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June 5, 1999
Grams pleased with federal budgetSays budget will cut taxes for working AmericansBy SARA SYVERSON Journal Staff Writer NEW ULM -- U.S. Senator Rod Grams ( R-Minn.) expressed his support Friday for the new Congressional budget that he says will dedicate $800 billion over the next decade to cut taxes for working Americans. Grams addressed members of the the New Ulm Area Chamber of Commerce on Friday at the Kaiserhoff. The new budget blueprint that has been passed by Congress is also expected to set aside every penny of every dollar owed to Social Security for the next ten years, which is a total of $1.8 trillion. Grams brought this amendment to the budget with the goal to cut taxes, and it was adopted unanimously. Grams projects this amendment will allow the largest reduction in the tax burden since the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980's. "I think one of the biggest things we did this year was getting a budget out" said Grams. "Last year we had a lot of problems with the budget process and we never ended up with a formal budget process -- never got any tax relief out of it and we ended up in October trying to negotiate with the White House and at the end three weeks past deadline ended up compromising and spending $29.8 billion over and above what the budget was supposed to call for." Grams authored a child tax credit and also a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut, stressing that tax cuts in any form return decision-making authority to the taxpayers. Many Minnesotans are concerned about the money surplus in Washington and in Minnesota and what government plans to do with the money, according to Grams. "I know many Minnesotans were calling the very simple phrase 'Give it back,'" said Grams, "I think a surplus is an overcharge and if you've paid more than your're charged for you should get the balance. I know a lot of politicians would like to say, 'Well, this is a great opportunity for us to make some great investments. Why give a tax cut?'" Grams compared the surplus to finding a wallet on the sidewalk with $100 in it. He asked if you had found this wallet would you spend all the money or would you return the wallet to the owner? Grams said there are two streams of monies coming into Washington to make up this surplus. There is about $2.6 trillion estimated surplus over the next ten years and of that total, approximately $1.8 trillion comes from payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare). The $1.8 trillion will be set away in a "lockbox," to insure that the money will only be spent on nothing but Social Security and Medicare. Grams said that right now there is no money set away it has already been spent, there are only "I.O.U's." "There's $800 billion worth of I.O.U.'s, but there's no money there," said Grams, "In order to pay it the government is going to have to go to the general fund and by going to the general fund that means they're going to have to go to the taxpayer." According to Grams, this means that money that has been paid into payroll taxes for Social Security "the government has been conveniently routed in through the trust fund into the general fund and spent it on unrelated programs than Social Security." "By protecting the Social Security surplus, we'll help ensure retirement security for every Minnesotan, whether you're retiring next year or 30 years from today," Grams said, "And we're fully funding Medicare, too, to ensure that it remains a strong, viable health insurance program for older Americans." Grams also said, "The White House budget plan would cut Medicare by $9 billion over the next five years. Those cuts could be especially devastating in Minnesota's rural communities, where many small, struggling hospitals say the loss of funding could force them to close their doors."
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