Tax Limitation Proposals
The Senate Budget Proposal.
Conservative senators expressed their anger toward Senate leaders last
week when a budget proposal emerged from the Senate Budget Committee without
any substantial tax cuts. The Committee’s report does not specifically
provide for any tax cuts, but merely suggests that Congress might pass
a $30 billion tax cut over the next five years. The tax burden on families,
imposed by all levels of government, has grown from five percent in 1950
to 40 percent today. In 1950, the median income family with two children
sent the federal government two cents of every dollar earned. Today, the
same family sends one dollar out of every four dollars earned. On Wednesday,
April 1, FRC participated with Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO) in a press conference
objecting to the Senate’s disregard for American working families. Due
to the objections, the Senate leadership promised pro-family conservatives
that an amount closer to the House’s figure of $60 billion in tax cuts
would eventually be reached. The agreement also cited the ending of the
marriage tax penalty as the first tax relief priority. Please urge your
senators and representative to support American families by allowing families
to keep more of their own money, and decreasing taxes.
[Source: Family Research Council’s LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE, Friday,
April 3, 1998]
Tax Limitation Amendment
Every year, conservatives in Congress try to make it more difficult to raise taxes. It's that time again. Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX), Ralph Hall (D-TX), and John Shadegg (R-AZ) have reintroduced their proposal for a constitutional amendment (H. Res. 111) which would require a supermajority (two-thirds majority) to raise taxes. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) plans to introduce the same amendment in the Senate. This long overdue measure requires more consensus to raise taxes and reins in special interest groups which lobby for more spending. Tax Freedom Day, the first day that you theoretically finish paying your taxes and start working for yourself, has slipped from January 30 in 1913 to May 5 last year. Federal tax collections climbed more than 175,000 percent during this same period. A vote on the Tax Limitation Amendment may occur in early April. Please call your senators and representative and urge them to support the Tax Limitation Amendment. The Capitol Hill switchboard for the Senate is 202-224-3121, and for the House, 202-225-3121.
[Source: Family Research Council’s LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE, Friday, March 6, 1998]