Rod Grams: “these charts show strong support from every age and income group across the country, their support for a tax cut, and…”

“these charts show strong support from every age and income group across the country, their support for a tax cut, and also for some information, how much it would mean to each. I say to the good Senator from Texas who just spoke, for families in Texas alone, it would be over $1.8 billion a year in tax relief. Mr. President, I am pleased to join the distinguished Senators from Indiana and Idaho, who I thank for their early and continued leadership on this most important issue. I thank my distinguished colleague from Indiana, and I am proud to be a coauthor of this important legislation to put families first. Mr. President, today we begin a debate that has been too long in coming. The American people are in desperate need of relief from their own Government--a Government that thinks it can spend our money better than we can, and has spent the last four decades trying to prove it. In 1947, Americans paid just 22 percent of their personal income in the form of taxes. Today, 40 years and hundreds of tax increases later, nearly 50 cents of every dollar earned by middle-class Americans goes to the Government, to feed the Government's priorities. ``We'll solve all your problems,'' says Washington, ``if you'll just send us more money.'' So we do; year after year. We've now reached the point where most families pay more tax dollars to the Federal Government than they spend for food, clothing, transportation, insurance, and recreation combined.”