We're here today to declare victory in the debate over whether we should have tax relief for the American people. The President and many congressional Democrats have now joined Republicans in support of cutting taxes. The question now is not whether there should be tax relief, but what kind and how much. I can't think of a better problem to have.
With the tax cut plan before us, we're proposing to finally start sending hard-earned dollars out of Washington and back to the taxpayer. Most of the provisions in this bill are what the people have been telling us they really want. These include addressing the marriage penalty, providing health care tax relief, more help for education, pension and savings help, long term care, child care, estate tax relief, and general relief for middle income taxpayers . Nearly all of the provisions that I and Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced as S.1160 are included in some form in the bill before us.
I commend the chairman for taking the initiative and pushing for major tax relief that people really want and both Republicans and Democrats can support.
The President has only offered modest tax cuts. And, of course he wants to raise other taxes to pay for much of it. The President wants it both ways. He wants to be able to take credit for a tax cut on the one hand, while he's raising taxes on the other. And now, he's sending out frantic veto threats. He attacked the House bill playing the class warfare card saying it benefitted the rich.
Of course he can't do that with the Senate bill since 60 percent of the Senate bill helps families who earn $75,000 a year, or less. So, now the President and his minions are saying $792 billion in tax relief to the American people is too much. He's saying taxpayers either don't need it or don't deserve it. And he says this while asking for billions of dollars in new taxes to pay for more spending, while raiding the Social Security trust fund. That's right. The Clinton-Gore team's budget raids Social Security to pay for more spending. They do this when taxes as a percentage of GDP are at an all time high of around 21 percent. Historically, taxes have only been around 18 or 19 percent of GDP.
By contrast, in addition to providing meaningful tax relief, the bill before us reduces the debt by $200 billion more than the Clinton-Gore budget, while protecting Social Security and Medicare. The Congressional Budget Plan before us provides a blueprint for savings. We're projecting a cumulative surplus of $3.4 trillion. This includes the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund and the so-called on budget surplus.
Of the estimated $3.4 trillion surplus, Republicans have been advocating saving $1.9 trillion to save Social Security. These are the funds which are estimated to come into the Social Security Trust Fund from the payroll tax. We've been trying to set up a lock-box so that no one will be able to get at that money and spend it. But we've not been met with much cooperation from the other side on saving Social Security that many of us would have hoped for. I' ve lost track of the number of cloture votes we've had on the lockbox proposal.
This is truly unfortunate. If we don't create a Social Security lock-box, we will end-up spending the money for everything else but Social Security. Even the President has said he's in favor of a lock-box. But, his actions so far fall very short of his rhetoric.
The tax cut that we are talking about today is $792 billion. This is less than twenty five percent of the total cumulative surplus of $3.4 trillion. And, it's even less than the $1 trillion that will accumulate as the on-budget surplus. That leaves about $505 billion to help take care of the problems in the Medicare system and provide additional funds for discretionary spending. In fact, in our Budget Resolution we provide $180 billion for increased discretionary spending after the budget caps expire in 2002. That still leaves $325 billion to help solve Medicare problems and spend for other domestic priorities.
Let's look at this another way. Over the next 10 years, the federal government will take in about $22.8 trillion in taxes. That's a lot of money. This bill gives $792 billion back to the American taxpayer. That still leaves $22 trillion in revenues that the government will spend. The tax cut that we are talking about is only 3.5 percent of all the money that the federal treasury will collect in taxes over the next 10 years. This tax cut is almost like a drop of water in the ocean. In even simpler terms, we are proposing to send 25 cents of every surplus dollar back to the taxpayer.
The Congressional Budget Plan will save 75 percent of the surplus projected by the Congressional Budget Office over 10 years. In contrast, the President would save only 67 percent. The President is also proposing a $95 billion tax increase. We continually ask the American taxpayer to trust us as legislators. There isn't a day that goes by without us asking for that support from our constituents. Now it's time for us to return that trust. It's time to trust American taxpayers with their own money.
I want to commend Chairman Roth for the tremendous job he has done to begin the process in the Senate of delivering necessary tax relief to the American people. We need to stand up to the partisan rhetoric and misinformation being spewed out by the White House in a frantic effort to derail this bill. I look forward to meeting this challenge. Thank you Mr. President.