Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I wanted to say this, the gentleman is blessed to have good family support, as I am and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox], and everyone else. The initials, IRS, if we can change them to RAS, which would stand for reduced taxes, change the attitude and simplify taxes, if we could do that, I think then we can all go home to these great families that we have and look our children in the eye and say, we have done something to make a difference.

Mr. KINGSTON. I know the gentlewoman in Arizona, Ms. Mary, is in the Sixth District, but you should always thank her.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman is through, I am ready to yield back the time.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, New Jersey cut taxes. Gov. Christine Todd Whitman made good on a campaign promise and cut taxes and as a result they have had growth. Massachusetts, under Dukakis, had high tax increases. Under Governor Weld they enacted an income tax rollback and as a result they have regained 150,000 jobs that were lost under the Dukakis tax increase. California, the same way, 1960, the legislature enacted a $7 billion tax increase. It was the largest in the history of any State in the country. And income taxes went up. Everything went up and then there was a recession. Now they have turned it around. In 1995, these tax hikes were repealed and since then California has gained over 150,000 jobs. Revenues have gone up to States because of tax cuts that they have enacted. Revenues have also gone up nationally. As a result of that, this Congress is very, very close to having a balanced budget. Our deficit has fallen from about over $200 billion 3 or 4 years ago to now around $23 billion. And it is because if we confiscate less of the people's money, they are going to spend more of their own money and when they spend money, business expands, jobs are created, more people go to work, less people are on welfare and tax revenues do go up.

Mr. KINGSTON. This is the situation with the gross income taxes, the couple, once they are married, actually end up paying more taxes. I will not go through this, but just suffice it to say that basically each individual is in a lower percentage tax bracket than they are collectively when they married. The percentage bumps up. They pay more taxes. And it is a crazy example of a policy that is wrong because if we as a country support the institution of marriage, then certainly we should not give people a financial penalty for getting married, particularly right now with all the children that we have running around who are illegitimate today. The gentleman is from Arizona. I am from Georgia. Georgia had a substantial tax cut, $500 million, exempted food from the sales tax, and as a result we have had one of the fastest growth rates in the history of our country. In 1992, since 1992, your Governor has cut taxes by 1.5 billion and including dropping the top rate from 8.7 to 5.6 percent and reducing the corporate tax rate as well. As a result, the new business creation has grown in Arizona three times the national average because folks are spending their money their way instead of sending it to Washington and having bureaucrats spend it for them.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it just occurs to me, is this a throwback from the days of a monarchy? When we had our revolution with the folks overseas, did we not change this part? Was this not a Constitutional right? Did the Committee on Ways and Means discover at what point in American history the taxpayer became guilty until proven innocent? Or was it something that actually goes back to the monarchy?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk tonight about what we need to do with the IRS. I think what we need to do with the IRS is change the initials from ``IRS'' to ``CRS.'' Right now, as we know, IRS stands for Internal Revenue Service. I say that what we should try to do is cut taxes, with a ``C,'' and give tax relief, change the attitude of the tax system, and also simplify taxes. I guess the best way would be to make it ``RAS,'' and have that stand for relief, attitude adjustment, and simplification. I have my friend, the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox], who has been a leader on this with me tonight. I know that the good folks in Pennsylvania want lower taxes and simpler taxes, or the gentleman would not spend so much time working with that. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox].

Mr. KINGSTON. I do not want to digress too much, but income tax, 1913; correct?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, just to underscore what the gentleman is saying, when we talk about we need an IRS attitude adjustment, I have a rural district with a lot of farmers who work with the Soil Conservation Service or the Farm Service Agency, and generally these Federal Government agencies have a cooperative, friendly, help and technical assistance kind of attitude with farmers. Farmers come to them with erosion problems, wetlands problems, questions about applications of fertilizers and so forth, and the Federal Government agents, representing the USDA, are friendly to the farmers. Would it not be nice if we had an IRS who was that way to small businesses? Most of the people I know fear an audit, not because of anything they have done wrong, but because maybe inadvertently they did forget to dot an ``I'' or cross a ``T,'' and that being the case, they are afraid the IRS is going to catch them and fine them, and be excessively ruthless in their treatment of them.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, here are some stories that the Heritage Foundation has given us, from one of their fellows named Dan Mitchell. One taxpayer was fined $10,000 for using a 12-pitch typewriter to fill out his tax forms instead of a 10-pitch typewriter. He was fined $10,000 for it. In 1983, one taxpayer was fined $46,806 for an alleged underpayment of 10 cents. In another case, a day care center which allegedly owed the IRS $14,000 was raided by armed agents, who then refused to release the children until the parents pledged to give the money to the government. These are cases that have been documented. It is just atrocious. There is no reason to have to have this kind of a relationship with a government agency when it is a government by we the people. The Tax Code, there are 17,000 pages of IRS laws and regulations. There are 480 different tax forms. The IRS sends out, Mr. Speaker, 10 million corrections each year on notices. In 1990, there were 190,000 disputes between the IRS and taxpayers that went to court. But of those, something like, and I have the exact statistic, 83 percent of all taxes that are collected are paid voluntarily. Only 3\1/2\ percent is because of the dispute and the IRS going after people, which tells me that the American people are pretty darned honest and forthright about paying their taxes, particularly when they can understand them.

