CNN logo US navbar Infoseek/Big Yellow Pathfinder/Warner Bros Main banner If it's in your head, Okidata puts it on paper. rule GOP: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WOULD 'SHOCK' FOUNDING FATHERS July 5, 1997 Web posted at: 3:46 p.m. EDT (1946 GMT) Solomon graphic WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal government is just too big, taking on things "that would have shocked" the nation's founding fathers, New York Congressman Gerald Solomon said Saturday in the Republican weekly radio address. "The Founding Fathers designed a government with limited and defined powers," Solomon said. "But that idea has been turned on its head." Chief among the government offenses, the congressman said, is an exorbitant tax bill. "What the founding fathers could not even comprehend is the idea of Americans paying more in takes than they do for food and shelter," Solomon said. "Our Republican philosophy is different," he said. "We'd rather shrink the welfare class and put the American dream of financial security and independence within the reach of as many middle class people as possible." The recently passed budget, Solomon said, will accomplish that by offering tax relief to families with children, and those with "oppressive capital gains taxes." "We're not talking millionaires here," he said. "We're talking about people like grandparents who owned a house for years, reared their children in that house and then decades later they want to sell it when it becomes too much of burden." The GOP Tax Relief Act, Solomon said, "will help 2 million older Americans." Other aspects of the tax relief plan will help small business owners -- who may want to pass on the family business to sons and daughters -- by increasing an exemption on estate taxes. Solomon compared the current Republican tax cut to the birth of the United States 221 years ago. "Yes, on July 4, 1776, we won the battle of independence from oppressive taxation and today ... the Republican Congress has just won another battle to restore a larger chunk of that freedom from taxation to you," he said. rule Transcript: * Transcript of Republican weekly radio address - July 5, 1997 Related site: Note: Page will open in a new browser window * House RepublicanLeadership External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive. Search for related CNN stories: ________________________________________ ______ [Help] Tip: You can restrict your search to the title of a document. Infoseek grfk Example: title:New Year's Resolutions rule Message Boards Sound off on our message boards Tell us what you think! You said it... [INLINE] If it's in your head, Okidata puts it on paper. rule To the top © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you.