Motion to Discharge
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I am here today with a number of my colleagues from the Finance Committee to discuss in the next hour the partisan $3.5 trillion reckless tax-and-spend bill that the Democrats are trying to cram down on the American people.
The United States is experiencing unprecedented economic pressures, including significant inflation and record price increases, significant friction in labor markets, and intense international competition, all while the pandemic continues to threaten Americans' health and our economic recovery. Yet the Democrats want to move forward with this reckless $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending spree that will stunt our economic recovery, further impede labor markets, and punish low- and middle-income workers with higher prices for everyday goods and services.
The Democrats are currently debating just how high they want to increase taxes on American businesses and workers. House Democrats have proposed to hike the corporate tax rate to 26.5 percent from 21 percent. This would return our combined corporate tax rate, at 31 percent, to one of the highest among developed countries.
Hiking the rate indisputably hits the middle class. Estimates suggest that workers shoulder up to 70 percent of the burden of the corporate tax. A recent analysis performed by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation says the burden on over 98 percent of Americans who make less than $500,000 a year increases over time.
Let me make that clear. Ninety-eight percent of the increase that is felt by labor falls on those making less than $500,000 per year and the vast majority of that on those making less than $400,000 per year.
Our Democratic colleagues argue that these increases do not violate President Biden's pledge since they are not specific higher individual tax rates. But hard-working Americans do not care about the distinction between a direct or indirect tax; they care about how taxes hit their pocketbooks. A higher corporate tax rate would result in lower wages and reduced benefits, hit the nest eggs of everyone saving for retirement, and force consumers to pay more for everyday necessities.
This plan would also impose hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes on U.S. businesses operating across the globe, overwhelmingly rewarding our foreign competitors and making the United States again one of the highest taxing countries in the developed world. These pro- China tax hikes would raise the relative cost of doing business in America and punish businesses selling products or services overseas, reigniting inversions and foreign acquisitions, again putting America's business climate back into trouble.
Democrats also want to increase the top individual tax rate to 39.6 percent from 37 percent--a rate that kicks in at $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for married couples. This includes a supercharged marriage penalty, as unmarried couples can earn almost a million dollars a year without being subject to increased taxes.
Democrats have also proposed increasing the number of Americans subject to the original death tax, including farmers and small business owners. Others are pushing for a double death tax by eliminating the step-up in the basis entirely. Rather than be given time to grieve their loss, families could be forced to sell farms, businesses, and homes just to pay Uncle Sam.
Less noticed are some of the plans to drastically expand the powers of the Internal Revenue Service and turn banks and credit unions into private investigators for monitoring law-abiding Americans. This financial dragnet will force financial institutions into reporting deposit and withdrawal flows on as little as $600 in their customers' accounts, exposing sensitive data to future breaches. Whether the cutoff for monitoring transactions is $600 or $10,000, Americans of all income levels would have their private financial activities reported to the leaky IRS. The threats to privacy and invasion of compliant taxpayers' personal financial affairs are staggering.
Moving on, the Democrats are also proposing sweeping government price controls on the very innovators in our healthcare system who helped to battle the pandemic by developing lifesaving vaccines and therapeutics. Under the guise of negotiation, government bureaucrats would have the power to set prices for medications, devaluing the lives of the most vulnerable among us, including older Americans and those with disabilities. Their proposals could prevent scores of game-changing prescription drugs from coming to the market in the years to come--with one recent study projecting as many as 342 fewer new medication approvals in the next two decades--in addition to driving up the launch prices for new products.
This even went too far for some of the House Democrats, with three Members at least voting against this legislation in committee.
As I have indicated, this reckless tax-and-spend plan comes just over a year after we were experiencing one of the most prosperous economies in decades. Before the pandemic, a combination of reduced regulatory burden and pro-growth tax policies helped to create one of the strongest economies in our lifetime. All in the period of a short few years, we have seen that evaporate.
We should be focused on policies that will get us past this pandemic and back to the strong and inclusive economic growth we were experiencing rather than taking advantage of a prolonged pandemic to reimagine America as a welfare state.
This is the wrong time to raise taxes.
Excuse me just a moment, Mr. President. Excuse me. I didn't notice that I have been joined by the Senator from Nebraska.
I will now yield more of my time to the Senator from Nebraska.
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Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, that wraps up the presentations that we have for today, and I want to thank my Republican colleagues on the Finance Committee for coming and helping to explain the dangers of this incredibly reckless taxing-and-spending spree that is being proposed here in Congress.
As we get more details, as this package gets played out, we will be back to explain further the dangers that there are. But I think we have shown very clearly today that not only is the spending going to be so damaging to this country, but the tax plan that is accompanying it will make us less competitive if, in fact, not completely back into last place in terms of competitiveness globally and will impact people all across this country in their own tax burdens and their own inflationary cost pressures, not just those who make over $400,000 per year.
This tax-and-spend spree must be stopped.
I yield back our time.
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