Joe Barton: “In the 4 years of the Clinton administration, including this fiscal year 1997, Federal revenues have gone up an average…”

“In the 4 years of the Clinton administration, including this fiscal year 1997, Federal revenues have gone up an average of $88 billion a year, $88 billion. The high year was $104 billion; the low year, the year that we are currently in, it is estimated to be $52 billion. So that is an average of $88 billion increase in Federal revenues during the Clinton administration. If we go back to the Bush administration, the average was $65 billion, the high year being, and the low year being $23 billion. If we go back to the last 10 years, to include the last 2 years of the Reagan administration, we still have an average increase, including the Clinton years, the Bush years and the last 2 years of President Reagan, $65 billion a year. We do not have a problem of Federal revenues going up. We have a problem limiting the revenues going up in terms of tax increases and limiting the ability to increase spending. I would point out again, in the original Constitution there was a zero; there was zero income tax, 100 percent prohibition against any direct tax, Article I, Section 9. The 16th amendment to the Constitution, 1913, changed that.”