug benefit but also some effort to have reasonable control of
price increases, we are not listening to the people we were sent here to represent.
We can talk about estate taxes. We can talk about people making over $300,000 a year. But we have lost touch with reality and we have lost touch with America if we do not understand the cost of prescription drugs is something that haunts literally millions of Americans every single day. That is something we can and must do something about in the immediate future.
We have to bring Medicare in line with reality. The reality is that prescription drugs can keep you out of the hospital, keep you home and healthy, keep you independent and strong. When Medicare was created, there was no prescription drug benefit. Forty years ago, there were not that many drugs around, for that matter. But the world has changed. You would not buy a health insurance policy today that did not have some prescription drug benefit in it. Today, the most vulnerable people in America are seniors and
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We want to change that. We, on the Democratic side, believe if we do nothing else this year, we should enact a prescription drug benefit. We can then say to our parents and grandparents and the elderly we love in this country: We have heard your message. Again, I say while we should have been debating that, we were debating an estate tax change that ends up giving almost $23,000 a year to some of the wealthiest people in America.
Look at how this works out in terms of the different income groups and how much they receive. As I mentioned, the lowest 20 percent of wage earners in America, under the Republican plan, get $2 a month. What can you buy with that nowadays? Maybe a coke at McDonald's, I guess. Then up here at the highest level, those making over $300,000 a year, $23,000 in breaks on the Republican tax plan. Again, the inequity is so obvious--the fact that the people who are struggling the hardest, working the hardest, doing the most to make America strong, are the people who are being ignored by the Republican tax relief.
This is not the first time that has occurred. Take a look at some of these charts involving Republican tax cuts from years gone by. You will see every single time the Republicans have had a chance--in August of 1999; in May of 2000, the House minimum wage proposal; in March of 2000, and the Republican Congress estate tax repeal --at least 41 percent of all the tax benefits went to the very richest, the top 1 percent in America.
When it came to the minimum wage, the same thing was true. Think about that minimum wage for a second. How long could you survive on $5.15 an hour on a job? Well, 350,000 people in my home State of Illinois got up this morning and went to work, and they are being paid today $5.15 an hour. These are not lazy people. These are some of the hardest working people in my State. These are people cleaning the tables, making the beds, doing the laundry, doing the dry cleaning, watching our children in day care, and these people are being paid $5.15 an hour.
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