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PRESIDENT CLINTON'S RADIO ADDRESS TO THE NATION:CALL ON CONGRESS TO EMPHASIZE FISCAL DISCIPLINE AND PRIORITIES FOR
AMERICAN FAMILIES
Today, in his weekly radio address, President Clinton criticized the
Senate Republican leadership for placing a higher priority on an
excessive, regressive, multi-billion estate tax repeal that would
benefit fewer than 60,000 Americans over a Medicare prescription drug
benefit that would provide desperately needed coverage for tens of
millions of seniors and people with disabilities. He reiterated his
opposition to this ill-advised and irresponsible tax change and urged
the Congress to focus on priorities that will benefit millions of
Americans of all incomes, including raising the minimum wage, enacting a
strong, enforceable, Patients' Bill of Rights, and investments in key
priorities like education, health coverage, and the environment, many of
which have attracted substantial bipartisan support. In this spirit,
President Clinton made a good-faith offer to move forward on debt
reduction by taking Medicare off-budget, as well as signing prescription
drug and marriage penalty relief legislation. However, Republican
Congressional leaders have not only worked to defeat the President's
program to help working families, but have moved ahead on their own
agenda that risks our fiscal discipline and undermines our priorities.
The Republicans Have Failed to Address Key Priorities and Instead Have
Passed Irresponsible Tax Cuts that Threaten Our Fiscal Discipline,
Spending Over $650 Billion of the Surplus
This Congress has adopted a strategy of passing tax cuts one by one,
with no overall framework or plan. The tax cuts already passed by the
Congress would spend over $650 billion of the surplus. These include:
estate tax repeal ($104 billion in the House and Senate), marriage
penalty ($182 billion in the House, with a $248 billion bill currently
being debated in the Senate), communications excise tax repeal ($51
billion in the House), so-called small business tax reductions ($122
billion in the House and $103 billion in the Senate), Patients Bill of
Rights ($49 billion in the House and $32 billion in the Senate), and
affordable education ($21 billion in the Senate). With interest, the
total cost of these cuts is over $650 billion. If the Republican
Congress continues on this path, it could pass tax cuts that would spend
the entire on-budget surplus and more -- leaving no money for America's
priorities.
The most recent tax cut passed by Congress was an irresponsible repeal
of the estate tax, which the Republican majority pushed through while
voting down a more targeted approach that would have allowed additional
resources for priorities:
Congress passes fiscally irresponsible and regressive estate tax
repeal. According to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation and
the Department of the Treasury, the cost of the Congressional estate tax
repeal would explode from about $100 billion from 2001-10 to about $750
billion from 2011-20 -- possibly one of the most backloaded tax cuts ever
passed by Congress. In 2010, the entire benefit of estate tax repeal
would go to only the 54,000 wealthiest estates -- two percent of all
decedents -- providing them with an average tax cut of $800,000. Half
of the benefits of repeal would go to the wealthiest one-tenth of one
percent of families -- just 3,000 families annually. Estate tax repeal
would cost about $50 billion in 2010 -- substantially more than the cost
of the President's prescription drug proposal, which would benefit more
than 40 million deserving seniors. Only a tiny fraction of the revenue
cost of estate tax repeal would benefit small businesses and family
farms. Furthermore, studies by economists have found that repealing the
estate tax would reduce charitable donations by $5 billion to $6 billion
per year. For these reasons, the President has said he would veto the
bill.
The Majority in the Senate ignores more targeted alternatives that
address priorities for American families. The majority in the Senate
voted against more-targeted and fiscally responsible estate tax relief
that would have eliminated estate taxes for two-thirds of those who now
pay and the vast majority of small businesses and family farms -- at a
fraction of the cost of total repeal. Senate Republicans also voted
against amendments to reduce poverty among senior citizens, provide for
a voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit, make college more
affordable, provide additional housing, help working families save for
retirement, and assist families in assuring affordable health insurance
and long-term care.
