Lincoln Chafee: “I commend Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their hard work on this tax package. I know they have worked hard to…”

“I commend Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their hard work on this tax package. I know they have worked hard to forge a bipartisan tax package and worked hard to make that happen. However, I will join Senator Carper in offering an amendment which will reduce the size of the tax cut to $1.2 trillion. The reason I join Senator Carper is I believe there is a whole population forgotten in this tax debate, and that is the property-tax payer. Of course, one of the Federal mandates that is the hardest and most onerous on the property-tax payers is the special education costs. The Supreme Court ruled in the early seventies that all students have to be educated in the public school system. Congress acted by passing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act which said we will get the funding up to 40 percent. Of course, we have never gotten above 12, 13, 14 percent, and there is a very onerous cost to the communities in property taxes. We are proposing to reduce this to $1.2 trillion which, of course, leaves about $150 billion available for the property tax relief. That should be done on IDEA. Property taxes are the most difficult on communities and on individuals because with an income tax, if one's fortunes decline, one pays less income tax. On a sales tax, if one does do not want to purchase goods, one pays less in sales tax. With a property tax, it is most onerous because it is always there.”