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Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the confirmation of Mr. Scott Bessent, who has been nominated to serve as Secretary of the Treasury.

Over the weekend, the Senate voted with broad bipartisan support to advance Mr. Bessent's nomination. In fact, 15 of my Democrat colleagues joined Republicans in advancing Mr. Bessent's nomination.

Despite Mr. Bessent's prolific experience and qualifications, which cannot be disputed, a few detractors frame their policy preferences-- and I emphasize ``policy preferences''--as if they are compliance issues with regard to his taxes.

Let me be clear: Mr. Bessent followed all applicable law and met the Finance Committee's longstanding and rigorous diligence standard. The Finance Committee has the most rigorous standards for vetting nominees of any committee in this Congress, including looking at their past tax returns and having tax experts come in and evaluate their tax returns with us.

His diligence matched that which has applied to nominees in previous administrations. Contrary to what you heard, he provided extensive supporting material for all of the attacks on him, including more than 3,000 pages' worth. And he and his staff spent countless hours with Republican and Democrat Senate Finance Committee members and staff going over all of these allegations and all of these claimed failures to pay taxes.

He has gone further by not only divesting all of his business ties, which is no small task, but by publicly committing that if there is any change in the law in the future on these policy arguments, that he would comply with those changes in the law.

But let me state this again as clearly as it can be said: Scott Bessent paid his taxes. I have heard it said twice on this floor that he did not pay his taxes. Experts have gone over his tax returns, and he has complied with standard, prevailing interpretations of the Tax Code every time.

The issue here is that the IRS wants to change the interpretation of the Tax Code. But the IRS doesn't get to decide what our Tax Code says; Congress does. And Congress has not made the changes that the IRS wants to see.

Even in the face of that, arguing that he should have done what the IRS wanted him to do--in fact, they didn't even say they wanted him to do it; they said it to other taxpayers, and other taxpayers have taken the IRS to court over this issue--but Mr. Bessent has said if the IRS prevails and changes the Tax Code, the interpretation of the Tax Code, he will comply.

But the argument that he has not complied with longstanding tax policy and interpretation is false. I don't know anybody who can go through a more rigorous standard than what we put him through in the Finance Committee.

As for the nominee, Mr. Bessent has worked for the last three decades as one of the sharpest minds in the global finance industry. He has decades of academic, professional, and leadership experience relevant to the position of Treasury Secretary. His performance at the committee was stellar. His background and training are tailor-made for this role. And he has the demeanor and character to be an effective Secretary.

Mr. Bessent is committed to restoring the prosperity and opportunity experienced under President Trump's leadership. This includes ensuring that we avert an over $4-trillion tax hike on the American people if the Trump tax cuts are allowed to expire, which he rightly described at his nomination hearing as a pass-fail exercise. There should be no question that we will extend these tax cuts.

I have also heard it argued on this floor here today that this is just a tax cut for rich billionaires. The reality is that the vast majority of it--the vast majority--of this tax cut goes to everyday people, to people making less than $400,000 a year. And the $400,000 is computed by $200,000 per individual so a married couple could equal the $400,000 level. The vast majority of those tax cuts, however, go to people in the lower- and middle-income tax brackets. The tax cuts that we are talking about gave tax cuts to every single solitary income cohort in the Tax Code and the greatest tax cuts went to those in the lower- and middle-income categories.

It would be terrible if we did not extend these tax cuts. Yet Mr. Bessent is attacked for saying he supports extending these tax cuts. It doesn't make sense.

I look forward to working closely with him to make sure that we extend the policies that benefited Americans of every income bracket and enabled families and businesses to get ahead.

I should also say that under this tax policy, when it was passed, the richest in America paid a greater percentage of the overall tax burden than they had before.

Yet he is attacked for wanting to extend these tax cuts that will hammer every single tax-paying American if they are allowed to expire. If qualifications--and I might add, character--are one of the tests for supporting a nominee, voting to confirm Mr. Bessent is one of the easiest that we could take.

In previous Congresses, many of my Republican colleagues and I have voted for candidates we considered to be qualified to serve as Treasury Secretary, even when they were nominated by Democratic Presidents and we disagreed with many of their policy positions. Mr. Bessent's candidacy ought to enjoy similar bipartisan support.

I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join with me in confirming his nomination. He is the right person for this job, and I commend President Trump in making such an excellent selection.

I am going to state again, Mr. Bessent went through the most rigorous evaluation of his tax returns that anybody in America has ever faced. He passed the entire test every time. He has paid the taxes he has owed under the U.S. Government's Tax Code.

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