Mr. KINGSTON. The tax simplification argument really sets the stage for a thorough flat tax versus consumption tax debate. We have, in fact, two of our colleagues, the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Largent] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Paxon], who have introduced bills that shelf the IRS code in the year I think 1999 or 2000. So if their legislation passes, Congress will be in a position of having to change the code. But it is not going to be easy.

Mr. KINGSTON. As I talk to different civic clubs and have town meetings and talk about the difference between a flat tax and a consumption tax, one of the things that I realize, speaking for myself and speaking for the folks in the audience, is we all need to have a more thorough debate on it. We need to have education. For example, if we exempt charitable contributions and the home mortgage deductions and something else, what is going to prevent us from coming back and saying, well, what about the cost of a wheelchair, the cost of a college education, prescription drugs, long-term health care, all of which are worthy causes, and underscore an important investment in public policy? If we start having those deductions again, will we not return back to as complex a Tax Code as we have now? It is possible.

Mr. KINGSTON. Yes. I want to point out something about the national sales tax. I know England, Britain, has a high sales tax, but they exempt groceries from it and children's clothes, among other things. So we can, for the seniors or those who could adversely be affected by a national sales tax, we could have certain deductions for them. There again, we get into a deduction kind of problem, but it still would not complicate it for the taxpayer as much as it would for those collecting it. That could be a problem in itself. I want to give the gentleman some more statistics, though, about how complicated the tax system is now. These figures came out from the office of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman], who has been working, as the gentleman knows, on the National Commission for Restructuring the IRS. Just to read some things they found, last year only one in five calls to the IRS customer service hotline got through. How many constituents does the gentleman have who call him for a fairly simple tax question, they call the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Jon Fox], because they know he can get an answer from the IRS and they cannot? That is very common.

Mr. KINGSTON. If I can reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, here is something interesting. The gentleman keeps using the word ``culture.'' One of the finds of this committee is that the culture is so insular that only 5 of the top 73 IRS employees have been with the agency less than 15 years. Other than the commissioner, only two non-IRS employees have been brought in from the outside world to fill senior positions at the IRS. It is interesting, because quite frequently we read in the newspaper that the CEO of General Motors or one of the senior VPs goes to Ford, or the head guy of CBS goes to NBC, or whatever. We see that all the time in the private sector, where top level management leaders are moving from one corporation to the other. I think it is a good blood mixture; it is good for everybody. But apparently the IRS does not believe in that. That could be one of their problems. Here are some more statistics. The IRS still hand-processes the vast majority of returns and still relies on papers, 14 billion pieces of paper annually. It costs the IRS about $7 to process a paper return, and less than $1 if it is done electronically. But electronically does not necessarily answer the question, because an IRS agent may have to access six different computer systems to resolve a taxpayer problem, and to answer questions, simple questions, often because of this, takes weeks and weeks. It is just too complicated. Since 1956, the number of sections in the Tax Code has risen from 102 to 698. Just since 1986, that Simplification Act, there have been 4,000 amendments to the tax codes. I think this is important for us to realize, that we as Members of Congress have taken on this task, and the Republican Party has led the way. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the White House has decided that this is a partisan issue and the President wants to go down saying that the Democrat Party is the party of the status quo and the IRS and not change it. This is an actual headline from the Washington Times, September 30. It says, ``The White House champions the IRS. The President opposes a citizen oversight committee.'' And the citizen oversight committee would just have some ideas and some suggestions for the IRS. But the President does not want that. Now, we are not here to bash IRS employees, we are here to bash a tax system, a code, which these employees, another statistic, many of these employees want tax simplification and this was one of the findings of this committee, that the IRS employees themselves want simplification. But every time we in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, pass new exemptions on tax, it is not just if we have children, we want a $500 tax credit, we just fill out this form. It is not like that. It is pages and pages of forms, because that is the nature of it. As a result of it, Congress is the one who has made this system so complicated. Now, we are not the one who has given the attitude which seems to be so prevalent among some IRS offices, but we certainly should be the ones to try to straighten out the complications.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I wanted to read my colleagues a letter we received from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It says, ``As in many areas where education opportunities are poor, a disproportionate number of the children attending failing schools in our Nation's capital are Hispanic.'' We strongly support H.R. 1797, the Taylor bill, not the Democrat substitute. And that is parenthetically. I am explaining. Students would benefit from this. This is from the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. They support this. Here is a resolution from the Baptist Convention of D.C. They support it. Here, Mr. Chairman, is a group called Save the Kids. Over 100 ministers from inner city churches; Baptist churches, Episcopalian, CME, Christian, Catholic, AME, full gospel and Methodist churches, all that support student choice and the voucher scholarship program proposed in the Taylor bill. Here is a petition signed by over 2,000 Washington, DC residents, people who are interested in having their children compete. Mr. Chairman, earlier this year we were contacted in our office to see if we could hire, temporarily, give an opportunity to a child from Washington, DC to work in our office because she was a junior in high school but did not have her school open this year because the schools in Washington, DC are in such disrepair. We had this young lady working in our office. I believe that she deserves the opportunities that other kids have from all over the country have from affluent families, of being able to pick and choose her school that she could go out and compete in the international and national marketplace. This is about children. This is not about inner city power. This is about kids of America; giving them a choice.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Does the gentleman plan to reintroduce a budget next year which will balance the budget by 1998-99?

