THE BUSH TAX SPEECH WE’D LIKE TO HAVE HEARD!
Call me wishful, unrealistic and politically naive if you like, but I would have far more respect for our new president--and more hope that America can be turned around--if this "leader" would have had the guts and wisdom to say the following in an address to the nation:
My Fellow Americans,
During last year’s campaign I tried to make the case the best way I know how for tax relief for all Americans. I said time and again all across the country that the federal government must stop taking an ever-increasing share of our nation’s production in taxes. That’s right, I said an ever-increasing share.
Most of you have been told by both the national media and my political opponents that the federal government is under funded in many areas. They have told you that this wouldn’t be the case were it not for the Reagan tax cuts of the early 1980's and other Republican-inspired reforms since then. It seems as though they want you to believe that we "mean old conservatives" aren’t happy unless we’re cutting and slashing away at the federal budget.
Now, these same opponents like to characterize me as a dunce. Okay; maybe I can’t always pronounce the names of some foreign countries correctly. I’ll even grant them that I’m not nearly as "slick" as my predecessor, and never expect to gain fame from history due to my speechification skills (he-he.)
I do know this much though; in the last 20 years, the size of the federal budget has more than tripled, from $660 billion during former President Reagan’s first year to approximately $2 trillion, which—in deference to my political advisors and the Congressional Republican leadership—I was preparing to propose for the next fiscal year. During the same time, the total rate of inflation cumulatively would only have seen the federal budget grow to about $1.5 trillion; and that, my friends, assumes that every part of that budget was appropriate.
Frankly, I feel it is not. Now, just like the Democrats, I believe that it’s important for us to see that our children get a (to borrow a phrase from the maniac who cost Poppy a second term) "world class" education. However, I’m beginning to believe that President Reagan was right when he wanted to abolish the Department of Education. Yes, you heard me correctly, Karl (for those of you who didn’t catch that, I’m referring to my chief strategist Karl Rove, who right about know is having what we in the White House affectionately refer to as "a Cheney moment.")
Now, as a few of you have heard up until now on the Internet, we’ve come to find out that the federal Department of Education has actually managed to lose billions of dollars. Now, I don’t mean that they put it all on some Internet stocks a year ago and lost it. They just flat lost it! You can’t say it any plainer than that—even in Texas! They have no idea what happened to the money. And if they lost tens of billions, how much do they know about that was wasted?
Now I don’t want to just pick on the Department of Education. Many agencies unfortunately have become so used to an endless gravy train of your tax dollars that money has been wasted similarly. Harkening back once again to the Reagan years, many of you remember that he appointed what came to be known as the Grace Commission to find ways to cut out waste, duplication, fraud and mismanagement from the federal budget. Poppy was there, and he even supported that.
That commission determined that almost half a trillion dollars could be saved over several years if Washington were only run as efficiently as you would expect a business to be run in the private sector. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you, my fellow Americans? Sadly, though, most of the specific recommendations in that commission’s report were never implemented. Maybe if they had been, the Department of Education now would not be telling us that it has "lost" untold billions of dollars.
This brings me to the central discussion that I want to have with you tonight on my tax cut proposal. Now, to be honest—as is the case with most politicians—I only recently read the thing myself. In campaigning to be your president over two years, I certainly knew the key points of what I was proposing; after all, I was the candidate. And I sincerely believe in the vision of an America with a smaller, more efficient government; one which leaves your state and local governments--and, most importantly, you--free to work, earn, spend, save and create.
The trouble though, my friends, is that I relied far too much on the advice of people who drew up this package with politics--rather than economics, fairness, justice and the U.S. Constitution--in mind. The $1.6 trillion tax cut measure would, over time, lower income taxes for virtually every American. The death tax would be gone. Married couples and families would no longer be penalized for being couples and families. All of you would have a greater opportunity to save and invest for your own retirement. Bottom line, all of these things could be achieved by simply using surpluses that the federal government is already running. After all, as I also said on the campaign trail, if you’re overcharged for something—and I believe the federal government has overcharged every American—you deserve a refund.
