Contact: Charles Barnes 314.725.4484
Thursday, April 12, 2001

ST. LOUIS - At a noon-time rally today in downtown St. Louis, Senator Kit Bond led a citizen protest against unnecessarily high taxes.

“Along with our hard-earned money, let us also send a message to Washington that families need tax relief now,” Kit Bond said while speaking in Memorial Park across from the downtown Post Office. “There is no good reason for Americans to continue paying high taxes at a time when taxpayers are already sending too much surplus money to Washington.”

Bond and rally attendees signed postcards protesting the highest tax rate on Americans since 1944 and mailed them to the White House.

Having served twice as Governor and now chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee and a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, Bond knows the cost of a too-high tax burden.

“An unnecessarily high tax rate is like an anchor dragging down our economy,” said Bond. “Our economy will grow if we give the American worker more freedom and greater incentives to reinvest in their businesses. A more sensible tax burden is one key way to do that.”

Bond supports the President’s plan to return to taxpayers $1.6 trillion in expected tax over-payments to be sent to Washington over the next ten years.

He described how Missouri families will be helped by the President’s balanced tax plan. He explained that a Missouri family with two children earning the median income of $41,277 now paying $2,409 in federal income taxes would see their tax burden cut by two-thirds to only $809 -- a $1,600 annual savings. “That’s not pocket change for most families I know. That’s a down payment on a new truck and a lot of groceries,” Bond said.