The President's Constructive Offer to Address America's Priorities; On
June 26th, President Clinton made a constructive offer to the
Congressional leadership to break the gridlock in Washington and take
important steps for America's families. The President's offer had three
parts:
As a precondition, Medicare should be taken off-budget and its $403
billion surplus locked in for debt reduction. 2. If Congress passes an
affordable voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit that is
available to all and protects against catastrophic costs along the lines
of the plan proposed by the President, then 3. The President would be
willing to sign broader marriage penalty tax relief along the lines
passed by the House or reported out of the Senate Finance Committee.
The Congressional leadership has chosen to ignore this offer, without
providing an alternative of its own, and to proceed with an agenda that
risks our fiscal discipline while bypassing the priorities of American
families.
Congress Should Act on Crucial Priorities This Year: In his radio
address, the President highlighted several priorities for Congressional
action this year:
Provide Affordable, Voluntary Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage For
All Beneficiaries: Over 13 million Medicare beneficiaries have no drug
coverage, and over 3 in 5 beneficiaries have undependable drug coverage.
Medigap and managed care prescription drug coverage is either expensive,
extremely limited, and / or unavailable. Seniors and people with
disabilities on Medicare without drug coverage fill 30% fewer
prescriptions than those with coverage, but pay 83 percent more
out-of-pocket for drugs. With fewer than 40 days left in the
legislative session, President Clinton will urge the Congress to act now
to design a meaningful and accessible prescription drug benefit option
for all Medicare beneficiaries. To that end, the President has proposed
a voluntary Medicare prescription drug benefit that would begin in 2002
and, in return for a $25 premium, provide prescription drug coverage
that would have a zero deductible and cover half of all prescription
drug costs up to $5,000 when fully phased in as well as limiting all
out-of-pocket medication costs to $4,000.
Pass A Fiscally Responsible Budget That Invests In Our Priorities:
The President proposed a balanced and fiscally responsible budget that
makes investments in key priorities for the American people. The
President's budget includes important investments in education --
including modernizing 6,000 schools and repairing 25,000 more, meeting
our commitment to hire 100,000 quality teachers to reduce class size,
identifying and turning around failing schools, mentoring at-risk youth
to increase college success, and increasing accountability. However, to
pay for fiscally irresponsible tax cuts, Congressional Republicans have
cut $28 billion from the President's domestic priorities. This would
result in fewer quality teachers for schools, fewer law enforcement
officers and prosecutors to fight crime, reduced environmental
protection, and less funding for National Science Foundation research.
This year, as he has for the past seven, President Clinton will insist
that Congress produce a responsible budget that honors our values and
invests in the American people.
Raise The Minimum Wage: Congress has delayed increasing the minimum
wage for over a year by attaching costly and unnecessary tax cuts to
this long-overdue measure. Each day Congress delays, it takes money out
of the paychecks of 10 million minimum-wage workers, many of whom are
moving from welfare to work. The minimum wage has not been increased in
nearly four years. An increase now enjoys broad bipartisan support and
should not be held hostage to an irresponsible tax cut aimed at helping
those who are already better off.
Pass A Meaningful Patient's Bill Of Rights: Over nine months ago, the
House passed the Norwood-Dingell Patient's Bill of Rights with
overwhelming bipartisan support. The President will urge the Congress
to reject the partisan, flawed bill passed recently by Senate
Republicans. This bill would: fail to provide full protections to more
than 135 million Americans; allow health plans to subject patients
accessing emergency care to financial penalties; fail to guarantee real
access to specialists; and establish a wholly inadequate enforcement
mechanism that prevents plans from being accountable when they make
harmful decisions. He will stress that the Congress is one vote away
from achieving a majority vote for the bipartisan Norwood-Dingell
legislation, which has been endorsed by over 200 health care provider
and consumer advocacy groups, and urge it to act to pass this
legislation without further delay.