Two considerations, however, require me to talk to you tonight about a much bolder plan, and a reordering of the very priorities that we here have in Washington where your money is concerned. First of all, our economy is in trouble. The years of rapid growth in the 1990's can, and I believe will, be with us again soon; however, they may not be if, at the same time that business and consumer confidence are shaky, we maintain the status quo with tax policy.
Tax policy can and should be used to encourage the private sector to grow, prosper and achieve the dreams of all of us. The trouble is, many in the past have looked at this as though the government owns your money—and that maybe, if they think things are bad enough, they’ll give you some of your money back. I disagree with this. If this is really your money--and you know I believe that it is--then government should not have it in the first place in any measure beyond that which it needs to fulfill its proper role.
And this, my friends, brings me back to the size of the federal budget itself. By every measure, as I commented earlier in comparing today’s federal budget with that of two decades ago, federal spending has careened out of control. I’m sorry to say that even the Republican Congressional leadership over the last few years has fallen into the trap of getting hooked on more and more spending. For our nation’s long-term health this trend finally has to stop. We cannot pay mere lip service any longer to the idea that we need to limit the size of government. Many well-meaning people, including most of my predecessors, have expressed that goal, without much evidence of success. Instead, a private sector which still is seldom allowed to achieve its full potential is constantly drained of billions of dollars so that agencies like the Department of Education can just flat lose it.
Some in the Congress profess to agree with what I am saying to you tonight, and have therefore agreed that we should offer a rebate to every taxpayer this year to help stimulate economic activity. Under our present economic circumstances, I heartily agree. However, this mere token is not enough. It must be remembered that past instances of the federal government trying to stimulate the economy through tax rebates doesn’t have the best track record. Also, no one in the Congress is suggesting that these rebates be anything more than a nominal amount, which collectively will return to you the better part of $100 billion later this year.
Now, I’m all for anything that will get money out of the hands of the government and back into yours. Frankly, it’s that much less that your elected representatives won’t be tempted to spend. Over the long run, however, we must do considerably more. Many in the Congress say we don’t have to do more--and that we should allow the Federal Reserve to do its job of stimulating the economy. While the Fed does have that role, I might ask my friends on Capital Hill one key question: why shouldn’t the government use money already in existence if our goal is to jump-start the economy? Money that has already been loaned into circulation? When government has been the gluttonous recipient of so much money, why must we ask the private sector to go out and borrow more money, rather than giving it back the money that the government has already taken?
I will make one concession to some of those who have criticized my prior proposal, which incrementally reduces the tax burden over ten years. Some have said this is impossible to do, because none of us know whether the surpluses currently projected by both the Congressional Budget Office and my predecessor’s administration will come to reality. Though I am very optimistic that actual surpluses could exceed those now projected—provided we act quickly to turn the economy around—this is both a fair and logical question that is being raised.
Thus, in light of all of these considerations I’ve shared with you--the runaway growth of the federal budget, Washington’s increasing bite out of personal incomes, our weakening economy and my desire to make sure that tax reform really does work--I will be asking both houses of Congress tomorrow to cease consideration of the tax cut proposal I have previously submitted. Within the next two weeks, I will be submitting a new proposal which will more forcefully address the concerns, the realities and the policy goals I hope I have made clear to you tonight. While my administration finishes working out the details, let me share with you just a few of the highlights.
First—though more details will be worked out in future budget negotiations with the Congress—we are going to operate under the assumption that this year the total federal budget will indeed be limited to $1.5 trillion. Now, I know some are immediately going to say that I am more of a hacker and slasher than Freddy Kruger; but, keep in mind that this, as I said earlier, is where total federal outlays should be based on inflation. Every single agency of the federal government will be required to make due with less. Frankly, my friends, though you’re going to hear screaming to the high heavens, in the end—if my proposals are implemented—there will not be any essential services cut to any needy American. Incidentally, I intend for this to only be a start, as we finally try to rein in the size and scope of government to something closer to what this nation’s founders intended.
