Taxing Excessive Ceo Pay

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, working people are sick and tired of corporate greed. It is time to say enough is enough.

Last year, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made almost $96 million. The average Starbucks worker made less than $15,000 a year. They would have to work more than 6,000 years to match Starbucks' CEO pay.

While Starbucks is among the worst, it is not the only one in the United States. Among the 100 S&P 500 companies with the lowest worker pay, the average CEO makes 632 times more than their workers.

This is absurd, and it is immoral. It is corporate greed. It leads to income inequality in our country and drives wage stagnation. It doesn't have to be like this.

This is why I am introducing the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act. While these CEOs float around on their yachts, millions of Americans, our residents, are drowning in credit card debt and struggling to keep their heads above water.

This level of inequality is a threat to our democracy, and this kind of economic power concentrated in a few hands truly hurts our families.

CEOs in the 1970s made roughly 25 times the average pay of their workers. Today, it is 290 times more. I want folks to think about that because these are workers who depend on us, the Federal Government, to subsidize these poverty wages. They are on Medicaid and getting food assistance because their CEOs are focused on profit and their own pay instead of taking care of their workers.

This bill would apply higher corporate tax rates to companies that pay their CEOs higher amounts of compensation compared to their workers. It is triggered if it is 50-1. That is the trigger, 50-1, that a company will pay more in corporate tax if that is the case. The greater the ratio, the larger the increase in the tax rate.

This will not only incentivize more reasonable CEO pay packages, but it would also compel companies to increase their workers' pay and take care of their workforce.

This level of inequality we face is a threat, again, to our families' economic stability and livelihood. In this Chamber we constantly have to subsidize. We constantly have to take care of the workers when their CEOs and the companies don't do that.

I urge my colleagues to please support the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act. War Profiteering

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, Republicans already voted to give $5 trillion tax breaks to the richest Americans, paid for by ripping food from children's mouths and kicking 17 million people off of their healthcare.

Trump's big betrayal bill--and that is what I call it because it is a betrayal to the American people--also included $150 billion for the Pentagon's war machine. Here we are this week, again, debating another obscene $892.6 billion military budget. It is not helping our veterans. That is not where they get, literally, healthcare, mental health support, and the things they need. That is over a trillion dollars to Trump's so-called Department of War, even after the Pentagon failed seven audits in a row.

As recently as 2023, the Pentagon could not even account for 62 percent of its assets--a trillion dollars, while the President is deploying troops in our neighborhoods and threatening to go to war against American cities.

It seems my colleagues can always find time and money for war, but when it comes to clean water, when it comes to being able to address the needs of our people, there is never enough money.

Why is it that when it comes to, again, trying to make sure people have healthcare, being able to address the Housing crisis, being able to tell our families that we are doing the best that we can, all I see is the bipartisan support for a war machine budget that can't pass an audit?

I want people to look at this and pay attention because they will never, ever fully fund Medicaid, universal school meals for every hungry child, or guarantee healthcare as a human right in our country. I think maybe it is because many of my colleagues in this Chamber are actively profiting financially when they vote to pass more funding for weapons and war because they own stock in war manufacturing.

I introduced an amendment to this war machine budget to add the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act to put an end to this corruption by banning Members of Congress and their families from owning defense stocks.

My colleagues should not be able to use their positions of power to get rich from defense contractors while voting to pass more funding for war. Our elected officials should not be able to profit off of death.

The American people deserve Representatives who vote in the best interests of our families. We are elected to serve the public, not to serve stock portfolios or campaign contributors.

The American people deserve better. We are sick and tired of politicians profiting off of endless wars.

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