MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Economy
Interview
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SCHULTZ: So far, congress has taken no action to stop tax inversion. They aren`t coming back from their August recess until September 8.For more, let me bring in Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Congressman, always, good to have you with us tonight.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, (D) MARYLAND: Happy to be with you.
SCHULTZ: This is a story that broke -- you bet, this is a story that broke early in this week. We`re doing it again tonight because we got a lot of reactions to it. It seems like there`s a real fairness hot button amongst consumers out there across America. They see this is a real injustice. But with all the obstruction that`s going on in congress, what hope do you have that this could be addressed and how big a problem is it?
HOLLEN: Well, it`s a big problem and Congress needs to act and it needs to as soon as it gets back. There is no excuse for inaction, Congressman Sandy Levin and I have introduced legislation, the house that would deal with these inversions, which are just a fancy name, Ed, for a bigger American company swallowing up a smaller foreign company in order for the American company to dodge its tax responsibilities, the American tax payer.
And of course, what that means is other Americans are going to have put a bigger bill so that Burger King can pay less, even though Burger King enjoys all the benefits of the American consumers here in the United States. So, I hope Congress will act, I hope that Harry Reid and the Senate will take up legislation and ask for a vote on this, because the American people need to know where our people stand on this.
SCHULTZ: Do you think the Republicans even care about this because the narrative with them is going to be, "Well, if we do this, then we`re antibusiness and we certainly don`t want to be perceived as that". What about that?
HOLLEN: Well, what Republicans say is, "Well, the fundamental problem here is with our corporate tax structure". And what I would say is we like to change the corporate tax structure, too. We can lower the rates and expand the base, right now, as you know we do have a high corporate tax rate, but the effective tax rate in the United States is in the middle of other countries, because of all the deductions people can take.
So, we can fix that but Republicans have used the need to do tax reform as an excuse for not acting now on this very specific case of inversions. In fact, Dave Camp who`s the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Republican put a tax reform plan on the table, had lots of problems but the person who ran away from it the fastest was John Boehner, the Speaker of the House.
So Ed, when you hear Republicans say, "Well, we`re not going to deal with the problem or these inversions until we get overall tax reform. And then the speaker runs away from the one tax reform plan his own chairman has put forward. You know they`re using that as an excuse to simply allow these American corporations to invert and -- at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer.Again, the bottom line is it means American consumers taxpayers are going to pay $20 billion more so that these companies through this tax avoidance scheme can pay less.
SCHULTZ: So, the tax avoidance takes place, the corporations pay less, there is not enough money in the treasury, the Republicans come back to the American people and say, "Well, gosh, government`s too big, we got to cut it back". I mean this is all about their scheme to attack government services and reduce the size of the government, isn`t it?
HOLLEN: Well, you`re raising a good point, right? So, if you allow these inversions to continue, that means a $20 billion less revenue. That means a $20 billion higher deficit. And so, then Republicans come along and say, "Well, we got these high deficits so we got to cut...
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
HOLLEN: ... our investment, our kid`s education, or we got to reduce the amount for Medicare". Whatever it may be, they`re letting these corporations get a free ride in terms moving overseas, essentially deserting the country for taxpayer purposes, while getting all the other benefits of being here in the United States at the expense the American taxpayer.
And that just goes to show, the bottom line is, and whenever you see this kind of choice being made in the congress. Our Republican colleagues always double down protecting these corporate special interests at the expense of regular folks.
SCHULTZ: There`s no doubt about it. Congress Chris Van Hollen, have a great...
HOLLEN: That`s why we need a vote on this, Ed. We need a vote. We need it on the next couple weeks.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
HOLLEN: I hope Harry Reid will bring up and sit (ph) in the House. We will continue to push for a vote in the house.
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