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield a second; also exempt China, Brazil, maybe India, and a couple of others.

Mr. KINGSTON. I want to say something else, if the gentleman will yield, that ties into this. This week, for the first time in history, the United States President used the line item veto and zapped out about, I think something like 160 different projects for nearly $200 million in savings. Now, those included Republican projects. Those included Democrat projects. Those included some from just about every State in the country. But that is what we had in mind with the line item veto. And I think it is good that if I put a project in the budget that it gets that extra scrutiny. I like the idea that it has to get through a House committee, then through the full House, then a Senate committee, then the full Senate, and now it is to the President of the United States. Because the more scrutiny we put our spending under, the better fiscal House we will have. And with that in mind, if we think about what we could potentially do with this line item veto to get to that last $23 billion, I urge the President to keep using it and make sure that we, as Republicans, are responsible, and that our Democrat colleagues are responsible for what we put in the budget.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield. Regardless of the deficit reduction and potentially balancing the budget next year, we still spend about $300 billion a year on interest on the $5.4 trillion national debt. Now, that is the second or third largest single item on the entire budget every year. That is money that could be in the pockets of the American families, the moms and dads out there for their children, or it is money that could go to other projects, education, health care and so forth. But we only begin the job when we balance the budget. And the fear that I have is that because the revenue is so much higher than projected, what is going to happen is we will have a lot of liberals coming out there with new spending programs. We are already hearing it on let us go out and build a new Federal school program. And I am scared to death we will go back down the donnybrook we were in in 1993 and 1994.

Mr. KINGSTON. I think it is important. Let us show how much that deficit has fallen.

Mr. KINGSTON. Yet as we are discussing this, and with a lot of gleam, I would say, to the degree that the deficit has fallen, the numbers are roughly about $260 billion down to $23 billion.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is exactly right. Because what is going to happen, the local drug store and the sporting goods store, the local restaurant, local clothing store will all expand to meet the new demand because American consumers have $300 or $400 more disposable income in their pocket. And when they expand, they create those jobs. More people are working, less people are on welfare, more people are paying taxes and the revenues are going up. That is the situation that we are in.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield. I thought we were together, on a bipartisan basis, on the IRS reform. I had no idea that the administration was going to defend the IRS and try to make tax reform a partisan issue. But I will say this. If it is a partisan issue, the Republican Party is going to be on the side of the American taxpayer for simplicity and clarity, and let the President defend his 111,000 IRS employees.

Mr. KINGSTON. Can the gentleman imagine a Washington IRS-type bureaucracy building local schools? I know to some liberals that is a great deal. It is interesting, as a matter of fact. Here is a copy of the Washington Times as of last Tuesday where the President opposes citizen oversight of the IRS. I mean is this the national Democratic Party now that has come down to supporting the IRS and the fact that many folks back home think it is time to overhaul the tax system, overhaul the IRS, to stop some of the harassment of our citizens and the President and the Democrats are defending the IRS? It does not make any sense at all. I do not want an IRS-type bureaucracy to run the local school construction projects.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, a great article today in the Los Angeles Times: ``The Hubbell Satellite Finds a New Star 25,000 Light-years Away,'' an amazing story. I have got an idea. I am writing the UCLA scientist team who pulled this together saying: ``Dear Scientists: I read with much interest and excitement your discovery of a star located 25,000 light-years away from Earth. I congratulate you on this amazing feat. ``I also have a question for you: We, in Congress, have been trying to hold hearings to determine if certain people gave a certain administration illegal contributions. Our problem is that key witnesses have inconveniently disappeared. This upset lots of good Democrats and Republicans who want to get to the bottom of this scandal. ``Question: Do you think that we could use the powerful infrared eyes of your amazing telescope to find the following people?'' And I have them listed here. These are Charlie Trie, Ming Chen, Stanley Ho, John Muncy, Ng Lap Seng, folks who are big Democratic donors who have disappeared. If we could use the Hubbell, we could find these folks and get to the bottom of this scandal. I hope the scientists write us back and tell us we can use the telescope.