Jim Inhofe: “I think something that is very significant that has not yet been said was touched upon by the distinguished Senator from…”

“I think something that is very significant that has not yet been said was touched upon by the distinguished Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl], when he approached the economics of this issue. Unfortunately, when we talk about tax reductions, there is a mindset that if you reduce taxes, you reduce revenues. History has shown us very clearly that is not the case. In fact, it was a Democrat who first came up with the idea that you could actually increase revenues by reducing taxes, and that was President Kennedy back in the early 1970's when he said we have a problem in this country; we have to increase revenues, but we also are overtaxed, so the best way to increase revenues is to reduce the tax rates. Now, today, the Democrats do not think that way. The liberals in Congress think that it is a static situation, and that if you raise taxes nothing else happens. That, of course, is not true. I remind my colleagues that in 1980, the total amount of money used to run Government was $570 billion, the total revenue that came in in 1980. In 1990, the total revenue that came in to run Government was $1 trillion 30 billion. That is almost exactly double what it was in 1980. Well, what happened during that decade? During that decade, we had the largest tax reductions we have ever had in this country's history.”