We also have concerns over the potential impact on Sallie Mae's operations in Delaware, which employs nearly 700 workers. We ask that as you draft the committee's mark ... you maintain a role for Sallie Mae in the student lending process that recognizes the important services Sallie Mae has provided millions of students and mitigates any potential job loss in Delaware.
Currently, students have the option to choose between private and public lenders, and I am a firm believer that such choice and competition among lenders is the best proven method for reducing costs and improving services. By omitting private lenders, we would create a monopoly within the federal government regarding student loans.
I rise today to sound the alarm on a provision of the proposed reconciliation package that has ominous implications for New York City. The proposed reduction of the business-entertainment deductions contained in reconciliation could produce a job loss of at least 15,000 in the New York metropolitan area alone, and hundreds of thousands more job losses in business and tourist centers across America. The provision is, in effect, a new tax…If adopted, this provision would inflict deep wounds on New York City's second largest industry-tourism. Many experts fear that with the new tax, companies would drastically scale back use of meals and entertainment as part of doing business. That would directly affect restaurants, hotels, and theaters and trigger adverse ripple effects in industries like catering and conventions. New York is the premier arts and business center in the United States, so its economy depends heavily on business and entertainment. This reform would not only hurt the business community; it would also hurt the beleaguered arts community….The economic repercussions will be felt all across America: from New York City to Chicago to Las Vegas to Hawaii. As an export product, travel and tourism accounts for 11 percent of total U.S. exports of goods and services. Industry experts estimate that as much as $1 billion in new tax revenue will be raised from Manhattan alone. This is an ominous prospect. Worst of all, experts fear that this provision will be counterproductive as a revenue raiser, bringing minimal revenue benefit at great human cost.
After careful analysis, I decided that I could not support this package. It goes too far in raising taxes and not far enough in cutting spending….I fear that this package, if enacted as passed by the House, will come back to haunt all of us because of its emphasis on taxes over spending cuts. We must not abandon the more fiscally responsible, new Democrat approach on which we were elected.
It would require us to mail out forms and get information on 450 or more chemicals from 7,500 firms. We think that would require another 15 people [and $300,000 more in costs].
[The strong Democratic bill will] bring about conditions in the business community which will be chaotic…and could bring about a breakdown between government and those in labor and management with which it deals.
The Community Relations Service would be another pro-civil rights Federal agency attempting to make people do what the policy of the Federal Government demanded that they do. Moreover, in title II of the bill, this Service is made an agent of the court without due thought as to the effect on legal and judicial procedures.
The Civil Rights Commission should never have been brought into existence. It has been most prejudiced in its viewpoint, and has fomented trouble and racial disturbance since its inception. It should be abolished, not extended.
This is an unprecedented threat to American traditions, and is aimed at forcing civil rights compliance in the South by authorizing the cutting off of funds in all financial assistance programs. Procedures in the title are devoid of due process of law. It states too broad a policy without defining ‘discrimination.’ Moreover, it authorizes an alternative court enforcement to bureaucrats who pronounce regulations approved by the President, whereas these matters should be promulgated, if at all, by act of Congress.
The power granted the Attorney General to intervene in all equal-protection-of-the-law cases is extremely broad and dangerous. Choices made by the Attorney General could follow a political and selected pattern.
