Helping the Rich and Powerful Avoid Taxes

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, after 4\1/2\ days and 15 votes to find a Speaker, we started with our business by passing rules. The Republican rules and first day's activities were to help the rich and the powerful avoid taxes.

The government, like any entity, just like any business, has to have revenue. When people don't pay their fair share, they are cheating. They are committing crimes. They are defrauding their fellow citizens because their fellow citizens either have to pay more money to make up the differences or they don't get services that they otherwise would be provided through the government.

By revoking all of those monies to the IRS to hire new employees, they are giving wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals, like Donald Trump, who had only one auditor looking at his return, which was not looked at within the time period it was supposed to be looked at under the law, the policy of the government at the time, they are giving those people an open door to continue to make their IRS payments--really not payments but their first offers. That is what they do. It is not filing your return. It is filing your first offer.

So if they get away with that, which I don't think they will in the Senate, they are depriving the middle class who they said they are trying to support, services and fairness, and the middle class will have to pay more money because it is the wealthy and the higher corporations that get away with fraudulent returns.

Then they are talking about banning or protesting, through H. Con. Res. 3, violence against pro-life centers, anti-abortion centers. I hope everybody in the House is against violence against those facilities. But there is nothing in there about violence against Planned Parenthood or abortion provider facilities. Both are equally as anti-American and wrong as the other, but there is nothing about that.

So we are seeing a very slanted agenda, and there is no opportunity to amend that resolution. Even though they talked about an amendment process to give everybody an opportunity, it is really kind of transparency-ish but not transparency and not open. It is not openness; it is open-ish.

You have got to look closely at what is going on here. There are a lot of things that look good on the front but really aren't fair and right to the majority of the people. Much of what is projected here is to try to maintain the status quo in the name of freedom. It is the freedom of people not to comply with Federal Government laws and regulations. It is the freedom to basically live independent of the law and independent of the Federal government and attempts to starve the Federal Government of the revenue it needs.

The bill yesterday would increase the debt by over $100 billion. That is not fiscal conservativeness. That is trying to starve the Federal Government.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source