WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new study on International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan subsidies documents the IMF's failure to fully utilize risk-adjusted interest rates in its emergency lending, Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton said today. The study, The Subsidy in IMF Lending, compares the interest rates borrowers paid the IMF to the typically much higher rates their governments faced when tapping the private sector. In 1998, Congress required the IMF to charge interest rates adjusted for risk in its crisis lending, a reform attached along with a transparency mandate to the IMF appropriation enacted at that time.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - I am pleased to welcome Chairman Greenspan before the Joint Economic Committee this morning to testify on the economic outlook.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - The latest figures on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) released today show that the expansion of the U.S. economy accelerated in the third quarter of 2002, disproving exaggerated claims of ongoing economic disaster, Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) said today. Today the Commerce Department reported that real economic growth in the third quarter was 3.1 percent.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - The strong upward movement in real cash median household income during the last half of the 1990s came to abrupt end in 2000, not 2001, Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton said today. The timing of this stagnation closely corresponds to a variety of other data on GDP growth, factory employment, industrial production, stock prices and other measures reflecting a major economic slowdown beginning in 2000. Real cash median family income went on to decline in 2001; however, when taxes and government benefits are taken into account, real median household income was unchanged even after the economic slowdown and recession.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - New Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data show that the top one percent of tax filers paid 37.42 percent of federal personal income taxes in 2000, the latest year for which data are available, Chairman Jim Saxton said today. The 2000 share paid by the top one percent (ranked by adjusted gross income) reflects an increase from the 36.18 percent level posted in 1999. The 3.91 percent share paid by the bottom half of taxpayers was virtually unchanged during this period, as was the 96.09 percent share borne by the top half. The new data provide the necessary context in which to evaluate claims about the supposed distributional impact of various tax policy proposals.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - A gauge of economic well-being widely used by economists for many years shows that the economic well-being of Americans remains more favorable now than in most of the post-World War II period, Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) said today. This so-called "misery index" - the sum of the civilian unemployment rate and the inflation rate -currently stands at about 8 percent, a fraction of its 20 percent level reached in 1980, for example. Since unemployment and inflation are both undesirable, the lower the misery index, the better.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - An objective review of the budget numbers shows that huge budget estimate revisions due to the economic slowdown, stock market decline, and other non-policy factors are the forces driving the budget into deficit, Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) said today. Saxton also pointed out that the static revenue effects of the 2001 Tax Act, on its own, would have resulted in a 2002 surplus of about $275 billion, trending upward to over $600 billion by the end of the decade.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - The variety of economic statistics showing a dramatic slowdown of the U.S. economy in 2000 should be closely examined to facilitate an informed debate over economic policy, Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) said today.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - The recent downward trend in the stock market must be seen in historical perspective to be properly understood and addressed by policy makers, Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) said today. Although some seem to believe the stock market downtrend began in January 2001, nearly $3 trillion of market value had been erased between March 2000 and January 2001, as the technology-rich NASDAQ plunged by 45 percent.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - Recent regulatory and legislative actions to help senior investors by relaxing rigid retirement plan rules are urgently needed, Chairman Jim Saxton said today. Saxton's comments were directed at a recent Treasury Revenue Ruling (2002-62) permitting more flexibility for seniors receiving fixed payments from IRA and retirement plans, and consideration by the House Ways and Means Committee of legislation to relax mandatory distribution rules. This legislation would raise the 70 ½ age trigger requiring mandatory distributions from IRAs and retirement plans to retirees. Saxton recently released a JEC study, The Taxation of Individual Retirement Plans: Increasing Choices for Seniors, examining a range of potential policy options to relax the rules on mandatory distributions from retirement accounts.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - I am very pleased to welcome BLS Commissioner Kathleen Utgoff to this first appearance before the Joint Economic Committee. As you know, this Committee has a long-standing relationship with BLS, and we look forward to working with you in coming years.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - Census data show that the economic slowdown that began in the middle of 2000 abruptly halted the strong income growth of the later half of the 1990s, Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton said today. As a result, household money income growth stagnated in 2000, and declined as the slowing economy slipped into recession in 2001.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton warned the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today that an IMF request for more resources from donor nations would face strong and widespread bipartisan opposition in Congress. Saxton's remarks were a reaction to recent signs that the IMF is attempting to lay the groundwork for consideration of a significant increase in IMF quota resources contributed mainly by the G-10 donor nations.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new study showing the detrimental impact of current tax policy on millions of seniors' retirement assets was released today by Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton. The new JEC study, The Taxation of Individual Retirement Plans: Increasing Choices For Seniors, demonstrates how mandatory withdrawals from retirement plans in a falling stock market will force millions of seniors to reduce their IRA and 401(k) holdings much faster than expected. A prohibitive 50 percent federal excise tax is levied on retirement plan assets not withdrawn according to the federally mandated schedule.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - For many senior citizens, individual retirement plans, such as IRAs and 401(k)s, are a primary saving vehicle for retirement. Along with Social Security, individual retirement plans (“IRPs”) represent a major source of money for retirement. However, even though IRPs are a valuable saving vehicle for many seniors, many IRPs have one major drawback: the forced distribution of assets and the associated taxation of those assets for senior citizens at age 70½ for traditional IRAs and the later of age 70½ or the year in which the account holder retires for 401(k)s. This requirement forces many seniors to take distributions when they do not need them Worse, in cases of a down market, the forced distributions may require seniors to sell assets at depressed prices to pay taxes, even if investment losses have been incurred.

