Opening Statement of the Hon. Charles B. Rangel, M.C., New York

Hearing on President's Tax Relief Proposals

February 13, 2001

We have a tax cut before us (and) it is generally felt that we have accumulated a surplus to which the American people have contributed and that we have a responsibility to return a part of it to the people. There are differences in terms of the size (of a tax cut) and how we should do it, but this Committee has the Constitutional responsibility to work that through. There's also a problem with the framework that the President has sent to us because we hear some people in the House say that the reason why higher income people receive so much of the tax cut is because they're the ones that pay the taxes. And the truth of the matter is that, in my community, people think that taxes are the difference between what their salary is and what they come home with and it is so unfair, in my opinion, not to include payroll taxes as a part of the relief which the President talked about in the campaign and which we have a responsibility to deal with.

During the campaign, the President's promises were so similar to the Democrats' that I think we could walk away saying that we want to reach the same goals. We want to make certain that the Social Security system is not there just for us, but for the Baby Boomers that are going to come. We want to make certain that health care is available to them. The President made a great deal of improving the quality of life of our young people who put their lives on the line in the military. We agree. He doesn't want to leave any child behind in terms of education and, on that issue, I think he has more friends on our side of the aisle than the other. He wants to be able to make prescription drugs affordable for our people. We have tried to do that for years. And so, where could a difference be if we believe in tax cuts (and) we believe in these programs?

The difference I think, Mr. Secretary, is that we don't have a budget. And we can only support a tax cut when we know what's going to happen with the rest of the budget. It appears to me, and I may be wrong and you are a business man, that this tax cut, to a large extent, is based on reason to believe that in the next 10 years, we will have $5.6 trillion to deal with. Nonetheless, we're assuming that if we do all the things we have to do with this tax cut program, it could easily reach $2 trillion. Before we proceed with such a tax cut, we should have a budget in place so that we know what we are doing.