Jack Kingston: “I think it has worked for welfare reform, and we need to, I think, be bold in our initiatives with social security, with…”

“I think it has worked for welfare reform, and we need to, I think, be bold in our initiatives with social security, with Medicare, with tax relief, and all of our other issues that we are dealing with in this Congress. The agenda, as the gentleman knows, that we are working on under the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) is the BEST agenda. B is for building a strong military, one that can fight a war on two fronts, defend our country, one that is ready and modernized and has a good quality of life for the soldiers; E, E is for education, local control, excellence in education; S is for saving social security; and T is for lowering taxes through spending reductions and through revenue that does not go to social security. One of the interesting things on the tax relief is that right now Federal taxes currently consume 21 percent of America's gross domestic product, the highest percentage in the history of our country. Last year tax revenues grew by about 9 percent, and the average American now works 129 days in order to pay off their total tax bill. This is an all-time high. When the gentleman and I were raised, our parents, say in the fifties, paid 5 percent Federal income tax on average. In the 1970s it was 16 percent. Today it is 25 percent Federal income taxes. What is really telling to me is that individuals and families who are earning $50,000 a year pay about 82 percent of the total Federal income tax revenue. Let me repeat that.…”