Senator from Oklahoma.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. INHOFE. I changed my 3 to 5, Mr. President, after listening to the distinguished Senator from Utah. I shared the same experiences in the Army, and I know exactly where he is coming from.

Mr. President, when he stated that Jefferson would have been stunned if he would have known what we have here today, some who were around back then would not have been so stunned. It was de Tocqueville who made the observation after writing the book about the great wealth of this country and what made it so wealthy. He said that once the people find that they can vote money out of the public treasury, the system will fail. And I think we are getting dangerously close to that.

As I watched the Chicago convention and all of this emphasis on the family, I was thinking, `How in the world could any administration with such a dismal failure in their treatment of family values be talking about the family?' Maybe that is the whole reason they are doing it.

I think if you go back and look, Mr. President, at the tax increase that took place in 1993, it was characterized by then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Moynihan, the distinguished Senator from New York, as the `largest single tax increase' in the history of public finance, or any place in the world. That is exactly what happened.

What was the nature of that tax increase? It was a tax increase on the American family. It was a gasoline tax increase. That is not just for fat cats. That is for everyone who drives a car, drives a truck, or drives a tractor. It was a tax increase on small business and on individuals, and even retroactive--going back and saying, `It is not enough that we go ahead and tax you from this point forward, but let us go back to January.' I think that is the first time in history that has been done. It was a 70-percent tax increase on the Social Security recipients who cared enough to prepare for some of their senior years so they would have as much as $22,000 of income.

It was an increase in estate taxes. And what is interesting about this is we passed a bill, several provisions that would have been geared just to the family, the $500 per child tax credit, the capital gains tax reduction, repealing some of our laws that penalize people who get married, who if you stay married--actually right now under the law on the books two individuals who are happily married, if they will get a divorce, can increase their take-home pay by reducing taxes. Is that what Government is supposed to do?

Anyway, I enjoyed the statement by Senator Dole when he talked about doing something about the overtaxation. And if you will analyze what he was suggesting in repealing that Social Security tax increase, the $500 per child tax credit, the reduction of taxes by 15 percent, the reduction of capital gains taxes and the repealing of the estate tax, all he is saying there is let us go back and see what happened in 1993 and let us repeal a portion of that tax increase.

So I would suggest that anyone today who was not supportive back in 1993 of the tax increase should be supporting what Senator Dole is proposing to do now.

The Senator from Utah mentioned we cannot afford it. I would like to make one comment. I heard the distinguished Senator from Arizona quote John Kennedy several times on the fact that back when he was President, he said we have got to increase revenues and the only way to increase revenues is to reduce the tax rates. He reduced the tax rates and that did increase revenue.

So I suggest to the Senator from Utah that we can afford to do this. We can effectively increase our revenues by reducing taxes. The formula works out that for each 1-percent growth in economic activity it increases revenues by $24 billion.

However, we do not have the same kind of Democrat in the White House today that we had when we had John Kennedy. It was Laura Tyson who said there is no relationship between the level of taxes a nation pays and its economic performance. And if you have that philosophy, then you can say, yes, we cannot afford it.

Indeed, history has shown us in three decades in the last 100 years, the twenties, the sixties, and the eighties, when we had dramatic reductions in tax rates, each time we increased our revenues.