Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am grateful to my colleague and friend from Connecticut for quoting some of the literally hundreds of letters that both of our offices have been receiving from Social Security recipients and also from veterans in my State. I suspect my colleagues from Massachusetts have been receiving the same letters. I want to thank Senator Warren for her leadership on this issue but also Senator Reed, who joined me some years ago in seeking to close the loophole that is fundamentally undermining not only the fairness but the effectiveness of our Tax Code.

Let's understand what this loophole means to us as taxpayers. The performance pay loophole means that effectively unlimited corporate tax deductions are provided for executive pay. Put aside the issue of whether this pay makes sense or is fair, whether you agree or disagree with these gargantuan amounts. Who should pay for those extraordinary amounts of compensation? This loophole means that you and I as taxpayers are the ones who shoulder at least part of the burden. We do it because the money lost to the Federal Government as a result of this tax deduction must somehow be gained in some other way. Guess where it comes from. It comes from you and me--not from those corporations that can deduct it. It comes from you and me.

Senator Reed and I have sought over the years to close this loophole to make sure that the tax-deferred compensation for corporate executives and the performance pay loophole are effectively closed and the Tax Code is made fair. But Senator Warren has introduced a new and profoundly important element to this fight. And that is this: How should we use the proceeds from closing this loophole? The answer is this: In recognition of the reality that current economic burdens are falling hardest on people who least can afford them--seniors, veterans, and families who depend entirely or in significant part on benefits through Social Security and the VA--should be given the benefit of closing this loophole. Why? First of all, because it is the right thing to do.

The current measures of the cost of living fail to measure the cost of living for them. That is because we don't all buy the same thing. The index or the formula that is used to calculate costs-of-living increases fail to measure the real economic burden on certain groups, namely our seniors and our veterans. You have heard very eloquently and powerfully from my colleagues, from Senator Warren and Senator Murphy, about the impact on our Social Security recipients.

I am here as the ranking member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee to say that those benefits affect 25,000 veterans in Connecticut who receive VA compensation for a service-connected disability, more than 2,000 survivors or dependent children who receive VA compensation, and 4.3 million veteran beneficiaries nationwide.

They earned their benefits through their sacrifice and service to this country.

This issue is about keeping faith with our veterans and making sure we leave no veteran behind. They earned those benefits through their service as well as sacrifice--sometimes unimaginable sacrifice. They earned those benefits through injury and wounds on the battlefield, and those benefits are necessary to ensure a smooth transition into civilian life for service-disabled veterans and their families who often face enormous and staggering additional costs and a reduced ability to work.

To ensure that these vital benefits correspond to the actual cost of food, housing, clothing, gas, and other basic elements of daily life, the VA is authorized to adjust them--adjust them for inflation--and the index they use is the one that Social Security relies on as well. That is the connection to veterans. And that volatile formula, as I have said, too often fails to reflect the actual cost of living for this group of people, leaving millions of our veterans, as well as our seniors, without a realistic chance to keep pace.

Our disabled veterans deserve better. It is that simple. They deserve better than what is happening to them right now. They deserve real compensation that recognizes rising real-world costs, escalating living expenses that are painfully squeezing them, as well as our seniors, and they deserve a fair raise and a fair choice.

I urge my colleagues to join with us. Close this loophole, make the Tax Code fairer to all taxpayers, and also make sure our seniors and veterans get what they need and deserve, to live with the basic necessities that are essential to them. We need to keep faith with our veterans and make sure the greatest Nation in the world recognizes the greatest of its heroes, our veterans.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor to my colleague and great friend from Hawaii, Senator Hirono.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source