The approximately half a trillion dollars that is thus freed up will be given back to Americans this year in several key ways. First, I will ask the Congress to triple the amount of the rebates now being discussed. This means that taxpayers will be directly receiving $300 billion in income tax relief this year. By limiting the federal budget to $1.5 trillion, both now and in the next fiscal year, an additional $250-$300 billion of taxes will be saved in other areas as well, based on our current projections. These will manifest themselves in the immediate abolition of the federal estate tax, and the lowering of the rate on long-term capital gains to 15% for 2001, and to 10% thereafter. In addition, to encourage greater and more productive employment, particularly for our young people, significant tax reductions will be made for small business.
At the same time that we do this we must keep in mind that a goal of such structural reform is to put greater dollars and opportunities in the hands of those millions of Americans who are the entrepreneurs and employers that make up so much of our economy. Not only will these measures launch an era of prosperity and job creation even greater than what was created by the Reagan tax cuts, but it will allow businesses to pay a better and more livable wage to their employees. Thus, as part of my new proposal to the Congress, I will be asking for an increase in the minimum wage to $12 per hour, and will further ask that figure automatically be indexed for inflation.
The combination I will be proposing of immediate tax rebates, structural tax cuts and reforms, and the enactment of a more representative living wage for all Americans will, I believe, once again unleash a great new chapter in American business leadership, entrepreneurship, and in the ability of more of our people than ever to live the American dream. Over the next two years, more than $1 trillion will, in these and similar ways, be freed up to make this period of economic weakness we are in a distant memory. Much more than would have been the case with my previous proposal, all this will be made possible with real, immediate relief and structural changes, rather than the gimmickry of so many past pieces of legislation that fallible politicians crafted.
I said a few moments ago that this measure, designed to put more of your hard-earned dollars back into your pockets permanently, would merely be a start. There are some who believe that--again, without severely reducing government’s legitimate role one iota--we can cut the federal budget by even more than I am proposing. I believe they are right. In the coming months, I will be--as did President Reagan--appointing a commission to identify which other areas of the federal budget are in need of additional oversight, and are candidates for sensible reduction. Once that commission submits its findings to me, I will appeal directly to you--the people who pay these bills--to help me force the Congress to, at long last, run the federal government like a business.
I am grateful, among others, to my Treasury secretary for making even more stark to me just how your government has been allowed to waste so much money and be managed so inefficiently under both parties here in Washington. Recently, he remarked that Alcoa--the company he was chairman of, before I asked him to serve you in my administration--took two and a half days to close its books each year. My friends, this is for a company which operates in more than 300 locations in 36 different countries.
By contrast, the federal government takes a grand total of five months each year to close its books!
Long before now, this should have been deemed wholly unacceptable. Some would even consider this a scandal. We can’t bring back the past--and we must not merely try to affix blame on someone, some party, or anyone who might seem convenient. We are all at fault. We have all tolerated this. Together, we can--and for the sake of a more prosperous future, we must--change course.
Just imagine with me an America unleashed from the kind of wasteful drain that so big a part of this city has placed on our economy. I hesitate to even mention the name of this town at times, as I know that our first president would be horrified if he saw what the federal government’s role in our lives and our economy has grown to. Added together, the single largest bill each year for American families is for their taxes. This can--and must--be changed. How, for example, do we really do any justice for America’s families, when we are in many cases weakening families by making both the husband and wife work to pay high taxes, just so agencies like the Education Department can throw away billions?
Washington, Jefferson, Madison and the rest of our Founding Fathers did not plan on this. I choose to honor their memories, and the Constitution they gave us, by finally--with your help, and God’s--moving our government back to its proper role. This fight will be a hard one, because you and I are up against powerful interests that have grown used to having unlimited numbers of your dollars.
It’s time to tell them that the gravy train has been derailed.
Good night, God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.
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