Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, so we are approaching a conversation about two big issues here--one is a government shutdown, which I have challenged this body a lot about of late to say: Why are we approaching another government shutdown? And then, on top of that, we can't seem to get any of the 12 appropriations bills done, which there are 12 of them to be done by September 30, but exactly zero of them have actually gone through committee because this body is so consumed with focusing on a $3\1/2\ trillion new entitlement package--$3\1/2\ trillion--a straight partisan package that would create a whirlwind of new entitlements.

To give you a perspective of how big 3\1/2\ trillion is, 3\1/2\ trillion is about the total revenue that the Federal Government brings in in an entire year with all taxes, all fees. All everything is about $3\1/2\ trillion. This is an additional package on top of that, of entitlements of 3\1/2\ trillion new dollars in entitlements.

Now, if I go back to 2017, when we were trying to be able to supercharge the economy and to be able to create more jobs, we passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And in 2017, when we passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it did exactly what we wanted it to do. It simplified the Tax Code for the vast majority of individual filers, it reduced taxes for just about every single filer, and it increased wages across the country. And it increased revenue coming into the Treasury because it stimulated our economy, which created more jobs, which created more opportunity for more people to make money. When more people make more money, they pay more in taxes, and it comes and covers it. That is what we did.

My Democratic colleagues are now proposing $2.1 trillion in tax increases--tax increases not to cover our deficit, tax increases to create new entitlements and to spend even more money. And the several ways they do it are very, very painful, as I read through their proposal.

One of those is that they are proposing to change the corporate tax piece, which sounds so good to say: We are just going to change the corporate tax piece so only corporations will pay this--the problem being 1.4 million C corporations in the United States, and 84 percent of those corporations that are out there have 20 employees or less.

So they can throw around the big corporations, and everyone thinks it is Conoco and Apple. It is--the vast majority--small businesses designed as C corps.

And how are they going to make them more competitive? They are going to make those C corps more competitive by raising the tax rate for all those corporations to make their tax rate higher than China.

Let me run that past you again. To make us more competitive globally, they are going to make our tax rate higher than China's tax rate, while we are trying to be able to compete with China on the world stage.

Not only that, there is a global minimum tax that is already out there that is a small tax that is out there for every corporation. You know who has that already? The United States does. You know how that was created? It was created in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 to make sure companies couldn't scam out and couldn't move their money into other places, that they would be here. But if they decided to move to a tax haven, it wouldn't be there. But we set it at a rate to make us competitive.

They want to take that rate and supercharge it and make it one of the top rates in the world.

Now, the statement from Janet Yellen is that she has already talked to all of the other countries about this global tax, and they have said: Yes, we are on board with a global tax. You go first.

Can I tell you something? I remember being a middle-school boy--any male does. I remember being a middle-school boy and hanging out with my friends and all of us were talking about doing something dumb, and it always ended with someone saying: Let's all do it. You go first.

That is what is being proposed right now by Janet Yellen, saying: Let's have the highest tax rate in the world, and other countries will come and match it, and they will be competitive with us. You go first.

I can assure you, that didn't work out well as a middle-school boy; that is not going to work out well for our companies, and it will not work out for our economy.

There is this statement that should be ringing in the back of everyone's head, this simple statement that was made years ago called inversions. Do you remember that old statement when we used to talk about corporate inversions? That was American companies being bought by international companies and moved overseas for their headquarters. That was a common conversation during the Obama administration, but something happened. That term went away because in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act bill, that stopped, and now American companies started buying foreign companies and moving them here, and everything shifted.

This $3.5 trillion monstrosity of new entitlements will flip that again, and we will start hearing the word ``inversions'' because American companies will be moved overseas. It is going to happen when we have a really bad, uncompetitive rate.

Now, people may again say: Well, we are just going to stick it to rich people, but everyone kind of quietly knows that prices will go up, fewer people will get raises in those companies, and it will be less competitive for the United States long term. Everyone knows that.

This $3\1/2\ trillion bill of new entitlements is also funded by giving the IRS billions of additional dollars to do more enforcement and to allow the IRS, as Janet Yellen has asked for over and over again, to be able to track transactions of Americans of $600 or more, either deposited in your account or out of your banking account.

I can assure you, banks all over my State in Oklahoma are already saying: Don't make us turn in the transactions of every one of our people to the IRS. Why does the IRS need this?

Interestingly enough, I have actually asked the Commissioner of the IRS: Can you manage that much information?

And his answer was a very straightforward: No, we can't even manage the information we have now, much less the amount of information that would come at us of transactions of $600 and more.

This is the wrong direction. I could go on and on. In fact, I could give you 3\1/2\ trillion reasons why this is the wrong direction. It is the wrong policy. It is the wrong thing stepping out of an economy that is damaged by COVID. It is the wrong set of policies long term for our economy. It discourages work. And what we are facing right now in workplaces all over the country, from small to large companies, they are all saying the same thing: It is tough to get workers. Well, if you think it is tough to get workers now, wait until there is $3\1/2\ trillion in new entitlements dumped into the economy and see how hard it is to be able to hire workers then. This is the wrong direction for our country.

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