From the Office of Senator Kerry

Wednesday, May 23, 2001

Washington, DC – Senator John F. Kerry today voted against a Senate tax bill that is fiscally irresponsible and which threatens the period of economic growth and prosperity that have marked the last eight years. "This tax bill is one of the great lost opportunities of the last twenty years in American politics. I want a broad-based tax cut that reaches every American and I want it done in a way that's fiscally responsible -- this bill achieves neither. Today, tax politics trumped fiscal discipline and honest economic policy.

"As someone who worked hard to put the budget in the black – from Gramm-Rudman Hollings deficit reduction in 1986 when "balanced budget" was a dirty word for Democrats, to the tough vote in 1993, to the balanced budget in 1997 – I can't stress enough how this vote takes the country in the wrong direction on the question of fiscal discipline.

"President Bush has said over and over, it's your money, not the government's money. It's also your debt. Under the tax cut that's about to be sent to the floor all it takes is one dip in the economy and we've returned to the days of deficit economics, and that means higher interest rates on student loans, on car loans, and on mortgages. That's not fiscally responsible policy-making, and it's a departure from the course of fiscal conservatism that brought us the growth and prosperity of the last eight years.

"The cost of the tax bill will arrive just when we are least able to afford it. No business in America pays out dividends to shareholders based on ten year profit projections - neither should the government. By back-loading the bill, we are ensuring that the costs of the tax cut will rise just when surpluses are most unreliable and the retirement of the baby-boomers squeezes Medicare and Social Security.

"The evidence is clear -- in the short term, some will claim a political victory, but in the long-term this tax bill will set back our economy and our nation. I want tax relief, but I don't believe in doing it at the expense of fiscal discipline. We can and should do better."