    This study addresses the minimum distribution requirement that effectively forces senior citizens to withdraw funds from IRPs or face a 50 percent excise tax, the reasoning behind the requirement, and the economic harm it can have on seniors, and some policy alternatives to this requirement that would help mitigate the bias against seniors and their retirement that this requirement creates.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new study of mutual funds and their shareholders demonstrates the central importance of taxation in reducing investor returns, Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton said today. The 304-page study, Taxes in the Mutual Fund Industry, released by the respected research firm Lipper Inc., a subsidiary of Reuters, supports the previous findings of JEC staff studies on the same subject.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - Broadening support for legislation to end or relax mandatory withdrawals by seniors from retirement accounts was hailed today by Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC). Saxton is the sponsor of H.R. 1368, a bill designed to end mandatory withdrawals from retirement accounts after age 70 1/2. The bill applies to traditional individual retirement arrangements (IRAs) and rolled-over 401(k) investments. Recent press reports suggest that support for similar legislation is spreading to the Senate side of the Congress.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - Chairman Jim Saxton of the Joint Economic Committee today welcomed improved prospects for legislation ending tax discrimination against senior investors. According to recent press reports, such legislation may be under consideration by the Congress later this year. Saxton is the sponsor of H.R. 1368, a bill that would end mandatory withdrawals from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs) by seniors after age 70½, a provision of current tax law designed to force income tax payments on these withdrawals. Seniors could roll over 401(k) assets into IRAs to receive the same tax benefit.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - It is a pleasure to welcome Secretary Evans and Professor Nordhaus before the committee this morning to address the issue of measuring economic change. As the structure and composition of the economy are transformed over time, we must ensure that our statistical system keeps up and reflects economic reality.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - It is a pleasure to welcome Chairman Hubbard this morning before the Joint Economic Committee to testify on the economic outlook.

   The economy continues to rebound from the slowdown that began in the middle of 2000, eventually becoming a recession. In March of 2000 the NASDAQ began a sharp decline, with spreading weakness signaled later in that year by falling factory employment and industrial production. The slowdown became a mild recession early in 2001, but economic indicators suggest that a recovery was underway by late last year.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made a serious and needed effort to address lending safeguards in recent years, Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton said today. A recent IMF analysis supports Saxton's concerns expressed in 1998 and thereafter about the lack of IMF accounting controls and loan safeguards given its disbursements of large loans over many decades. Saxton had based his statements and legislation on a 1998 JEC inquiry that found that the IMF did not then have such controls and safeguards in place.

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   WASHINGTON, D.C. - Tax rate reductions are especially beneficial for investment by small businesses and farms that do not have easy access to financial capital, according to a new study released today by Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Chairman Jim Saxton.

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